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An informational note, if you’re on Twitter, you might want to follow me at http://twitter.com/razibkhan. Second, I haven’t had the time to contribute much content to the net besides this blog recently, but in general it is optimal to follow my total content feed, at http://feeds.feedburner.com/RazibKhansTotalFeed, rather than various blogs and publications which I contribute to (I’m going to branch out a bit more into more traditional writing again this year, time permitting). I automatically push author archives at other sites to that location, though I’d probably put a note into an open thread in a given week here.
I can’t say enough how much I’m enjoying Stanislas Dehaene’s Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts. This the third book by this author I’ve read. The Number Sense 15 years ago, and Reading in the Brain earlier this year. Dehaene can write, and, he’s a practicing cognitive neuroscience, and it shows. I’d recommend both.
I think I’m going to push Dan Ariely’s The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone–Especially Ourselves up in my stack. Around ~2008 and for a few years later Ariely seemed to be everywhere. I read Predictably Irrational during that time, and immediately bought Ariely’s The Honest Truth About Dishonesty when it came out. But it strikes me that the interest in bounded rationality and behavioral economics has waned a bit. Also, I recall that The Honest Truth About Dishonesty had a blurb from Jonah Lehrer, right about at the time that his career and life was in the early stages of meltdown. Really bad timing.
@razibkhan Interesting trivia, but is there a larger point here?
— infovoy (@infovoy) December 20, 2015
The fact that someone could state that this fact is “trivia“, at a time when women are being integrated more fully into combat positions which might require physical strength, is interesting. Sex differences in morphology, physiology, and psychology, have huge implications. But there are certain sectors who deny them, or, barring that simply claim that the differences are trivial. I don’t think they are.
The American Heart Association seems totally corrupt. Their recommendations seem to exhibit an extreme stickiness, refusing to be updated to the present.
This piece in The Atlantic about incorrect or misleading results due to genetic testing is interesting. But, it needs to be kept in perspective. Consider the past 50 years of nutritional “science,” which have shaped the lives of hundreds of millions of people. Or educational and policy fads, such as whole language learning and massive freeways which cut through the heart of cities, that have wrought havoc on untold millions. Genetics isn’t special, and, nor particularly worrisome.
It seems likely in the near future Facebook and Google will be implementing massive genome-wide association studies, simply by intersecting their customer data with genomes.
I am aware that many of you have a high self-regard for your intelligence. Since you are intelligent you are probably aware that I don’t share your opinion in relation to yourself. When I ran Gene Expression as a group blog we used to have a word for people who left comments: we called them “animals.” Obviously this was simply the median commenter. Not all of them. If some of you are surprised or annoyed that I’m dismissive and insulting to you on Twitter or in the comments do understand that my prior expectation is that you probably don’t have much to say that I’d be interested in, and I may be annoyed that you think you are worth expending my time on. You could have the same prior about me, but if that’s the case I invite you not to read me, as I’m not reading you (it is notable that over the years I’m noticed that the people who have their own blogs are the least annoying and obnoxious in their self-regard, and stick to talking about what they know).
The number of people who read this blog regularly and who follow me on Twitter is simply well beyond Dunbar’s number by any definition, so I’m not able to “put a face” on many or most. Additionally, despite the current populist and demotic dispensation I think humans differ a great deal in their characteristics. I’m not interested in watching average looking leading ladies in my films (sorry Maggie Gyllenhaal), nor am I interested in having intellectual exchanges with average intelligence people (in “real life” I am very open to talking about sports, weather, and sex, with normals). Also, I have a long memory. If you talk shit about me on other blogs (like you dearieme) and continue to comment here, I’ll probably ban you because you’re just being a shady dick. Or, if you psychoanalyze me when you don’t know much about me (like you Ikram, if you don’t remember email me and I’ll tell you the incident that I remember) or my motivations (like you aeolius) I’m going to remember your presumption and be keen to delete/ban you in the future.
N of Everyone has posted my commentary in Genome Biology from last year, Dragging scientific publishing into the 21st century. I’m exciting that they’re moving along with their project. Preprints are great, but we need more tools and platforms for post-publication review. Except to hear more from them in the coming year.
I’m am not following politics too closely. Definitely out of sync with my Twitter feed. But really nothing matters until the nominations.
Alice Dreger has balls writing Gender Mad, which is going to invite accusations of her being a TERF. By balls, I don’t mean in the literal sense. For the record, I am confused by the arguments of the modern mainstream trans movement, as they seem to flip between radical social construction (i.e., we all get to choose our gender in a very conscious manner conditional on cultural norms) and implicit biological essentialism (e.g., “I was always a female brain in a male body”). Hopefully we will hit a happy medium were trans people can be physically safe and given some tolerance and accommodation, without accepting the idea that cis-heternomativity and trans identities are totally equivalent (there will always be many more of us than them!).
I had a short exchange on Twitter with Rosalind Arden about statistical education. Would it benefit people? My own sentiment is to say yes. But, I’m also deeply cynical at this point. It strikes me that many people use statistics or knowledge about specific topics to obfuscate as much as to illuminate.
ISIS is steadily gaining strength in another Middle Eastern country while everyone looks the other way. This is going to sound weird, but this reminds me of 2006, and the rivalry between Facebook and MySpace. Yes, al Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula is dominant in Yemen today. But the long term trajectory seems pretty clear. ISIS is going to win this competition, just like Nintendo edged out Atari, or the iPhone destroyed the BlackBerry.
CDS Appropriates Asian Dishes, Students Say. You should read the Oberlin story on cultural appropriation of cuisine just for fun. The weirdest quote is from a Chinese student who doesn’t understand that General Tso’s chicken wasn’t “appropriated” from China, but invented in the United States, suggesting that she was familiar with a dish that was imported (“appropriated” and modified) back to parts of China from the United States.
I watched the new Star Wars film. It was good.
Very excited to spend Christmas with my kids. They’re getting old enough to look forward to holidays and appreciate presents.
Excited by all the science which is being published in 2016. Papers in review that I’ll blog, and papers I’ve heard long rumored to finally hit the presses. I should be analyzing some very interesting data for my Ph.D. project.
The Scholars Stage blog is very good. Check it out if you haven’t.
A Hominin Femur with Archaic Affinities from the Late Pleistocene of Southwest China. A very weird paper. Not definitive.But the history of our species looks curious indeed.
One Direction is so young, and been around so long, that some of these teen idols are hard to recognize, as they’re changed styles and gone from being in their middle teens to early 20s. I find it really strange.
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“When I ran Gene Expression as a group blog we used to have a word for people who left comments: we called them “animals.””
I largely agree with your comments policy, and no doubt, you’re smarter and more knowledgable about many issues than most of your commenters (myself included). Still, I don’t get why you frequently complain about the quality of comments. Frankly, it’s not like the Unz review is some academic journal of renown. It’s a site where many, perhaps even most of the writers published are conspiracy-mongers and obsessive nutters who don’t offer anything of interest themselves. Elitism is fine, but when you’re publishing your blog posts here, you can’t really complain that many of your commenters are low-quality proles.
Hey! We are sitting right here and can read what you write about us.Replies: @German_reader
I largely agree with your comments policy, and no doubt, you're smarter and more knowledgable about many issues than most of your commenters (myself included). Still, I don't get why you frequently complain about the quality of comments. Frankly, it's not like the Unz review is some academic journal of renown. It's a site where many, perhaps even most of the writers published are conspiracy-mongers and obsessive nutters who don't offer anything of interest themselves. Elitism is fine, but when you're publishing your blog posts here, you can't really complain that many of your commenters are low-quality proles.Replies: @T. Greer, @iffen
Nah, he has been complaining about that since when I first started following him at Discover Magazine. It is very hard to have a large commenting base that is also a good one.
But he's also complained, if I recall correctly, that quality of comments has deteriorated since his move to Unz. And frankly I think that's to be exspected given the character of this site. I mean, I like it around here, but this is hardly a scholarly environment. Most of the stuff here is explicitly political, of a rather "extreme" kind; that's bound to be reflected in comments.
I've found that being (apparently) unreasonable works better than being confrontational. But you perhaps enjoy the confrontations, in that case by all means have your fun.Replies: @Razib Khan
I probably have to complain more at unz. Major problem seems to be older guys who’ve never been told to shut up. You should some of the comments which I delete in their combination of length pretension and stupidity.
Also probably regular commenters should know I track comment history closely and check what they say elsewhere. Not the type of person to forget past infractions.
Are there any commenters whose names you can remember for the good things they've said?
“Nah, he has been complaining about that since when I first started following him at Discover Magazine.”
But he’s also complained, if I recall correctly, that quality of comments has deteriorated since his move to Unz. And frankly I think that’s to be exspected given the character of this site. I mean, I like it around here, but this is hardly a scholarly environment. Most of the stuff here is explicitly political, of a rather “extreme” kind; that’s bound to be reflected in comments.
FWIW I think it’s more effective to ban and delete massively without giving any explanation. Telling people you’re deleting their posts because they’re stupid just makes them want to justify themselves and get back at you.
I’ve found that being (apparently) unreasonable works better than being confrontational. But you perhaps enjoy the confrontations, in that case by all means have your fun.
I've found that being (apparently) unreasonable works better than being confrontational. But you perhaps enjoy the confrontations, in that case by all means have your fun.Replies: @Razib Khan
What’s your opinion based on? My rationale is simple: chewing ppl out discourages others, either because they think this is douchey or they are more careful to comment on what they know. Most ppl aren’t told anymore to shutup if they don’t know whst they’re talking about.
As you point out old people are particularly stubborn about having an opinion, often fairly long-winded, about everything they've ever had a conversation about. So most people were likely never told to shut up, ever.
And (I think) for a reason, as telling people to shut up triggers them into defending their honor. I've seen that on my blog, and I've seen that on yours, I've seen that in real life, I've sen that everywhere. Everybody tries to argue with you and justify themselves, or going around saying how much of a prick you are.
I get a fair amount of Nazis in my blog, and of course any conversation with them is useless. When you ignore people or outright ban them without a second word there's no hurt honor, nothing to defend. For all I know they think it's the spam filter. The spam filter is way more discouraging than me confronting them. They actually look forward to that.Replies: @Razib Khan
The issue of upper body strength and combat might have more impact if women hadn’t already been integrated into combat positions in other militaries with success. As is, the strength difference doesn’t seem to make much difference in overall performance, probably because combat doesn’t depend on physical strength as much as it did in the pre-gunpowder era, and because of self-selection among female soldiers for higher than typical strength.
“Good” is as far as I’d go with the new Star Wars movie. The characters were the best part of it, the plot and pacing weren’t so great, and it averages out to good. Kylo Ren might actually be a new type of Star Wars character – I don’t buy the “Anakin” comparisons.
Which ones? Serious question, are there any militaries where women have been successfully integrated into infantry combat positions (things like the navy, or flying fighter aircraft are different, I'd assume).
Also don't get all the mania about Star Wars, the new movie seems to be super-formulaic from what I've read, just a cynical money grab. After he's been responsible for that crappy "Lost" series and those horrible Star Trek movies, Abrams has now ruined Star Wars (not that it was ever that great anyway).Replies: @Razib Khan
Israelis, for example, have had a very long standing experience with female combat units, and do not use them for frontline combat. Their experiments with such units in serious combat have been disasters. They are typically used for garrison duties and to be extra set of "eyeballs." You see them around Jerusalem sitting in groups at bus stations trading Hello Kitty cards.
Other militaries around the world sometimes use females in specialized combat roles, but not out of some egalitarian sentiment. For example, South Korea's vaunted 707th Special Mission Battalion ("Black Berets") are a real snake-eating, hard-ass sons of bitches who will fight to the last drop of their blood, and it does have female "operators." But they are not considered equals of the male operators, but are utilized instead in those specific circumstances in which (disguised) female combatants might pass unnoticed or might otherwise provide the element of surprise. They are not expected to hump 100 lbs. of kit and force-march over a freezing mountain for three days before engaging in intense combat.Combat is not just pressing the trigger. Combat - ground combat, in any case, still requires A LOT of biomechanical input. There are so many reasons (biomechanical, psychological, social, logistical, sanitary, etc.) why having females in combat is a bad idea, I can go on for pages and pages, but merely pointing out the categories of problems should be sufficient for all but the most dim-witted or the ideological.
