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aurelius



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Mick Harper wrote:

If we take the whole of history i.e. 3000 BC to 2000 AD it is reasonably apparent that all intellectual output (that we know about) was from men.

This is not the same as intellectual women being around from time to time. In fact it is striking that we can have the former without the latter.


Hildegard of Bingen being a notable exception.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildegard_of_Bingen
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Mick Harper
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In what sense is Hildey powerful? We have already established that there are, from time to time, both powerful women and intellectual women. The two never coincide but then again I cannot think of many (any?) men who are both powerful and intellectual (except insofar as they may be influential as intellectuals).

The point here is that one would have thought that powerful women might encourage female intellectuality but, it seems, they never do. It is only in hyper-modern times that there are determined attempts by women to encourage female intellectuality--but only as an adjunct to advances in all spheres. Hyper-modern powerful women, e.g. Margaret Thatcher, are noticeably dismissive about the whole thing.

Powerful men of course do not need to encourage intellectual men (there are plenty of those already) but we might note that certain possibly mythical men (King Alfred being one) are held up as examples of powerful and intellectual men who do encourage intellectuality, but only when some interest or other wants an exemplar (and there aren't allegedly plenty of intellectual anything around at the time).
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Grant



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I think it is reasonable to assume it was (2) men that were holding women back.


If I may use the razor of Mr Occam (not sure if he's an applied epistemologist) there is a simpler explanation. Women's brains are smaller. Even once you allow for men's increased body size, the average man has another 100g of brain matter. That's about the size of a cooked burger.

Even IQ tests have to be weighted to ensure men and women achieve the same average score. On most mental tests men's average score is higher.

By the way, don't mention this outside this forum
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Mick Harper
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Irrespective of brain size, women are perfectly capable of becoming intellectuals, so this cannot be the explanation for their historical scarcity. If your thesis is valid, there would either be no women intellectuals or merely fewer female intellectuals than male ones. Since the actual number is 100-1, 1000-1 or whatever, yours cannot be the explanation.
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Boreades


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Grant wrote:
If I may use the razor of Mr Occam (not sure if he's an applied epistemologist) there is a simpler explanation. Women's brains are smaller. Even once you allow for men's increased body size, the average man has another 100g of brain matter. That's about the size of a cooked burger.


"Size capacity" does not equate to "mental capacity". Women's brains are smaller, but the neuron density is proportionally larger. In fact, with denser neuron packing, women's brains may well work faster, as signal transmission time is reduced.

An excellent example is chimpanzees -v- crows and ravens. The chimps have much bigger brains than crows and ravens, but the bird brains perform better at cognitive ability tests than the chimp chumps.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVaITA7eBZE
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Mick Harper
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"Size capacity" does not equate to "mental capacity".

I do not think you can say this at our present state of knowledge. "We have no reason to believe etc etc" is as close as you can get.
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Mick Harper
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American Foreign Policy Hilarities (no 447)

1. USA inaugurates era of state cyber attacks by sabotaging Iranian nuclear programme
2. USA begins aggressive regime of sanctions on Russia
3. Russia retaliates with cyber attacks on USA, interfering in US elections
4. Americans go ape-shit. How dare they? This means war.
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Mick Harper
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Feminism Parte Troise

So now we come to our ain age. If we take the women’s movement as being inaugurated by the suffragettes, the most obvious characteristic was how easy it all was. Feminism, like all -isms, needs its founding fathers, great heroes and glorious history but in reality women achieved technical equality really rather easily. It was not much resisted by the ancien regime (i.e. men). After the initial astonishment, it seems men didn't much mind sharing power with these curious newcomers. This points to the whole thing being social rather than political. Or it may mean that Ishmael was right all along and it is just another facet of the endless strife between left and right.

But it is only the intellectual sphere that we are concerned with here. So far, the omens are not good. Women have turned out to be no better than men. No different to men. We can applaud the absolute increase in intellectual output but we (as Applied Epistemologists) cannot applaud it just being more of the same. But there is some hope.
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Wile E. Coyote


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Boreades wrote:

An excellent example is chimpanzees -v- crows and ravens. The chimps have much bigger brains than crows and ravens, but the bird brains perform better at cognitive ability tests than the chimp chumps.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVaITA7eBZE


Impressive, don't think I could have solved that, my solution was to break open. shatter the first box, then try harder with bigger objects, maybe blow it up, then ask the presenter, (smug git) then attack him if he didn't give me the information. I have way too many ideas. The bird doesn't suffer this, it uses a limited number of techniques.
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Hatty
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Women claim they are disadvantaged when it comes to pay equality but regardless of gender, fewer people are expected to be in full-time, never mind well paid, work in the future.