Finally, sure, there may be self-selection among females, but that self-selection is probably going to be not based on appropriate physical-psychological-social attributes (which would result in but a handful of females for combat), but based on ambition, i.e. those females who seek promotion (which is greatly enhanced by combat experience).Replies: @Miguel Madeira
even when they are integrated they're not uniformly distributed. obviously what you say is true in regards to a drone pilot. but there is always going to be a for mobile ground combat until then, and because of the strength difference women can't operate at the same level. only cybernetics and robotics of a very advanced level will obviate this.
ultimately this isn't a major issue IMO if the same standards apply, as it will be a de facto sex filter (it also filters out many men, especially in the elite special forces arms). the problem is that some ideologues want relatively proportional representation across the board.Replies: @Twinkie
Well I don’t know if people aren’t told “anymore” to shut up. That assumes there were the good ol’ days when people with knowledge could tell others to shut the fuck up, and they would comply.
As you point out old people are particularly stubborn about having an opinion, often fairly long-winded, about everything they’ve ever had a conversation about. So most people were likely never told to shut up, ever.
And (I think) for a reason, as telling people to shut up triggers them into defending their honor. I’ve seen that on my blog, and I’ve seen that on yours, I’ve seen that in real life, I’ve sen that everywhere. Everybody tries to argue with you and justify themselves, or going around saying how much of a prick you are.
I get a fair amount of Nazis in my blog, and of course any conversation with them is useless. When you ignore people or outright ban them without a second word there’s no hurt honor, nothing to defend. For all I know they think it’s the spam filter. The spam filter is way more discouraging than me confronting them. They actually look forward to that.
it's human nature, everyone has this reflex. though social milieu matters. the 'rationalist' community of the bay area has a social norm where admitting your are wrong is a very meritorious act, so there's a lot more productive movement in arguments.Replies: @T. Greer
Maybe you should set up a page with the worst comments as a sort of Wall of Shame, to show people what not to say here. It’d be good for laughs, if nothing else.
Are there any commenters whose names you can remember for the good things they’ve said?
I largely agree with your comments policy, and no doubt, you're smarter and more knowledgable about many issues than most of your commenters (myself included). Still, I don't get why you frequently complain about the quality of comments. Frankly, it's not like the Unz review is some academic journal of renown. It's a site where many, perhaps even most of the writers published are conspiracy-mongers and obsessive nutters who don't offer anything of interest themselves. Elitism is fine, but when you're publishing your blog posts here, you can't really complain that many of your commenters are low-quality proles.Replies: @T. Greer, @iffen
many of your commenters are low-quality proles
Hey! We are sitting right here and can read what you write about us.
"Good" is as far as I'd go with the new Star Wars movie. The characters were the best part of it, the plot and pacing weren't so great, and it averages out to good. Kylo Ren might actually be a new type of Star Wars character - I don't buy the "Anakin" comparisons.Replies: @German_reader, @Twinkie, @Razib Khan
“if women hadn’t already been integrated into combat positions in other militaries with success. ”
Which ones? Serious question, are there any militaries where women have been successfully integrated into infantry combat positions (things like the navy, or flying fighter aircraft are different, I’d assume).
Also don’t get all the mania about Star Wars, the new movie seems to be super-formulaic from what I’ve read, just a cynical money grab. After he’s been responsible for that crappy “Lost” series and those horrible Star Trek movies, Abrams has now ruined Star Wars (not that it was ever that great anyway).
cultural event. the movie was OK if it was without any context. i'm not big into star wars personally...
It’s The Scholar’s Stage, not The Scholars Gate.
I do enjoy the thrashing you give your commenters, but maybe I’m just a glutton for punishment like Maggie Gyllenhaal was in The Secretary.
Hey! We are sitting right here and can read what you write about us.Replies: @German_reader
I didn’t mean you (really!), but frankly, look at some of the threads in other sections of the site…they’re unreadable because threads get overrun by total crazies, and some of that’s occasionally spilling over into this blog as well. That’s one of the reasons why I actually appreciate Razib’s comments policy…it may seem excessively harsh at times, but the alternative is obviously worse!
"Good" is as far as I'd go with the new Star Wars movie. The characters were the best part of it, the plot and pacing weren't so great, and it averages out to good. Kylo Ren might actually be a new type of Star Wars character - I don't buy the "Anakin" comparisons.Replies: @German_reader, @Twinkie, @Razib Khan
Please do provide some examples for this assertion.
Israelis, for example, have had a very long standing experience with female combat units, and do not use them for frontline combat. Their experiments with such units in serious combat have been disasters. They are typically used for garrison duties and to be extra set of “eyeballs.” You see them around Jerusalem sitting in groups at bus stations trading Hello Kitty cards.
Other militaries around the world sometimes use females in specialized combat roles, but not out of some egalitarian sentiment. For example, South Korea’s vaunted 707th Special Mission Battalion (“Black Berets”) are a real snake-eating, hard-ass sons of bitches who will fight to the last drop of their blood, and it does have female “operators.” But they are not considered equals of the male operators, but are utilized instead in those specific circumstances in which (disguised) female combatants might pass unnoticed or might otherwise provide the element of surprise. They are not expected to hump 100 lbs. of kit and force-march over a freezing mountain for three days before engaging in intense combat.
Combat is not just pressing the trigger. Combat – ground combat, in any case, still requires A LOT of biomechanical input. There are so many reasons (biomechanical, psychological, social, logistical, sanitary, etc.) why having females in combat is a bad idea, I can go on for pages and pages, but merely pointing out the categories of problems should be sufficient for all but the most dim-witted or the ideological.
Finally, sure, there may be self-selection among females, but that self-selection is probably going to be not based on appropriate physical-psychological-social attributes (which would result in but a handful of females for combat), but based on ambition, i.e. those females who seek promotion (which is greatly enhanced by combat experience).
Israelis, for example, have had a very long standing experience with female combat units, and do not use them for frontline combat. Their experiments with such units in serious combat have been disasters. They are typically used for garrison duties and to be extra set of "eyeballs." You see them around Jerusalem sitting in groups at bus stations trading Hello Kitty cards.
Other militaries around the world sometimes use females in specialized combat roles, but not out of some egalitarian sentiment. For example, South Korea's vaunted 707th Special Mission Battalion ("Black Berets") are a real snake-eating, hard-ass sons of bitches who will fight to the last drop of their blood, and it does have female "operators." But they are not considered equals of the male operators, but are utilized instead in those specific circumstances in which (disguised) female combatants might pass unnoticed or might otherwise provide the element of surprise. They are not expected to hump 100 lbs. of kit and force-march over a freezing mountain for three days before engaging in intense combat.Combat is not just pressing the trigger. Combat - ground combat, in any case, still requires A LOT of biomechanical input. There are so many reasons (biomechanical, psychological, social, logistical, sanitary, etc.) why having females in combat is a bad idea, I can go on for pages and pages, but merely pointing out the categories of problems should be sufficient for all but the most dim-witted or the ideological.
Finally, sure, there may be self-selection among females, but that self-selection is probably going to be not based on appropriate physical-psychological-social attributes (which would result in but a handful of females for combat), but based on ambition, i.e. those females who seek promotion (which is greatly enhanced by combat experience).Replies: @Miguel Madeira
“Please do provide some examples for this assertion.”
Eritrea People’s Liberation Front? Republican militias in Spanish Civil War (well, attending to the result, perhaps not “with sucess”)? Kurdish militias in Syria (they have separate female units, then perhaps is not really “integrated”)? Polisario Front?
I admit that all the examples are for some kind of “revolutionary armies”, that perhaps have a logical different from the regular armies (in the case of Kurds, their female battalions have clearly a western PR purpose)
Btw, about Israel, what I have read is that the main problem was not women being less resistant, but more the tendency of man to protect the women in battle, instead of achieving the mission.
I have a friend who trained a lot of "Third World forces" as an advisor, both for insurgency and counter-insurgency, and he and his colleagues had a name for female "combat units" that would have a misfortunate of actually running into a real combat situation: rape victims.In Israeli "experiments" decades ago, female units performed poorly, suffered extremely high rates of casualties, stiffened the resolve of the opposing forces to not surrender, and, yes, endangered their fellow male soldiers.
In recent years, the presence of female soldiers has increased incidents of sexual assault and morale/cohesion problems in the IDF. Also, a number of attempts to integrate females into more rigorous roles in the army was discontinued due to much greater injury rate suffered by females.
Mr. Khan, I have no interest in seeking your reply on this topic, as you are rather clear that this is not up for debate and, to paraphrase you from a previous comment, you are the master of the universe on this blog. So please chalk this up as a passing reader input.
Perhaps I am wrong, but my impression of the purpose of a blog like this is to spread knowledge rather than to create a salon-like environment for a group of intellectual equals (if the latter, I would think an intranet of some sort or a membership-only site would be better). Furthermore, I would imagine any kind of public commentary is designed to elicit some public approval. Human nature being what is it is, I suspect nobody publishes anything merely to spread knowledge in a purely altruistic manner. And we all like being liked… even by those whom we do not know in person. People who truly do not care about public adulation are extremely rare and they do not write things for the public or appear on TV shows.
So “you read me, I don’t read you, so bugger off” strikes me as needlessly disingenuous and petty.
I read you, because I know hardly anything about genetics, and you write (most of the time) in an engaging manner about the intersection of genetics, recent discoveries/news, and social science, usually devoid of political correctness… and not because I think you are the smartest person I know (that guy smashes atoms for a living) or because everything you write is correct (you have been out of your depth on rare occasions and probably did not even know it).
I suppose I am not telling you anything you do not know already. But, for what it’s worth, this is what I would like to emphasize: you clearly add value to public discourse and help spread important knowledge about genetics. And you raise your public profile at the same time. I think you would do an even better job of doing so if you were more polite and appreciative of your readers. I think you can do that and still weed out or otherwise not waste time on commenters who detract from that goal. I think you can dismiss people like that without calling them names and debasing yourself.
I don’t think I am the only reader who values your commentary but is occasionally turned off by you immediately cutting others down (deservedly or not) and assuming the posture of intellectual superiority.
I like to comment from time to time. Sometimes I get opinionated and take shots at people. If some hit bothers the writer/moderator, I consider it a favor if he lets me know before dropping the banhammer in the same way I appreciated a warning from a fair umpire or referee during sporting events when I was engaged in physical contests.
I know I'm a different person from Razib, but I get along with his type well in real life. I suppose I appreciate the intellectual masculinity of his style. Whatever it is, it would be a shame if he were to up and quit because of comment sniping, so if he has to take a hard line on comments to stomach the daily annoyances of comment moderation that's fine by me.Replies: @Anonymous, @Twinkie, @Razib Khan
Perhaps I am wrong, but my impression of the purpose of a blog like this is to spread knowledge rather than to create a salon-like environment for a group of intellectual equals (if the latter, I would think an intranet of some sort or a membership-only site would be better). Furthermore, I would imagine any kind of public commentary is designed to elicit some public approval. Human nature being what is it is, I suspect nobody publishes anything merely to spread knowledge in a purely altruistic manner. And we all like being liked... even by those whom we do not know in person. People who truly do not care about public adulation are extremely rare and they do not write things for the public or appear on TV shows.
So "you read me, I don't read you, so bugger off" strikes me as needlessly disingenuous and petty.
I read you, because I know hardly anything about genetics, and you write (most of the time) in an engaging manner about the intersection of genetics, recent discoveries/news, and social science, usually devoid of political correctness... and not because I think you are the smartest person I know (that guy smashes atoms for a living) or because everything you write is correct (you have been out of your depth on rare occasions and probably did not even know it).
I suppose I am not telling you anything you do not know already. But, for what it's worth, this is what I would like to emphasize: you clearly add value to public discourse and help spread important knowledge about genetics. And you raise your public profile at the same time. I think you would do an even better job of doing so if you were more polite and appreciative of your readers. I think you can do that and still weed out or otherwise not waste time on commenters who detract from that goal. I think you can dismiss people like that without calling them names and debasing yourself.
I don't think I am the only reader who values your commentary but is occasionally turned off by you immediately cutting others down (deservedly or not) and assuming the posture of intellectual superiority.Replies: @Bill P
Every writer who accepts comments has to find some kind of acceptable happy comment medium. It’s a highly personal thing, and one thing readers ought to keep in mind is that moderating comments detracts from one’s intellectual energy and ability to write. Moderation is an enormous pain in the ass. Being nice often makes it worse. Being too nasty causes its own problems, but if you like to comment and the price you pay is that the moderator is not all that easygoing you’re better off than if he just shuts it all down, and of course it’s totally unfair to silent readers when they are deprived of their material because of a couple belligerent know-it-alls. From my own experience, only a few percent of regular readers comment frequently. Of those that do, only a few percent cause trouble. So banning the incorrigible troublemakers makes perfect sense.
I like to comment from time to time. Sometimes I get opinionated and take shots at people. If some hit bothers the writer/moderator, I consider it a favor if he lets me know before dropping the banhammer in the same way I appreciated a warning from a fair umpire or referee during sporting events when I was engaged in physical contests.
I know I’m a different person from Razib, but I get along with his type well in real life. I suppose I appreciate the intellectual masculinity of his style. Whatever it is, it would be a shame if he were to up and quit because of comment sniping, so if he has to take a hard line on comments to stomach the daily annoyances of comment moderation that’s fine by me.
I think you paint a false choice here - it's perfectly possible to be firm while also being polite. Being polite is also more likely to convince, no?Replies: @Bill P
i think i'm somewhat different in real life! though some people who comment here do know me in real life so they can offer up their own evaluation ;-)
Hey Razib, or anyone other actual geneticists here, have you ever seen this paper:
The Diffusion of Development by Enrico Spolaore and Romain Wacziarg
Abstract: We find that genetic distance, a measure associated with the time elapsed since two populations’ last common ancestors, has a statistically and economically significant effect on income differences across countries, even controlling for measures of geographical distance, climatic differences, transportation costs, and measures of historical, religious, and linguistic distance. We provide an economic interpretation of these findings in terms of barriers to the diffusion of development from the world technological frontier, implying that income differences should be a function of relative genetic distance from the frontier. The empirical evidence strongly supports this barriers interpretation.
http://qje.oxfordjournals.org/content/124/2/469.abstract
It came out in 2009, but has gotten internet attention at Marginal Revolution and Andrew Gelman’s blog recently. Does the way they interpret their measure of genetic difference make sense?
You’d better hope this is later rather than sooner because you’re in that group that is target numero uno for ISIS, namely apostate ex-Muslim. You’d better keep an eye on ISIS expansion and prepare to make a dramatic and well-published second act in reverting to Islam. And with the Islamist invasion into Western Europe I’d recommend to all the kaffirs there that they memorize some key Koranic passages to use when they find themselves quizzed during a jihadi hostage execution operation.
I like to comment from time to time. Sometimes I get opinionated and take shots at people. If some hit bothers the writer/moderator, I consider it a favor if he lets me know before dropping the banhammer in the same way I appreciated a warning from a fair umpire or referee during sporting events when I was engaged in physical contests.
I know I'm a different person from Razib, but I get along with his type well in real life. I suppose I appreciate the intellectual masculinity of his style. Whatever it is, it would be a shame if he were to up and quit because of comment sniping, so if he has to take a hard line on comments to stomach the daily annoyances of comment moderation that's fine by me.Replies: @Anonymous, @Twinkie, @Razib Khan
Yeah, it’s kind of like the professor from Gilligan’s Island having the temperament of Tony Soprano.
When we are discussing integrating females into combat roles in a professional, let alone an expeditionary, military force, we are not talking about “all hands on deck,” “anyone who can grab a rifle, do so and defend your village” type of situations in civil wars and, as you put it, revolutionary wars with all the appropriate revolutionary fervor and hysterics. Even in the latter situations, female troops were often used as propaganda props (“Women are equal to men in our glorious revolutionary forces!”) rather than the real thing.
I have a friend who trained a lot of “Third World forces” as an advisor, both for insurgency and counter-insurgency, and he and his colleagues had a name for female “combat units” that would have a misfortunate of actually running into a real combat situation: rape victims.
In Israeli “experiments” decades ago, female units performed poorly, suffered extremely high rates of casualties, stiffened the resolve of the opposing forces to not surrender, and, yes, endangered their fellow male soldiers.
In recent years, the presence of female soldiers has increased incidents of sexual assault and morale/cohesion problems in the IDF. Also, a number of attempts to integrate females into more rigorous roles in the army was discontinued due to much greater injury rate suffered by females.
I like to comment from time to time. Sometimes I get opinionated and take shots at people. If some hit bothers the writer/moderator, I consider it a favor if he lets me know before dropping the banhammer in the same way I appreciated a warning from a fair umpire or referee during sporting events when I was engaged in physical contests.
I know I'm a different person from Razib, but I get along with his type well in real life. I suppose I appreciate the intellectual masculinity of his style. Whatever it is, it would be a shame if he were to up and quit because of comment sniping, so if he has to take a hard line on comments to stomach the daily annoyances of comment moderation that's fine by me.Replies: @Anonymous, @Twinkie, @Razib Khan
Being a gentleman is eminently masculine.
I think you paint a false choice here – it’s perfectly possible to be firm while also being polite. Being polite is also more likely to convince, no?
As I suggested before, moderating detracts from writing. It's a pretty tall order to ask a writer to also manage a large number of commenters. Personally, I think it's expecting too much. That being the case, you have to cut writers some slack and let them do it their way, especially if you like what they write.Replies: @Twinkie
“Interesting trivia, but is there a larger point here?” reminds me of the reaction of gender academics in the “Brain Washed” series from a few years ago. Confronted with – objectively interesting – data about sex differences their standard response was: “well maybe, but I think this is not really interesting”
I think you paint a false choice here - it's perfectly possible to be firm while also being polite. Being polite is also more likely to convince, no?Replies: @Bill P
I’m not sure about that. Masculinity takes many forms. Good, bad, rough, refined etc. And lots of “gentlemen” are effeminate.
With some people. Not all. I’ve moderated a lot of rowdy commenters before, and I can say that being polite is only perceived as weakness by a lot of folks.
As I suggested before, moderating detracts from writing. It’s a pretty tall order to ask a writer to also manage a large number of commenters. Personally, I think it’s expecting too much. That being the case, you have to cut writers some slack and let them do it their way, especially if you like what they write.
You truly live a blessed life if Maggie Gyllenhaal passes for average. Kudos.
As human, we have hard time communicating with an insect than chimps.
As human with higher g (usually indicated by higher educational achievement), they would have hardly any thing in common or common topics with some who barely finished elementary education. Obviously arguing with idiots is waste of time.
However, proles with lower intelligence might still think their way of thinking and interpretation of the world around them smarter than others who see thing differently. It is no surprise such low class people still believe elites as bunch of idiots.
Bottom-line, we all instinctually consider people with different opinions as idiots, even people who might be smarter than us. We just can not honestly judge others intelligence at superficial level. If ones think they can, that is a problem with a lot of people.
Only way to differentiating the quality of opinions(or speculation or hypothesis) is data or objective evidences. When people are able to do such critical analysis, they tend to be scientists who often have PhD or MD degrees. But such degrees are associated with people of higher intelligence. The whole circle come back to intelligence again. It does not matter how much social approval (or others agreement) you get for your opinion. What really matter is evidences. Anecdote is a weak evidence. Collected anecdotes become data which are stronger evidence. The very reason that Einstein hypothesis was correct is not because most people agree with him (most people would not understand it at all), but objective evidences (from sky and experiments) agree with his theory.
I have recently been reading (and highly recommend) “Beyond Physicalism” (2015) and “Irreducible Mind” (2009) by Kelly et al. He and a band of highly respected psychologists, neuroscientists and other academics are trying their hardest to shake the current establishment out of its torpor and misguided/agenda-driven devotion to materialism/behaviorism when it concerns matters of consciousness/human experience and the brain.
there’s a lot of talk about “proles” in this thread. one should be careful about that term, as someone like eric hoffer was a prole
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Hoffer
probably the most annoying people are actually older men with advanced degrees who think they’re renaissance intellects. e.g., a concrete example would be an older commenter who had an advanced degree in anthropology from stanford (fwiw, he was a somewhat naive hbder, not a leftist), who consistently engaged in logical fallacies, simplifications, and exhibited major gaps in knowledge laced throughout very long comments. it was difficult for me to get him to shut up because he was used to being the “smartest” all his life, and he was a self-confident upper middle class male. if he had a background in the physical sciences i’m sure a lot of my work would have been done, because that tends to balance ego with humility induced by genuine geniuses and difficult subject material.
genuine proles who are not intellectual probably won’t even bother to leave comments. those who are proles, but smart, will, and that’s fine. the most vexing part of the matrix are non-proles who think they’re smarter than they are.
"Good" is as far as I'd go with the new Star Wars movie. The characters were the best part of it, the plot and pacing weren't so great, and it averages out to good. Kylo Ren might actually be a new type of Star Wars character - I don't buy the "Anakin" comparisons.Replies: @German_reader, @Twinkie, @Razib Khan
The issue of upper body strength and combat might have more impact if women hadn’t already been integrated into combat positions in other militaries with success.
even when they are integrated they’re not uniformly distributed. obviously what you say is true in regards to a drone pilot. but there is always going to be a for mobile ground combat until then, and because of the strength difference women can’t operate at the same level. only cybernetics and robotics of a very advanced level will obviate this.
ultimately this isn’t a major issue IMO if the same standards apply, as it will be a de facto sex filter (it also filters out many men, especially in the elite special forces arms). the problem is that some ideologues want relatively proportional representation across the board.
Combat is not just a group of amorphous, interchangeable people putting in an X amount of input and creating a Y amount of output. It is a very social activity that depends greatly on morale and cohesion for success. Even the presence of ONE female in the mix can be highly detrimental, because it wrecks "the band of brotherhood" social dynamic. Men and women being what they are, presence of women among male warriors under enormous mental and physical tension and strain inevitably creates unnecessary and counterproductive social tension, jealousy, and so forth.
I do not wish to go into too much detail and it's not something you will read on a newspaper, but I will simply note that during a somewhat recent American military operation, most of the females at a particular forward location had to be evacuated for multiple reasons, some of which were pregnancy (and some of those pregnancies were willful - so as to be able to leave the hazardous area without penalty... and several of these women were married with their husbands stateside, which meant they were going to have abortions as soon as they had access to ob/gyn facilities before reuniting with their menfolk) while others were due to prostitution (some women were making A LOT of money due to the unique supply-demand imbalance) and still others were morale problems created by ordinary sexual tensions and jealousies across ranks. Officers getting sex while enlisted don't tend to create extreme resentment.
Suffice to say, not only did this lead to a lot of drama, it also greatly reduced the operational readiness of the unit in question.Replies: @Razib Khan, @iffen
Perhaps I am wrong, but my impression of the purpose of a blog like this is to spread knowledge rather than to create a salon-like environment for a group of intellectual equals (if the latter, I would think an intranet of some sort or a membership-only site would be better).
if you ran a blog many of your questions would be easily answered by experience (the people on this thread who actually run blogs are naturally engaging with me in a way which comes from this knowledge even if they disagree on the details).
1) about 100x more people “read the blog” on some basis than comment. there are many popular blogs which have no comment sections. so the issue re: comments is detachable to a great extent from “reach.”
2) there are plenty of ways to gauge popularity. you can look at raw traffic metrics. you can look at twitter or facebook shares. comments are not a primary one.
3) the more popular you get, the more you sample from a greater distribution of the population. this isn’t a good thing for comments sections, because most people are kind of stupid. this is why rule #1 for many people who write stuff on the web comment is “don’t read the comments.” when i wrote for SLATE, NY TIMES, GUARDIAN, etc., i don’t read the comments. they’re generally worthless.
4) comments here are not worthless. if i write about a scientific paper in my field (evolutionary genomics) i may actually get a comment from an author, or get engagement on twitter because of the post, or get input from those in the field. allowing random people with no knowledge to comment without prejudice really disincentives people who have knowledge from commenting. i’ve stumbled on a fair amount of books and some papers via the comments of this website. that’s exceptional.
5) a key aspect of moderating the way i do, and making examples, is to keep regularly commenters, of whom many are good, on their toes.
6) your theories are fine and dandy, but i’d be curious if you do run a blog, and what your experience empirically would be. i have 13.5 years experience at this, far more than most active in this enterprise. multiple people over the years have thought i was harsh, then once they started writing on the web they told me that they “got it” much more in terms of what they had to deal with in relation to “incoming”.