Still, more time off work could be beneficial intellectually, paid work being the enemy of thought. Women though may not have quite so much time to think unless men take on parenting and housework duties.
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Mick Harper
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Women claim they are disadvantaged when it comes to pay equality but regardless of gender, fewer people are expected to be in full-time, never mind well paid, work in the future.

Actually if this is true it will be economically advantageous to women since employers will surely perceive that women are less likely to agitate for going full-time. A nice twist.

Still, more time off work could be beneficial intellectually, paid work being the enemy of thought. Women though may not have quite so much time to think unless men take on parenting and housework duties.

You are getting too many carts in front of too many horses. Anybody who does any parenting (or in my case, any housework) will do no worthwhile intellectual work. It's just not possible no matter how many hands there are to the pumps. The case is proved by the fact that women have been sitting around all day for thousands of years pretending to do housework (I can confirm it takes ten minutes if the vicar is threatening to call round) and have still not come up with a worthwhile body of intellectual output.

Mind you, until I came along, neither had men.
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Mick Harper
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We're looking for someone who can crack down on corruption after the excesses of Jacob Zuma. What about an ex-apparatchik of the ANC who left formal politics to become an all-purpose fixer for South African business interests and wound up as 'one of richest men in Africa'? Yes, he'll be the one.
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Mick Harper
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Cyril Ramaphosa's elevation is a fascinating example of 'careful ignoral'. For well-known reasons South Africa is of consuming interest to western (especially western liberal) media. But of course only if the liberal line is adhered to. The original shibboleth, that the ANC can do no wrong, has come in for considerable battering yet nobody is ever allowed to mention why the ANC keeps on getting re-elected despite its constant battering. It is because it is the vehicle of the majority tribe, the Xhosas, and preferred by Xhosas to the political vehicles of the other tribes--the Zulus, the Afrikaaners and the Anglos--despite being a bunch of incompetent crooks.* As we have observed, this is precisely the same situation as in Zimbabwe where R. Mugabe stayed in disastrous power for several decades for the same reason.

Along comes Cyril. His being 'one of the richest men in Africa' is actually advanced by western media as being in his favour! Not one account that I have seen has even speculated as to the source of his wealth, much less investigated what it was. One may be sure that if Cyril had invented a popular gew-gaw or even been a buccaneering corporate raider, this would get mentioned. Since it isn't, we can draw our own conclusions. Of course him being one of the most successfully corrupt men in Africa may be a good thing--poacher turned gamekeeper--but with acquisitive souls it is more usually a case of poacher-turns-kleptocrat. We shall see. We shall hope and see.

* AE recognises Mayor Daley Syndrome, that competent crooks should be supported in some circumstances.
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Boreades


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Wile E. Coyote wrote:

Impressive, don't think I could have solved that, my solution was to break open. shatter the first box, then try harder with bigger objects, maybe blow it up, then ask the presenter, (smug git) then attack him if he didn't give me the information. I have way too many ideas. The bird doesn't suffer this, it uses a limited number of techniques.


Fear not, mon ami! The chimps are still doing better than university students.

"How not to be ignorant about the world" - Hans Rosling's wonderful demonstration of the differences between intelligence and intellect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm5xF-UYgdg
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Mick Harper
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Harvey Weinstein’s film and TV production company has avoided bankruptcy at the 11th hour thanks to a $500m (£363m) takeover led by a former senior official in Barack Obama’s administration.

One might suspect this is a case of the left looking after its own but read on.

The consortium led by Maria Contreras-Sweet, the former head of the Small Business Administration in Obama’s government, and US billionaire Ron Burkle, is hammering out the final details of a deal to save the business.

The nexus between ‘small business’ and billionaire is exquisite. You are invited to speculate how much an ex-bureaucrat can bring to the table in a half-billion dollar deal vis a vis a billionaire.

The transaction includes an $80m compensation fund for victims of Harvey Weinstein.

It is good to know that aspiring starlets groped by sweaty film-makers are worth approximately $80 million more than, say, several hundred thousand Korean comfort-women.

One of the conditions of the deal going through is that Harvey Weinstein will not benefit financially from the sale.

This is going to be tricky.

Contreras-Sweet said her involvement was inspired by the #MeToo movement that emerged in the wake of the Weinstein allegations.

Yes, buying the company was my first thought too.

“I have had a long-standing commitment to fostering women ownership in business,” she said. “This potential deal is an important step to that end.’

I think you will find, Ms Sweet, that it is the billionaire that will be owning the company.

Late last year the Weinstein Company sold off the US distribution rights to Paddington 2, the film with the biggest potential earnings due for launch at the time of the scandal, to give it the funds to keep operating while a buyer was sought. The film’s backers and makers also said the family movie should have no association with Weinstein.

I have booked myself in for a lobotomy since I so enjoyed Paddington 1 and would like to watch the sequel unencumbered. Though not reading the Guardian's take on the world might be better long-term.
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