Again, I appreciate you reading and responding in detail, especially given your stated reluctance to discuss this topic.Replies: @Anonymous
I like to comment from time to time. Sometimes I get opinionated and take shots at people. If some hit bothers the writer/moderator, I consider it a favor if he lets me know before dropping the banhammer in the same way I appreciated a warning from a fair umpire or referee during sporting events when I was engaged in physical contests.
I know I'm a different person from Razib, but I get along with his type well in real life. I suppose I appreciate the intellectual masculinity of his style. Whatever it is, it would be a shame if he were to up and quit because of comment sniping, so if he has to take a hard line on comments to stomach the daily annoyances of comment moderation that's fine by me.Replies: @Anonymous, @Twinkie, @Razib Khan
but I get along with his type well in real life.
i think i’m somewhat different in real life! though some people who comment here do know me in real life so they can offer up their own evaluation 😉
As you point out old people are particularly stubborn about having an opinion, often fairly long-winded, about everything they've ever had a conversation about. So most people were likely never told to shut up, ever.
And (I think) for a reason, as telling people to shut up triggers them into defending their honor. I've seen that on my blog, and I've seen that on yours, I've seen that in real life, I've sen that everywhere. Everybody tries to argue with you and justify themselves, or going around saying how much of a prick you are.
I get a fair amount of Nazis in my blog, and of course any conversation with them is useless. When you ignore people or outright ban them without a second word there's no hurt honor, nothing to defend. For all I know they think it's the spam filter. The spam filter is way more discouraging than me confronting them. They actually look forward to that.Replies: @Razib Khan
And (I think) for a reason, as telling people to shut up triggers them into defending their honor.
it’s human nature, everyone has this reflex. though social milieu matters. the ‘rationalist’ community of the bay area has a social norm where admitting your are wrong is a very meritorious act, so there’s a lot more productive movement in arguments.
I bought the book recommended above by Dehaene. On the first page (or whatever is kindle for first page) it has there in big bold letters ‘The Stuff of Thought’, not good for a book about consciousness. Hopefully the rest will be better.
keep expectations in check, this is not consciousness “explained.” but, it’s a good materialist exploration of the topic (i’m 2/3 of the way through). if you’re a dualist of some sort, as i assume you are, you’ll find aspects unsatisfying, but that’s fine if you just ignore that.
Which ones? Serious question, are there any militaries where women have been successfully integrated into infantry combat positions (things like the navy, or flying fighter aircraft are different, I'd assume).
Also don't get all the mania about Star Wars, the new movie seems to be super-formulaic from what I've read, just a cynical money grab. After he's been responsible for that crappy "Lost" series and those horrible Star Trek movies, Abrams has now ruined Star Wars (not that it was ever that great anyway).Replies: @Razib Khan
Also don’t get all the mania about Star Wars, the new movie seems to be super-formulaic from what I’ve read, just a cynical money grab. After he’s been responsible for that crappy “Lost” series and those horrible Star Trek movies, Abrams has now ruined Star Wars (not that it was ever that great anyway).
cultural event. the movie was OK if it was without any context. i’m not big into star wars personally…
Razib,
Any comments on this paper (I’m guessing you may already have started working on a post for it)? Assuming it holds true, how would you rank its significance?
http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nn.4205.html
As I suggested before, moderating detracts from writing. It's a pretty tall order to ask a writer to also manage a large number of commenters. Personally, I think it's expecting too much. That being the case, you have to cut writers some slack and let them do it their way, especially if you like what they write.Replies: @Twinkie
You and I have different definitions of a gentleman.
I gather you don’t agree with Teddy Roosevelt – “speak softly and carry a big stick.”
even when they are integrated they're not uniformly distributed. obviously what you say is true in regards to a drone pilot. but there is always going to be a for mobile ground combat until then, and because of the strength difference women can't operate at the same level. only cybernetics and robotics of a very advanced level will obviate this.
ultimately this isn't a major issue IMO if the same standards apply, as it will be a de facto sex filter (it also filters out many men, especially in the elite special forces arms). the problem is that some ideologues want relatively proportional representation across the board.Replies: @Twinkie
While you are correct that universally high standards will filter out but a handful of women, you are mistaken that this wouldn’t be “a major issue” under that scenario.
Combat is not just a group of amorphous, interchangeable people putting in an X amount of input and creating a Y amount of output. It is a very social activity that depends greatly on morale and cohesion for success. Even the presence of ONE female in the mix can be highly detrimental, because it wrecks “the band of brotherhood” social dynamic. Men and women being what they are, presence of women among male warriors under enormous mental and physical tension and strain inevitably creates unnecessary and counterproductive social tension, jealousy, and so forth.
I do not wish to go into too much detail and it’s not something you will read on a newspaper, but I will simply note that during a somewhat recent American military operation, most of the females at a particular forward location had to be evacuated for multiple reasons, some of which were pregnancy (and some of those pregnancies were willful – so as to be able to leave the hazardous area without penalty… and several of these women were married with their husbands stateside, which meant they were going to have abortions as soon as they had access to ob/gyn facilities before reuniting with their menfolk) while others were due to prostitution (some women were making A LOT of money due to the unique supply-demand imbalance) and still others were morale problems created by ordinary sexual tensions and jealousies across ranks. Officers getting sex while enlisted don’t tend to create extreme resentment.
Suffice to say, not only did this lead to a lot of drama, it also greatly reduced the operational readiness of the unit in question.
for ground combat it seems unlikely that any infantry would be female with the same physical strength standards in the vast majority of units. 3 out of 1000 women are stronger in the upper body re: average male.Replies: @CupOfCanada
I did not expect a reply, so I sincerely appreciate you reading my input and responding in detail. I do not run a blog, so I defer to your experience and judgment on this topic, but…
I would assume a man of your high intellect would be able to figure out how to achieve this without coming off as overly insulting to those of lesser intellect.
!
One day, you too will be an “older man with advanced degrees,” eh, Mr. Khan?
Again, I appreciate you reading and responding in detail, especially given your stated reluctance to discuss this topic.
Ageism and education snobbery is a nasty judgmentalism. And those who engage in it will often exclude any scrutiny of themselves. Fields of study are dismissed as not worthy. Or level of education. Or schools attended. "Oh, you went to a state school... well, I went to Georgetown... well, I went to an Ivy." Ted Cruz is the perfect example of the absurd nastiness of education snobbery when as a Princeton student he wouldn't socialize with anyone from a non-HYP Ivy because he viewed them as inferior.
I stop into this blog because Razib is at his best, IMO, when he using his analytical brain to discuss contempary culture and events. Like his excellent, no-bullshit analysis of ISIS. Or Chipotle. Or food. When he talks genetics I make attempts to get the gist of it, but invariably give up and think I'd better stick to People Magazine.
it's human nature, everyone has this reflex. though social milieu matters. the 'rationalist' community of the bay area has a social norm where admitting your are wrong is a very meritorious act, so there's a lot more productive movement in arguments.Replies: @T. Greer
Which points to one reason why comments have declined since you have camped here. Unz characterizes itself as the place to read the things you can get nowhere else–forbidden knowledge, perhaps, or the unpopular but true. Those who come to Unz are at best contrarians, and at worst heretics more in love with being branded such than any particular heresy. Both are accustomed to being told by everyone they wrong, but believing nonetheless that everyone else but they are in error. In this social milieu, holding true to the controversial truth is a sign of character and brilliance.
There is a very simple reason why some of the stuff at Unz is not published elsewhere.
things you can get nowhere else
There is a very simple reason why some of the stuff at Unz is not published elsewhere.
Again, I appreciate you reading and responding in detail, especially given your stated reluctance to discuss this topic.Replies: @Anonymous
First off, let me state for the record that I’m a stone-cold prole.
Ageism and education snobbery is a nasty judgmentalism. And those who engage in it will often exclude any scrutiny of themselves. Fields of study are dismissed as not worthy. Or level of education. Or schools attended. “Oh, you went to a state school… well, I went to Georgetown… well, I went to an Ivy.” Ted Cruz is the perfect example of the absurd nastiness of education snobbery when as a Princeton student he wouldn’t socialize with anyone from a non-HYP Ivy because he viewed them as inferior.
I stop into this blog because Razib is at his best, IMO, when he using his analytical brain to discuss contempary culture and events. Like his excellent, no-bullshit analysis of ISIS. Or Chipotle. Or food. When he talks genetics I make attempts to get the gist of it, but invariably give up and think I’d better stick to People Magazine.
low-quality proles, We (proles)are sitting right here, proles with lower intelligence, eric hoffer was a prole, proles who are not intellectual, those who are proles, but smart, I’m a stone-cold prole
Proles of the world, unite at Razib’s!
Any comments on this paper (I'm guessing you may already have started working on a post for it)? Assuming it holds true, how would you rank its significance?
http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nn.4205.htmlReplies: @Razib Khan
i don’t follow neuro closely, so not sure i’ll blog it. the cost of specializing….
Combat is not just a group of amorphous, interchangeable people putting in an X amount of input and creating a Y amount of output. It is a very social activity that depends greatly on morale and cohesion for success. Even the presence of ONE female in the mix can be highly detrimental, because it wrecks "the band of brotherhood" social dynamic. Men and women being what they are, presence of women among male warriors under enormous mental and physical tension and strain inevitably creates unnecessary and counterproductive social tension, jealousy, and so forth.
I do not wish to go into too much detail and it's not something you will read on a newspaper, but I will simply note that during a somewhat recent American military operation, most of the females at a particular forward location had to be evacuated for multiple reasons, some of which were pregnancy (and some of those pregnancies were willful - so as to be able to leave the hazardous area without penalty... and several of these women were married with their husbands stateside, which meant they were going to have abortions as soon as they had access to ob/gyn facilities before reuniting with their menfolk) while others were due to prostitution (some women were making A LOT of money due to the unique supply-demand imbalance) and still others were morale problems created by ordinary sexual tensions and jealousies across ranks. Officers getting sex while enlisted don't tend to create extreme resentment.
Suffice to say, not only did this lead to a lot of drama, it also greatly reduced the operational readiness of the unit in question.Replies: @Razib Khan, @iffen
Even the presence of ONE female in the mix can be highly detrimental, because it wrecks “the band of brotherhood” social dynamic.
for ground combat it seems unlikely that any infantry would be female with the same physical strength standards in the vast majority of units. 3 out of 1000 women are stronger in the upper body re: average male.
Keep in mind too that under the old regime women were disqualified from serving in combat units regardless of their role. So a woman couldn't be a medic in a combat unit for example.
With the obvious need to have at least some female soldiers present to negotiate certain cultural sensibilities in recent wars, this has led to convoluted and asinine situations where women were "attached to" but not a part of combat units. :/
Frankly, I find the whole "wrecking the social dynamic" argument too reminiscent of the arguments against homosexuals serving in the military, and the arguments in favour of racial segregation in the military. If having a woman in your unit wrecks your unit, there's serious problems with the quality and training in that unit that needs to be addressed.Replies: @Razib Khan, @Twinkie
Combat is not just a group of amorphous, interchangeable people putting in an X amount of input and creating a Y amount of output. It is a very social activity that depends greatly on morale and cohesion for success. Even the presence of ONE female in the mix can be highly detrimental, because it wrecks "the band of brotherhood" social dynamic. Men and women being what they are, presence of women among male warriors under enormous mental and physical tension and strain inevitably creates unnecessary and counterproductive social tension, jealousy, and so forth.
I do not wish to go into too much detail and it's not something you will read on a newspaper, but I will simply note that during a somewhat recent American military operation, most of the females at a particular forward location had to be evacuated for multiple reasons, some of which were pregnancy (and some of those pregnancies were willful - so as to be able to leave the hazardous area without penalty... and several of these women were married with their husbands stateside, which meant they were going to have abortions as soon as they had access to ob/gyn facilities before reuniting with their menfolk) while others were due to prostitution (some women were making A LOT of money due to the unique supply-demand imbalance) and still others were morale problems created by ordinary sexual tensions and jealousies across ranks. Officers getting sex while enlisted don't tend to create extreme resentment.
Suffice to say, not only did this lead to a lot of drama, it also greatly reduced the operational readiness of the unit in question.Replies: @Razib Khan, @iffen
If there are these problems in forward locations, (I take your word for it) then the damage is already there. Adding one or two more females per thousand could not make it any worse.
for ground combat it seems unlikely that any infantry would be female with the same physical strength standards in the vast majority of units. 3 out of 1000 women are stronger in the upper body re: average male.Replies: @CupOfCanada
3 women graduated from the United States Marine Corps School of Infantry in 2013. Even if it’s only 3 in 1000 who can meet the physical standards, I think it’s only fair to judge them equally on that basis, and not disqualify them from combat duty solely based on gender.
Keep in mind too that under the old regime women were disqualified from serving in combat units regardless of their role. So a woman couldn’t be a medic in a combat unit for example.
With the obvious need to have at least some female soldiers present to negotiate certain cultural sensibilities in recent wars, this has led to convoluted and asinine situations where women were “attached to” but not a part of combat units. :/
Frankly, I find the whole “wrecking the social dynamic” argument too reminiscent of the arguments against homosexuals serving in the military, and the arguments in favour of racial segregation in the military. If having a woman in your unit wrecks your unit, there’s serious problems with the quality and training in that unit that needs to be addressed.
they're reminiscent, but very different. there's a tendency to conflate race/sex/sexuality as if they're all interchangeable. they're not. obviously homosexual soldiers have served historically in armies. in fact, they served in armies outside the USA for a while without controversy (my roommate in college was from singapore). similarly, racially mixed units are not that exotic over world history. but the idea of 'amazons' is more exceptional. women warriors do occur, but they're not nearly as banal or typical as multi-ethnic armed forces.
as for the idea about better training, it's interesting to me that even the media often refers with some significance that "women and children" were killed, or that a football player sacrificed his life for 'two girls.' it's not the military you have to change in terms of some of these practices, but all of society. i'm broadly skeptical how effective this is going to be...because, well, biology.Replies: @Twinkie, @CupOfCanada
But that's very different from removing all restrictions. I am not opposed to women in combat - I already gave you all a very practical example from a foreign military force, of using specially trained females for very limited and specific roles where their employment is warranted and where their addition brings added value.I see you never had to deal with the repercussions of one subordinate accusing another subordinate, "He came into my tent at night and told me he wanted to suck my dick!" In the middle of an intense, life-and-death, situation.Racial differences are there, but are not qualitatively the same things as sexual differences. The closest analogue to war in civilian life is team sports. Black and white male players (or Hispanic and Asian males) can play football, live, make dirty jokes, and shower together, and develop a strong esprit de corps. Indeed, common military service (along with religion) are the two unifying factors that counteract the negative "diversity" effect per Robert Putnam's study.
What do you think is going to happen when you throw in a couple of females into the locker room just because they might be the rare few who can kick or throw a ball as well as some guys? And combat situations are orders of magnitude more intense than football games.
By the way, as an aside, it's no brainer that common background even beyond such stark and basic categories as sex and sexual orientation affect unit cohesion and morale. The British regimental system of recruitment is precisely based on the idea of the powerful bonding (and shaming) influence of the primary social group and shared, inherited traditions, and explains much of the famed durability of British army regiments ("Loses every battle but the last"). Nobody wants to be the one who cut and ran, abandoning his father, uncle, cousins, brothers, grade school chums, and neighbors behind in battle and returned back home to face the rest of the villagers. "A brave man dies but once, but a coward dies many deaths."You think that biological imperatives and basic elements of human nature can be neatly set aside by "more training"? That's very revolutionarily correct of you, comrade. Perhaps we can train people not to be greedy and do the whole "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" thing and get rid of prices and such. We just need more training, right?
Back in the real world, opposition to women in combat is much greater in elite units - precisely those with more training and professionalism than your average recruits, but ones that also happen to have much greater cohesion, morale, and operational readiness than your average units.
My wife is an accomplished athlete (was world class in college) and a very successful professional in her own right. I have always supported her desire to be so. I believe in opportunities for women, as a father of several daughters. But women in combat? As my wife says on the topic, "Get real!" Even though both my wife and I come from families with long history of military service, we would strongly discourage our daughters from joining combat arms even if they were capable and so inclined.
Now, I am by no means suggesting the introduction of women into combat units is going to make the sky fall and make evil triumph over America overnight. But such a step is going to create unnecessary and counterproductive problems that will lower combat power and increase friendly casualties in combat operations.
Yes, indeed. But these episodes occurred at a “secured” base (near, but not at, the forward edge of the battle areas).
Directly and willfully injecting females into sustained combat operations is another matter entirely.
Keep in mind too that under the old regime women were disqualified from serving in combat units regardless of their role. So a woman couldn't be a medic in a combat unit for example.
With the obvious need to have at least some female soldiers present to negotiate certain cultural sensibilities in recent wars, this has led to convoluted and asinine situations where women were "attached to" but not a part of combat units. :/
Frankly, I find the whole "wrecking the social dynamic" argument too reminiscent of the arguments against homosexuals serving in the military, and the arguments in favour of racial segregation in the military. If having a woman in your unit wrecks your unit, there's serious problems with the quality and training in that unit that needs to be addressed.Replies: @Razib Khan, @Twinkie
Frankly, I find the whole “wrecking the social dynamic” argument too reminiscent of the arguments against homosexuals serving in the military, and the arguments in favour of racial segregation in the military. If having a woman in your unit wrecks your unit, there’s serious problems with the quality and training in that unit that needs to be addressed.
they’re reminiscent, but very different. there’s a tendency to conflate race/sex/sexuality as if they’re all interchangeable. they’re not. obviously homosexual soldiers have served historically in armies. in fact, they served in armies outside the USA for a while without controversy (my roommate in college was from singapore). similarly, racially mixed units are not that exotic over world history. but the idea of ‘amazons’ is more exceptional. women warriors do occur, but they’re not nearly as banal or typical as multi-ethnic armed forces.
as for the idea about better training, it’s interesting to me that even the media often refers with some significance that “women and children” were killed, or that a football player sacrificed his life for ‘two girls.’ it’s not the military you have to change in terms of some of these practices, but all of society. i’m broadly skeptical how effective this is going to be…because, well, biology.
Closeted homosexuality is rarely a problem. "Oh, he's a bit odd, but he puts out for the team" (absolutely no sexual pun intended) would the extent of it, generally.
But open homosexuality can be very damaging to unit cohesion, especially for high-tempo, high-readiness combat units (if you are sitting in a nicely climate-controlled office with a chow hall serving the comforts from home nearby, that's a different story).
Why does that not count for historical experience by the way? We're not talking about a 50:50 army either here. We're talking something like 99:1 or 95:5 or the like. And the number of women that show up with weapons as grave goods among Vikings, steppe peoples, and even Roman military graves, I don't think having a handful of women in a largely male army was that unusual.
To be clear, when I say training, I'm not saying undoing every cultural and biological aspect of men's attitudes towards women. Just "don't do something stupid just because a woman is around." That's a fairly low bar.
@TwinkieIf one of your subordinates is going around asking people to suck his dick during a life and death situation, I'd suggest that the issue is with that subordinate, and not with the soldiers who declined his generous offer.
I'm not sure how familiar you are with the mechanics of fellatio, but men can perform it on men too just so you know.And according to General Cornum, she wasn't treated any worse than her male colleagues, and she'd prefer to be molested rather than have her teeth shattered while being tortured with electricity - which did happen to one of the colleagues she was with.The two are not mutually exclusive. According to the Marine Corps' own standards, these 3 women were equally capable of serving as Marines.Replies: @iffen, @reiner Tor
Keep in mind too that under the old regime women were disqualified from serving in combat units regardless of their role. So a woman couldn't be a medic in a combat unit for example.
With the obvious need to have at least some female soldiers present to negotiate certain cultural sensibilities in recent wars, this has led to convoluted and asinine situations where women were "attached to" but not a part of combat units. :/
Frankly, I find the whole "wrecking the social dynamic" argument too reminiscent of the arguments against homosexuals serving in the military, and the arguments in favour of racial segregation in the military. If having a woman in your unit wrecks your unit, there's serious problems with the quality and training in that unit that needs to be addressed.Replies: @Razib Khan, @Twinkie
They are not equals. They are biologically different.
Yes, yes, yes. Unintentional participation in combat can occur for non-combatant personnel. It happened long before the very recent wars (a well-noted case in recent memory happened in Desert Shield/Desert Storm when the then Major Rhonda Cornum’s helo was shot down, she was captured, and molested; thankfully for her, she was captured by a conventional military force and the hostilities ended soon).
But that’s very different from removing all restrictions. I am not opposed to women in combat – I already gave you all a very practical example from a foreign military force, of using specially trained females for very limited and specific roles where their employment is warranted and where their addition brings added value.
I see you never had to deal with the repercussions of one subordinate accusing another subordinate, “He came into my tent at night and told me he wanted to suck my dick!” In the middle of an intense, life-and-death, situation.
Racial differences are there, but are not qualitatively the same things as sexual differences. The closest analogue to war in civilian life is team sports. Black and white male players (or Hispanic and Asian males) can play football, live, make dirty jokes, and shower together, and develop a strong esprit de corps. Indeed, common military service (along with religion) are the two unifying factors that counteract the negative “diversity” effect per Robert Putnam’s study.
What do you think is going to happen when you throw in a couple of females into the locker room just because they might be the rare few who can kick or throw a ball as well as some guys? And combat situations are orders of magnitude more intense than football games.
By the way, as an aside, it’s no brainer that common background even beyond such stark and basic categories as sex and sexual orientation affect unit cohesion and morale. The British regimental system of recruitment is precisely based on the idea of the powerful bonding (and shaming) influence of the primary social group and shared, inherited traditions, and explains much of the famed durability of British army regiments (“Loses every battle but the last”). Nobody wants to be the one who cut and ran, abandoning his father, uncle, cousins, brothers, grade school chums, and neighbors behind in battle and returned back home to face the rest of the villagers. “A brave man dies but once, but a coward dies many deaths.”
You think that biological imperatives and basic elements of human nature can be neatly set aside by “more training”? That’s very revolutionarily correct of you, comrade. Perhaps we can train people not to be greedy and do the whole “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” thing and get rid of prices and such. We just need more training, right?
Back in the real world, opposition to women in combat is much greater in elite units – precisely those with more training and professionalism than your average recruits, but ones that also happen to have much greater cohesion, morale, and operational readiness than your average units.
My wife is an accomplished athlete (was world class in college) and a very successful professional in her own right. I have always supported her desire to be so. I believe in opportunities for women, as a father of several daughters. But women in combat? As my wife says on the topic, “Get real!” Even though both my wife and I come from families with long history of military service, we would strongly discourage our daughters from joining combat arms even if they were capable and so inclined.
Now, I am by no means suggesting the introduction of women into combat units is going to make the sky fall and make evil triumph over America overnight. But such a step is going to create unnecessary and counterproductive problems that will lower combat power and increase friendly casualties in combat operations.
they're reminiscent, but very different. there's a tendency to conflate race/sex/sexuality as if they're all interchangeable. they're not. obviously homosexual soldiers have served historically in armies. in fact, they served in armies outside the USA for a while without controversy (my roommate in college was from singapore). similarly, racially mixed units are not that exotic over world history. but the idea of 'amazons' is more exceptional. women warriors do occur, but they're not nearly as banal or typical as multi-ethnic armed forces.
as for the idea about better training, it's interesting to me that even the media often refers with some significance that "women and children" were killed, or that a football player sacrificed his life for 'two girls.' it's not the military you have to change in terms of some of these practices, but all of society. i'm broadly skeptical how effective this is going to be...because, well, biology.Replies: @Twinkie, @CupOfCanada
Of course, there were the well-known case of ancient Greeks (Spartans, Theban Sacred Band, etc.). But those cases likely involved mentoring and some intimate physical contact, not homosexuality as practiced in the modern times).
Closeted homosexuality is rarely a problem. “Oh, he’s a bit odd, but he puts out for the team” (absolutely no sexual pun intended) would the extent of it, generally.
But open homosexuality can be very damaging to unit cohesion, especially for high-tempo, high-readiness combat units (if you are sitting in a nicely climate-controlled office with a chow hall serving the comforts from home nearby, that’s a different story).
they're reminiscent, but very different. there's a tendency to conflate race/sex/sexuality as if they're all interchangeable. they're not. obviously homosexual soldiers have served historically in armies. in fact, they served in armies outside the USA for a while without controversy (my roommate in college was from singapore). similarly, racially mixed units are not that exotic over world history. but the idea of 'amazons' is more exceptional. women warriors do occur, but they're not nearly as banal or typical as multi-ethnic armed forces.
as for the idea about better training, it's interesting to me that even the media often refers with some significance that "women and children" were killed, or that a football player sacrificed his life for 'two girls.' it's not the military you have to change in terms of some of these practices, but all of society. i'm broadly skeptical how effective this is going to be...because, well, biology.Replies: @Twinkie, @CupOfCanada
Well, the vast majority of America’s NATO allies deploy women in combat roles. So one way or another, American soldiers are going to be fighting alongside women. There doesn’t seem to be a plague of issues with respect to that either, at least not according to the military folks I know here in Canada. Americans already fought alongside female soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans.
Why does that not count for historical experience by the way? We’re not talking about a 50:50 army either here. We’re talking something like 99:1 or 95:5 or the like. And the number of women that show up with weapons as grave goods among Vikings, steppe peoples, and even Roman military graves, I don’t think having a handful of women in a largely male army was that unusual.
To be clear, when I say training, I’m not saying undoing every cultural and biological aspect of men’s attitudes towards women. Just “don’t do something stupid just because a woman is around.” That’s a fairly low bar.
If one of your subordinates is going around asking people to suck his dick during a life and death situation, I’d suggest that the issue is with that subordinate, and not with the soldiers who declined his generous offer.
I’m not sure how familiar you are with the mechanics of fellatio, but men can perform it on men too just so you know.
And according to General Cornum, she wasn’t treated any worse than her male colleagues, and she’d prefer to be molested rather than have her teeth shattered while being tortured with electricity – which did happen to one of the colleagues she was with.
The two are not mutually exclusive. According to the Marine Corps’ own standards, these 3 women were equally capable of serving as Marines.
I think that you read that incorrectly.
“He came into my tent at night and told me he wanted to suck my dick!”
My first thought was what kind of esprit de corps do we have here when you won't let your buddy suck your dick if he wanted to. Then I decided I didn't want to trivialize the issue.
I think it is a very serious issue and I agree with most of Twink's points.Replies: @CupOfCanada
There should be an in that previous comment too. :/
Why does that not count for historical experience by the way? We're not talking about a 50:50 army either here. We're talking something like 99:1 or 95:5 or the like. And the number of women that show up with weapons as grave goods among Vikings, steppe peoples, and even Roman military graves, I don't think having a handful of women in a largely male army was that unusual.
To be clear, when I say training, I'm not saying undoing every cultural and biological aspect of men's attitudes towards women. Just "don't do something stupid just because a woman is around." That's a fairly low bar.
@TwinkieIf one of your subordinates is going around asking people to suck his dick during a life and death situation, I'd suggest that the issue is with that subordinate, and not with the soldiers who declined his generous offer.
I'm not sure how familiar you are with the mechanics of fellatio, but men can perform it on men too just so you know.And according to General Cornum, she wasn't treated any worse than her male colleagues, and she'd prefer to be molested rather than have her teeth shattered while being tortured with electricity - which did happen to one of the colleagues she was with.The two are not mutually exclusive. According to the Marine Corps' own standards, these 3 women were equally capable of serving as Marines.Replies: @iffen, @reiner Tor
If one of your subordinates is going around asking people to suck his dick
I think that you read that incorrectly.
“He came into my tent at night and told me he wanted to suck my dick!”
My first thought was what kind of esprit de corps do we have here when you won’t let your buddy suck your dick if he wanted to. Then I decided I didn’t want to trivialize the issue.
I think it is a very serious issue and I agree with most of Twink’s points.
I really don't think this is a serious issue though. I'll be honest - I haven't personally served in the military. I trust the judgement of the people I know who have though, and who served in combat alongside women, and who didn't see it as an issue.
I also trust the judgement of our Minister of National Defense, Lieutenant Colonel Harjit Sajjan, a man who has ample combat experience, and who is not the kind of person to put up with bullshit from anyone. If he felt that women serving in our military was a problem, he would do something about it. And if we can make it work, so can the United States. http://www.nationalobserver.com/2015/11/04/opinion/you-have-no-idea-how-badass-trudeaus-defence-minister-really
I also think it's ludicrous to suggest that people like Captain Nichola Goddard, Trooper Karine Blais or Master Cpl. Kristal Giesebrecht were liabilities to their units.
Nor have I heard any complaints about the quality or competence of the Canadian units that served under American command in Kandahar from 2006-2010.Replies: @iffen
Why does that not count for historical experience by the way? We're not talking about a 50:50 army either here. We're talking something like 99:1 or 95:5 or the like. And the number of women that show up with weapons as grave goods among Vikings, steppe peoples, and even Roman military graves, I don't think having a handful of women in a largely male army was that unusual.
To be clear, when I say training, I'm not saying undoing every cultural and biological aspect of men's attitudes towards women. Just "don't do something stupid just because a woman is around." That's a fairly low bar.
@TwinkieIf one of your subordinates is going around asking people to suck his dick during a life and death situation, I'd suggest that the issue is with that subordinate, and not with the soldiers who declined his generous offer.
I'm not sure how familiar you are with the mechanics of fellatio, but men can perform it on men too just so you know.And according to General Cornum, she wasn't treated any worse than her male colleagues, and she'd prefer to be molested rather than have her teeth shattered while being tortured with electricity - which did happen to one of the colleagues she was with.The two are not mutually exclusive. According to the Marine Corps' own standards, these 3 women were equally capable of serving as Marines.Replies: @iffen, @reiner Tor
How do you know the accuser is telling the truth, only the truth, the whole truth?
I think that you read that incorrectly.
“He came into my tent at night and told me he wanted to suck my dick!”
My first thought was what kind of esprit de corps do we have here when you won't let your buddy suck your dick if he wanted to. Then I decided I didn't want to trivialize the issue.
I think it is a very serious issue and I agree with most of Twink's points.Replies: @CupOfCanada
You’re right, I did misread that. I struggle to see the relevance now though. What does one guy offering to felate another guy have to do with women serving in combat?
I really don’t think this is a serious issue though. I’ll be honest – I haven’t personally served in the military. I trust the judgement of the people I know who have though, and who served in combat alongside women, and who didn’t see it as an issue.
I also trust the judgement of our Minister of National Defense, Lieutenant Colonel Harjit Sajjan, a man who has ample combat experience, and who is not the kind of person to put up with bullshit from anyone. If he felt that women serving in our military was a problem, he would do something about it. And if we can make it work, so can the United States. http://www.nationalobserver.com/2015/11/04/opinion/you-have-no-idea-how-badass-trudeaus-defence-minister-really
I also think it’s ludicrous to suggest that people like Captain Nichola Goddard, Trooper Karine Blais or Master Cpl. Kristal Giesebrecht were liabilities to their units.
Nor have I heard any complaints about the quality or competence of the Canadian units that served under American command in Kandahar from 2006-2010.
Not to take anything away from Canada's military but I assume that they are similar to ours (US).
I don't recall any of our Chiefs of Staff or other high ranking officers resigning because they disagree with the political direction given by the civilians.
I do know that our Marine Corps recommended against combat assignment for females and this was based upon an extended and transparent study. They were overruled by a political appointee.
I very much disagree with the idea that this is not a serious issue and the use of descriptors such as ludicrous.Replies: @CupOfCanada
I really don't think this is a serious issue though. I'll be honest - I haven't personally served in the military. I trust the judgement of the people I know who have though, and who served in combat alongside women, and who didn't see it as an issue.
I also trust the judgement of our Minister of National Defense, Lieutenant Colonel Harjit Sajjan, a man who has ample combat experience, and who is not the kind of person to put up with bullshit from anyone. If he felt that women serving in our military was a problem, he would do something about it. And if we can make it work, so can the United States. http://www.nationalobserver.com/2015/11/04/opinion/you-have-no-idea-how-badass-trudeaus-defence-minister-really
I also think it's ludicrous to suggest that people like Captain Nichola Goddard, Trooper Karine Blais or Master Cpl. Kristal Giesebrecht were liabilities to their units.
Nor have I heard any complaints about the quality or competence of the Canadian units that served under American command in Kandahar from 2006-2010.Replies: @iffen
Maybe Twinkie meant she instead of he.
Not to take anything away from Canada’s military but I assume that they are similar to ours (US).
I don’t recall any of our Chiefs of Staff or other high ranking officers resigning because they disagree with the political direction given by the civilians.
I do know that our Marine Corps recommended against combat assignment for females and this was based upon an extended and transparent study. They were overruled by a political appointee.
I very much disagree with the idea that this is not a serious issue and the use of descriptors such as ludicrous.
It's worth noting that only 0.4% of Canadian infantry are women though - which is very very close to Razib's 0.3% figure. So in practical terms, with a competent physical standard (which the Marines lack right now for both men and women), we're talking mostly about non-infantry combat roles. In the case of Captain Nichola Goddard, she was serving as an artillery spotter. Her job was to direct artillery and mortar fire at the enemy.
I'd note too that the maximum BMI for marine recruits is 27.5 for men and 25 for women - so the Marines are already excluding women with greater muscle mass through this rather bizarre rule.Right. My point is that the person giving that political direction is a Lieutenant Colonel who has been decorated by both the Canadian and US militaries. There is no civilian oversight in this case - he's not even a former soldier, but a current soldier (and yes people have raised that particular issue as a concern). The person responsible for setting government and military policy with respect to women in combat is someone who fought alongside women in Kandahar and Yugoslavia.That's also true for ending racial segregation in the US armed forces. Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981 in 1948.
I'm not sure by what standard you call that study transparent by the way. They released an executive summary that did not the reflect the report itself, and the only reason we saw the report was because it was leaked against the wishes of the Marine Core. When it was released, it showed that instead of setting physical standards like all the other branches of the military, the Marines instead opted to compare the average female recruit to the average male recruit. Which is absolutely idiotic, and raises serious questions not about the suitability of allowing women who meet physical standards to take on combat rules, but rather about the basic competence of the Marine Core at conducting research. Seriously - in all other branches of the military, there are physical standards that must be met to be assigned a combat role. In the Marines, the only requirement is having been born with a penis, and this results in a great deal of "wastage" - ie men who don't meet an adequate physical standard.
I'm surprised you brought that up at all though. Issues with the physical data aside, that study debunked virtually all of the social issues that Twinkie raised. It showed no increased risk with respect to sexual harassment and no issues with respect to morale. In fact, it actually showed that mixed units had better combat decision making and better discipline. It supports my view more than anything - which is that adequate physical standards for each position would adequately resolve any issues with respect to women in combat and ultimately limit infantry deployment to a very small number of women, and that there are no meaningful issues with respect to women serving in non-infantry combat roles.
Here's the most complete copy of the report I could find:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/15/us/final-report-no-annexes.html
Razib - I'd be interested in your take on it too. It seems to contradict any concerns on the social/cultural side, and shows actual advantages in that respect.Do you honestly feel that the service of any of those three women I mentioned was to the detriment of their respective units?Replies: @iffen, @Twinkie
Not to take anything away from Canada's military but I assume that they are similar to ours (US).
I don't recall any of our Chiefs of Staff or other high ranking officers resigning because they disagree with the political direction given by the civilians.
I do know that our Marine Corps recommended against combat assignment for females and this was based upon an extended and transparent study. They were overruled by a political appointee.
I very much disagree with the idea that this is not a serious issue and the use of descriptors such as ludicrous.Replies: @CupOfCanada
Twinkie will have to clarify. Definitely makes a difference doesn’t it.
More or less. In Kandahar they served under US command. It’s NATO – each country’s military is meant to be fairly comparable.
It’s worth noting that only 0.4% of Canadian infantry are women though – which is very very close to Razib’s 0.3% figure. So in practical terms, with a competent physical standard (which the Marines lack right now for both men and women), we’re talking mostly about non-infantry combat roles. In the case of Captain Nichola Goddard, she was serving as an artillery spotter. Her job was to direct artillery and mortar fire at the enemy.
I’d note too that the maximum BMI for marine recruits is 27.5 for men and 25 for women – so the Marines are already excluding women with greater muscle mass through this rather bizarre rule.
Right. My point is that the person giving that political direction is a Lieutenant Colonel who has been decorated by both the Canadian and US militaries. There is no civilian oversight in this case – he’s not even a former soldier, but a current soldier (and yes people have raised that particular issue as a concern). The person responsible for setting government and military policy with respect to women in combat is someone who fought alongside women in Kandahar and Yugoslavia.
That’s also true for ending racial segregation in the US armed forces. Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981 in 1948.
I’m not sure by what standard you call that study transparent by the way. They released an executive summary that did not the reflect the report itself, and the only reason we saw the report was because it was leaked against the wishes of the Marine Core. When it was released, it showed that instead of setting physical standards like all the other branches of the military, the Marines instead opted to compare the average female recruit to the average male recruit. Which is absolutely idiotic, and raises serious questions not about the suitability of allowing women who meet physical standards to take on combat rules, but rather about the basic competence of the Marine Core at conducting research. Seriously – in all other branches of the military, there are physical standards that must be met to be assigned a combat role. In the Marines, the only requirement is having been born with a penis, and this results in a great deal of “wastage” – ie men who don’t meet an adequate physical standard.
I’m surprised you brought that up at all though. Issues with the physical data aside, that study debunked virtually all of the social issues that Twinkie raised. It showed no increased risk with respect to sexual harassment and no issues with respect to morale. In fact, it actually showed that mixed units had better combat decision making and better discipline. It supports my view more than anything – which is that adequate physical standards for each position would adequately resolve any issues with respect to women in combat and ultimately limit infantry deployment to a very small number of women, and that there are no meaningful issues with respect to women serving in non-infantry combat roles.
Here’s the most complete copy of the report I could find:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/15/us/final-report-no-annexes.html
Razib – I’d be interested in your take on it too. It seems to contradict any concerns on the social/cultural side, and shows actual advantages in that respect.
Do you honestly feel that the service of any of those three women I mentioned was to the detriment of their respective units?
Razib put a caveat in about conflating race, sex and sexual behavior and I think that warning is warranted.
I read the NYT article that you provided. I did not read the 80 page report. This is what I consider to be the important point:
the study that said female Marines were slower, less accurate with weapons and had more injuries than men.
We can put that aside and say that there are more important political considerations which we should use to make the decision, which, in fact, was what was done. I knew as well as anyone that the study would be set aside and women would be integrated into combat units. The point here is the one that Razib made and that is that at some point the agitation will be that women are not represented in proportion to their overall numbers. At that point the above results will be completely ignored.
The racial integration of the US forces by Truman was by any standard just and correct.
Even so, we can see that under extreme conditions (Viet Nam War and a draftee force) the racial fissure opened up and we had race riots and mutinies.
I honor and appreciate the combat contributions that female soldiers have made. You seem to imply that not fully accepting females into integrated combat units somehow diminishes that appreciation. I do not accept that as true.Replies: @CupOfCanada
And cohesion is absolutely essential. Men have to feel like they are close brothers to fight together effectively. Without that cohesion, that ironclad mutual trust and dependence, morale and fighting spirit break down quickly, and "every man for himself" raises its ugly head, which is just death in a crisis. Adding sexual tension, miscommunication, and volatility is a recipe for disaster, because it contributes toward a, for lack of a better term, prison-like predatory environment as well a very politically correct one ripe with accusations (true or not) and complaints.
In the case I alluded, the accused was found not guilty judicially (due to lack of evidence/corroborating witness). But he had to be transferred to another unit, because the rest of the unit would not work with him amicably.No. NATO and other coalition countries are not all equal in combat unit quality. There is a very wide variance. Generally, most countries' special forces units are high quality, but in terms of readiness and combat performance there is a wide gulf between, say, an American Army or Marine Corps battalion that has had much and widely varied combat experience in the Sunni Triangle in Iraq and, say, a South Korean battalion that sat all nice and cozy in Irbil hanging out with the grateful Kurds (yes, I know ROK is not a NATO country, but it contributed the third largest contingent of coalition forces in Iraq at one time). Forget about an Italian or a Greek unit that's been sitting at home eating comfy meals, wearing natty uniforms, and hanging out with the girls outside barracks.
Your country's military punches above its weight. The Canadian special forces, in particular, are excellent. Moreover, they have been loyal partners to the American war effort - I am never going to say a bad word about the Canadian military, especially its combat units.
However, the Canadian military is quite small, and its experiences cannot necessarily scale up. And on top of that, it's not all cookies and cream for women even in the Canadian military: http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/military-culture-hostile-to-women-gays-says-explosive-canadian-armed-forces-report
Now, the article describes these issues as structural "problems" to be overcome in the quest for an left-wing egalitarian ideology. In reality, warriors - fighting men - simply don't want open homosexuals and women amongst them. It's that simple.
Furthermore, you seem to think that a woman who can do as many pushups as a man makes her a functional equivalent of a man. That's simply not the case. Men can't get pregnant. Men don't require ob/gyn facilities. Men have drastically reduced hygienic requirements (that's a lot of extraneous logistics effort for that "0.4%" female combat personnel). Men don't attract other (heterosexual) men sexually and make them drool and do stupid things to show off. Men don't break down as easily when carrying heavy loads over a long distance. Muscle mass is not the only issue - more than strength disparity, the biggest biomechanical problem women have is that they are injured at vastly higher rates (2x-3x) for carrying heavy loads over a long distance (I am not a biologist, but I think it has much to do with skeletal structure and bone density as well as muscle density).
It doesn't matter if that ONE woman in a SOCOM unit looks like Brooke Ence. She still has breasts and vagina, and that's going to cause a lot of issues and tension that degrade unit cohesion.
There is a reason why rates of sexual assault go up dramatically in a wartime military - men who see death all around them, who face death (which is very capricious in combat), who go through mind-numbing monotony, repetition, and boredom daily punctuated by moments of utter danger and fear of death and injury when on combat missions (which consequently result in a great deal of tension), tend to want to fuck a woman very badly (and not have a gentle, tender, romantic love-making). Throwing in a woman or two into this combustible mix, even if they look like comic book super heroes, IS going to create unnecessary problems.
And I have not even addressed other problems, of which there are many. For example, male soldiers sometimes tend to prioritize protecting women and children over completing missions. If, for example, a group of men and a woman under my command were captured alongside me, I'd probably resist torture for a good while. I would likely resist the torture of my men for a good while too ("Suck it up and don't break, men! Show these goat-fuckers what we are made of!"). I cannot say confidently, however, that I would not break if our captors violated and tortured a woman under my command, in front me, every which way possible. I might break quickly. There is just something unbearable about seeing a woman on my side being broken by my enemies. That's likely one of several reasons why ancient warriors whose city was about to be breached by their enemies slew their own women and children, before facing death at the hands of their conquerors... because watching their women and children be violated by the enemy was worse than death and worse than watching them die.
Rhonda Cornum is made of tough stuff. There is no doubt about it. But she was somewhat fortunate that she was captured by a conventional, uniformed opponent force (that was nominally a signatory to various international conventions regarding war) and that the war ended quickly. If she had been captured by, say, the Taliban or Iraqi insurgents, things would have been very different for her and for her male comrades. Even if she could resist the horrible violations, I don't think the men captured with her could resist HER suffering.No. Far from it.
I don't care what various high-ranking commanders and generals say. You don't rise in the military today unless you are a politician who deftly navigates the terrain set by civilian masters. The fact that something like 80-90% of SOCOM junior officers and enlisted do not want women in their ranks should speak loud and clear about what the real fighting men think of women in combat.
Finally, you seem fixated about "fairness" for women. That's fine and, perhaps even worthy, in peacetime, but the purpose of a military is to win - to crush your enemy and impose your will upon it. It's not bean bags. Social engineering has no place where lives are at stake and where the safety of your nation and people is at stake.
You don’t, which is part of his point. Potential for sexual harassment–be it real or a fake accusation–goes up when openly gay folks are serving. I actually suspect the latter problem (fake accusations) would be the more serious problem.
It's worth noting that only 0.4% of Canadian infantry are women though - which is very very close to Razib's 0.3% figure. So in practical terms, with a competent physical standard (which the Marines lack right now for both men and women), we're talking mostly about non-infantry combat roles. In the case of Captain Nichola Goddard, she was serving as an artillery spotter. Her job was to direct artillery and mortar fire at the enemy.
I'd note too that the maximum BMI for marine recruits is 27.5 for men and 25 for women - so the Marines are already excluding women with greater muscle mass through this rather bizarre rule.Right. My point is that the person giving that political direction is a Lieutenant Colonel who has been decorated by both the Canadian and US militaries. There is no civilian oversight in this case - he's not even a former soldier, but a current soldier (and yes people have raised that particular issue as a concern). The person responsible for setting government and military policy with respect to women in combat is someone who fought alongside women in Kandahar and Yugoslavia.That's also true for ending racial segregation in the US armed forces. Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981 in 1948.
I'm not sure by what standard you call that study transparent by the way. They released an executive summary that did not the reflect the report itself, and the only reason we saw the report was because it was leaked against the wishes of the Marine Core. When it was released, it showed that instead of setting physical standards like all the other branches of the military, the Marines instead opted to compare the average female recruit to the average male recruit. Which is absolutely idiotic, and raises serious questions not about the suitability of allowing women who meet physical standards to take on combat rules, but rather about the basic competence of the Marine Core at conducting research. Seriously - in all other branches of the military, there are physical standards that must be met to be assigned a combat role. In the Marines, the only requirement is having been born with a penis, and this results in a great deal of "wastage" - ie men who don't meet an adequate physical standard.
I'm surprised you brought that up at all though. Issues with the physical data aside, that study debunked virtually all of the social issues that Twinkie raised. It showed no increased risk with respect to sexual harassment and no issues with respect to morale. In fact, it actually showed that mixed units had better combat decision making and better discipline. It supports my view more than anything - which is that adequate physical standards for each position would adequately resolve any issues with respect to women in combat and ultimately limit infantry deployment to a very small number of women, and that there are no meaningful issues with respect to women serving in non-infantry combat roles.
Here's the most complete copy of the report I could find:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/15/us/final-report-no-annexes.html
Razib - I'd be interested in your take on it too. It seems to contradict any concerns on the social/cultural side, and shows actual advantages in that respect.Do you honestly feel that the service of any of those three women I mentioned was to the detriment of their respective units?Replies: @iffen, @Twinkie
I went back and re-read the thread. The he in Twinkie’s quote is accurate as he was referring to problems caused by open homosexuality.
Razib put a caveat in about conflating race, sex and sexual behavior and I think that warning is warranted.
I read the NYT article that you provided. I did not read the 80 page report. This is what I consider to be the important point:
the study that said female Marines were slower, less accurate with weapons and had more injuries than men.
We can put that aside and say that there are more important political considerations which we should use to make the decision, which, in fact, was what was done. I knew as well as anyone that the study would be set aside and women would be integrated into combat units. The point here is the one that Razib made and that is that at some point the agitation will be that women are not represented in proportion to their overall numbers. At that point the above results will be completely ignored.
The racial integration of the US forces by Truman was by any standard just and correct.
Even so, we can see that under extreme conditions (Viet Nam War and a draftee force) the racial fissure opened up and we had race riots and mutinies.
I honor and appreciate the combat contributions that female soldiers have made. You seem to imply that not fully accepting females into integrated combat units somehow diminishes that appreciation. I do not accept that as true.
On the proportional comment - I don't think concerns about the infantry becoming 50% female are really valid reasons for barring the 0.4% of women that could meet the physical requirements. The 50% thing is just a straw man, if it becomes more than that, then that's the time to object. It's even less reason to object to women serving as medics and artillery spotters. Canada's had fully integrated armed forces for 25 years, and we still use physical requirements (and interest) as a filter, and there doesn't seem to be any push to change that. As mentioned before, our infantry is just 0.4% female.Replies: @iffen
You’re obliviously very educated and knowledgeable, especially in your field. You state you don’t like discussing intellectual topics with average intelligence people but you don’t strike me as being more than one to two standard deviations above the norm. From reading your blog for the last few years you strike me as a bright bio/social sci prof at a UC Santa Cruz type uni but not a comp sci/logic/math prof. I understand discussing a topic with someone not well versed on the subject is pointless and aggravating when the other party is too ignorant to understand their depth of ignorance. I just want to remind you not to confuse subject matter knowledge with intelligence.
Any how, I and I think most others read you not because of your profound brilliance but because your that bright soul that informs us on the latest on humans and genetics with out regard to political correctness. Not only do you brave into un-p.c. waters but you also, along with jayman, are a “minority” that is willing to discuss these matters in an objective manner. Not that your minorty status, as you well know, affords you any protection. F–k the New York Times.
Thanks for your work.
Merry xmas Razib
He was being kind. I honestly feel bad for you if you aspire for Maggie gyllenhall type girls.
Any how, I and I think most others read you not because of your profound brilliance but because your that bright soul that informs us on the latest on humans and genetics with out regard to political correctness. Not only do you brave into un-p.c. waters but you also, along with jayman, are a "minority" that is willing to discuss these matters in an objective manner. Not that your minorty status, as you well know, affords you any protection. F--k the New York Times.
Thanks for your work.
Merry xmas RazibReplies: @Razib Khan
U need to read me closer if you’re uninformed enough to think a professor at uc Santa Cruz would only be 1 to 2 sds!!! 🙂 look up some tables on iq & professions; I’m pretty sure u have weak intuition on this. Also, I don’t care why ppl read me. I get paid & it has paid off professionally. That is all. I don’t think about readers beyond about 20.
Razib put a caveat in about conflating race, sex and sexual behavior and I think that warning is warranted.
I read the NYT article that you provided. I did not read the 80 page report. This is what I consider to be the important point:
the study that said female Marines were slower, less accurate with weapons and had more injuries than men.
We can put that aside and say that there are more important political considerations which we should use to make the decision, which, in fact, was what was done. I knew as well as anyone that the study would be set aside and women would be integrated into combat units. The point here is the one that Razib made and that is that at some point the agitation will be that women are not represented in proportion to their overall numbers. At that point the above results will be completely ignored.
The racial integration of the US forces by Truman was by any standard just and correct.
Even so, we can see that under extreme conditions (Viet Nam War and a draftee force) the racial fissure opened up and we had race riots and mutinies.
I honor and appreciate the combat contributions that female soldiers have made. You seem to imply that not fully accepting females into integrated combat units somehow diminishes that appreciation. I do not accept that as true.Replies: @CupOfCanada
Read the full paper I posted above. Those quotes are all comparisons of the average female recruit to the average male recruit. I do think
On the proportional comment – I don’t think concerns about the infantry becoming 50% female are really valid reasons for barring the 0.4% of women that could meet the physical requirements. The 50% thing is just a straw man, if it becomes more than that, then that’s the time to object. It’s even less reason to object to women serving as medics and artillery spotters. Canada’s had fully integrated armed forces for 25 years, and we still use physical requirements (and interest) as a filter, and there doesn’t seem to be any push to change that. As mentioned before, our infantry is just 0.4% female.
The issue is political. I made up my mind before any reports, just as you did, as did the political appointees. You disregard or minimize any evidence that does not support your position such as Twink’s information on the experience of the Israeli military, and look at the Canadian military because that supports your view. This is normal; everybody does it.
Women, even the ones that meet a certain physical standard, will have more injuries than men of a comparable standard. Will that degrade the capability of the units? Yes. Will that cause the downfall of the military? No.
The full integration of women, open homosexuals and different races into the military has to be decided politically. Is the political benefit of the integration such that it should be done regardless of any real or imagined problems? For racial integration, the answer is yes; integration of women and open homosexuals, no.
Check this out: http://www.religjournal.com/pdf/ijrr10001.pdf
On the proportional comment - I don't think concerns about the infantry becoming 50% female are really valid reasons for barring the 0.4% of women that could meet the physical requirements. The 50% thing is just a straw man, if it becomes more than that, then that's the time to object. It's even less reason to object to women serving as medics and artillery spotters. Canada's had fully integrated armed forces for 25 years, and we still use physical requirements (and interest) as a filter, and there doesn't seem to be any push to change that. As mentioned before, our infantry is just 0.4% female.Replies: @iffen
I am not going to read the full report. I have a history book Q that will take all of my time even if God disregards all my blasphemies and grants me an average number of years.
The issue is political. I made up my mind before any reports, just as you did, as did the political appointees. You disregard or minimize any evidence that does not support your position such as Twink’s information on the experience of the Israeli military, and look at the Canadian military because that supports your view. This is normal; everybody does it.
Women, even the ones that meet a certain physical standard, will have more injuries than men of a comparable standard. Will that degrade the capability of the units? Yes. Will that cause the downfall of the military? No.
The full integration of women, open homosexuals and different races into the military has to be decided politically. Is the political benefit of the integration such that it should be done regardless of any real or imagined problems? For racial integration, the answer is yes; integration of women and open homosexuals, no.
I have looked up some tables on iq and professions. That was the my basis of the range I estimated. I did another quick google search and the papers I found matched the range in my previous estimate. Regardless, I trust you’re more knowledge about this. After all, I’m reading you and not vice versa.
professors at an R1 university are going to > 2 sigmas (ucsc is an R1 university and its biosci is one of its better programs). though sociology professors may not be up to this standard…
It's worth noting that only 0.4% of Canadian infantry are women though - which is very very close to Razib's 0.3% figure. So in practical terms, with a competent physical standard (which the Marines lack right now for both men and women), we're talking mostly about non-infantry combat roles. In the case of Captain Nichola Goddard, she was serving as an artillery spotter. Her job was to direct artillery and mortar fire at the enemy.
I'd note too that the maximum BMI for marine recruits is 27.5 for men and 25 for women - so the Marines are already excluding women with greater muscle mass through this rather bizarre rule.Right. My point is that the person giving that political direction is a Lieutenant Colonel who has been decorated by both the Canadian and US militaries. There is no civilian oversight in this case - he's not even a former soldier, but a current soldier (and yes people have raised that particular issue as a concern). The person responsible for setting government and military policy with respect to women in combat is someone who fought alongside women in Kandahar and Yugoslavia.That's also true for ending racial segregation in the US armed forces. Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981 in 1948.
I'm not sure by what standard you call that study transparent by the way. They released an executive summary that did not the reflect the report itself, and the only reason we saw the report was because it was leaked against the wishes of the Marine Core. When it was released, it showed that instead of setting physical standards like all the other branches of the military, the Marines instead opted to compare the average female recruit to the average male recruit. Which is absolutely idiotic, and raises serious questions not about the suitability of allowing women who meet physical standards to take on combat rules, but rather about the basic competence of the Marine Core at conducting research. Seriously - in all other branches of the military, there are physical standards that must be met to be assigned a combat role. In the Marines, the only requirement is having been born with a penis, and this results in a great deal of "wastage" - ie men who don't meet an adequate physical standard.
I'm surprised you brought that up at all though. Issues with the physical data aside, that study debunked virtually all of the social issues that Twinkie raised. It showed no increased risk with respect to sexual harassment and no issues with respect to morale. In fact, it actually showed that mixed units had better combat decision making and better discipline. It supports my view more than anything - which is that adequate physical standards for each position would adequately resolve any issues with respect to women in combat and ultimately limit infantry deployment to a very small number of women, and that there are no meaningful issues with respect to women serving in non-infantry combat roles.
Here's the most complete copy of the report I could find:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/15/us/final-report-no-annexes.html
Razib - I'd be interested in your take on it too. It seems to contradict any concerns on the social/cultural side, and shows actual advantages in that respect.Do you honestly feel that the service of any of those three women I mentioned was to the detriment of their respective units?Replies: @iffen, @Twinkie
I was quite clear. Open homosexuality creates a lot of problems, the most important of which is the degradation of unit cohesion. Men who fight together bunk together, shower together, eat together, bleed together, and so on. There is a lot of intimate contact.
And cohesion is absolutely essential. Men have to feel like they are close brothers to fight together effectively. Without that cohesion, that ironclad mutual trust and dependence, morale and fighting spirit break down quickly, and “every man for himself” raises its ugly head, which is just death in a crisis. Adding sexual tension, miscommunication, and volatility is a recipe for disaster, because it contributes toward a, for lack of a better term, prison-like predatory environment as well a very politically correct one ripe with accusations (true or not) and complaints.
In the case I alluded, the accused was found not guilty judicially (due to lack of evidence/corroborating witness). But he had to be transferred to another unit, because the rest of the unit would not work with him amicably.
No. NATO and other coalition countries are not all equal in combat unit quality. There is a very wide variance. Generally, most countries’ special forces units are high quality, but in terms of readiness and combat performance there is a wide gulf between, say, an American Army or Marine Corps battalion that has had much and widely varied combat experience in the Sunni Triangle in Iraq and, say, a South Korean battalion that sat all nice and cozy in Irbil hanging out with the grateful Kurds (yes, I know ROK is not a NATO country, but it contributed the third largest contingent of coalition forces in Iraq at one time). Forget about an Italian or a Greek unit that’s been sitting at home eating comfy meals, wearing natty uniforms, and hanging out with the girls outside barracks.
Your country’s military punches above its weight. The Canadian special forces, in particular, are excellent. Moreover, they have been loyal partners to the American war effort – I am never going to say a bad word about the Canadian military, especially its combat units.
However, the Canadian military is quite small, and its experiences cannot necessarily scale up. And on top of that, it’s not all cookies and cream for women even in the Canadian military: http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/military-culture-hostile-to-women-gays-says-explosive-canadian-armed-forces-report
Now, the article describes these issues as structural “problems” to be overcome in the quest for an left-wing egalitarian ideology. In reality, warriors – fighting men – simply don’t want open homosexuals and women amongst them. It’s that simple.
Furthermore, you seem to think that a woman who can do as many pushups as a man makes her a functional equivalent of a man. That’s simply not the case. Men can’t get pregnant. Men don’t require ob/gyn facilities. Men have drastically reduced hygienic requirements (that’s a lot of extraneous logistics effort for that “0.4%” female combat personnel). Men don’t attract other (heterosexual) men sexually and make them drool and do stupid things to show off. Men don’t break down as easily when carrying heavy loads over a long distance. Muscle mass is not the only issue – more than strength disparity, the biggest biomechanical problem women have is that they are injured at vastly higher rates (2x-3x) for carrying heavy loads over a long distance (I am not a biologist, but I think it has much to do with skeletal structure and bone density as well as muscle density).
It doesn’t matter if that ONE woman in a SOCOM unit looks like Brooke Ence. She still has breasts and vagina, and that’s going to cause a lot of issues and tension that degrade unit cohesion.
There is a reason why rates of sexual assault go up dramatically in a wartime military – men who see death all around them, who face death (which is very capricious in combat), who go through mind-numbing monotony, repetition, and boredom daily punctuated by moments of utter danger and fear of death and injury when on combat missions (which consequently result in a great deal of tension), tend to want to fuck a woman very badly (and not have a gentle, tender, romantic love-making). Throwing in a woman or two into this combustible mix, even if they look like comic book super heroes, IS going to create unnecessary problems.
And I have not even addressed other problems, of which there are many. For example, male soldiers sometimes tend to prioritize protecting women and children over completing missions. If, for example, a group of men and a woman under my command were captured alongside me, I’d probably resist torture for a good while. I would likely resist the torture of my men for a good while too (“Suck it up and don’t break, men! Show these goat-fuckers what we are made of!”). I cannot say confidently, however, that I would not break if our captors violated and tortured a woman under my command, in front me, every which way possible. I might break quickly. There is just something unbearable about seeing a woman on my side being broken by my enemies. That’s likely one of several reasons why ancient warriors whose city was about to be breached by their enemies slew their own women and children, before facing death at the hands of their conquerors… because watching their women and children be violated by the enemy was worse than death and worse than watching them die.
Rhonda Cornum is made of tough stuff. There is no doubt about it. But she was somewhat fortunate that she was captured by a conventional, uniformed opponent force (that was nominally a signatory to various international conventions regarding war) and that the war ended quickly. If she had been captured by, say, the Taliban or Iraqi insurgents, things would have been very different for her and for her male comrades. Even if she could resist the horrible violations, I don’t think the men captured with her could resist HER suffering.
No. Far from it.
I don’t care what various high-ranking commanders and generals say. You don’t rise in the military today unless you are a politician who deftly navigates the terrain set by civilian masters. The fact that something like 80-90% of SOCOM junior officers and enlisted do not want women in their ranks should speak loud and clear about what the real fighting men think of women in combat.
Finally, you seem fixated about “fairness” for women. That’s fine and, perhaps even worthy, in peacetime, but the purpose of a military is to win – to crush your enemy and impose your will upon it. It’s not bean bags. Social engineering has no place where lives are at stake and where the safety of your nation and people is at stake.