Putting this up, in hope that Grok might watch it and pass it on to Charles.
Grok analyzes the video.
"Adult stereotyping exists and can limit options—research consistently shows it. Yet children’s own preferences emerge early (by 18–24 months), show large effect sizes, and appear in primates, suggesting adults both respond to and reinforce existing inclinations. Effective parenting may involve offering a wide range while respecting individual interests rather than assuming all differences are imposed."
OK, this is not up-to-date in any sense but I remember studies from my own time at school (so, mainly the 1980ies) from Germany that stated that girls behave differently, when a class is girls and boys mixed from when they are separated (talking about the same class but taking some lessons mixed some separated). If the boys are present the girls were far more reticent, would raise their hand less often and would not speak about personal experiences. In separated lessons their behavior was far less different from the boys, they were more active, would also bring in personal experiences etc. The behavior of boys in class in the absence of girls was iirc only slightly different. So, there was a bit more show of dominance by boys in the presence of girls than in their absence but it was visible only in direct comparison. It also depended on what lesson was on the menu. On topics that were traditionally connoted as male (math, physics, chemistry, less so biology) the boys displayed more dominant behavior than in 'neutral' areas (humanities, geography) and the behavior of the girls showed the greatest difference there too. This led to public discussions, whether classes should get separated occasionally in the former. Administratively that would not have been a problem since classes were often split for science anyway since experimental setups for full numbers were often difficult to obtain (=not enough material/devices in store) and one could have done so along gender lines.
There were a few attempts in that direction and those proved successful (for the girls at least) but the experiment was soon ended because of protests and reservations/suspicions that this would be used (by conservatives) as a tool to abolish coeducation again and also that the girls should have to learn to counter the male dominance behavior while still in school (the separation seen as a step backwards there). When I went to university, the gender gap in the 'hard' sciences had more or less disappeared, in some cases even reversed.
I think at the school I went to the differences were much smaller than in general, so there would not have been much of an effect in having non-coeducative lessons (PE excepted, where there was separation in secondary school from iirc 7th to 10th or 11th grade where the emphasis was on athletics, which put the girls at a disadvantage).
To-day, at least around here, the problem has re-arisen due to the steeply rising percentage of children with Middle Eastern background. Now it IS about inculcated ideas girls and boys bring back from home. While the girls with that background 'know how to behave correctly' (from the boys' POV) this is not true for the German girls which leads to increasing conflicts with the boys of that cultural background, who try to display dominance and can get angry or even violent, if the girls don't put up with it (even worse, if it's a girl from 'their' side that has gone native (=Western)).
I have to add that at my primary school the percentage of 'foreign' children was exceptionally high for the time but that problem did not exist because they all were German in all but looks and some had to learn their 'native' language in afternoon courses because they did not use it in their day-to-day lives except to play translators for elder relatives.
Grok 4.20 (Beta) uses a native 4-agent multi-agent system (released February 17, 2026). Four specialized agents run in parallel, debate internally, fact-check each other, and synthesize one polished final response.
The version of Grok I’m using is 4.20 (Beta). It’s made up of four agents, one of whom fact-checks the results. The claim is that it reduces hallucinations by about two-thirds. So, progress is being made.
And what would you say if you were teaching a research class and one of your students told you that they had two friends helping them find sources and a fourth who was checking to make sure that none of the other three were making up quotes, and that the one in charge of checking was now able to find two out of every three references that one of the others had made up or misread?
I'd rather have a student who actually read his sources, understood them, synthesized them in productive ways, and could be relied upon to manage his attribution transparently, accurately, and ethically.
None of the four agents can do those things, and the research is built on the hope that at some point of scale that sort of thing will just emerge, spontaneously, out of scale and a momentary spark of genius. They think their agents are all little synthetic Hellen Kellers just waiting for their water pump moment.
But their agents are not beings. What is there that they hope will miraculously self-actualize?
It’s potentially a powerful research tool in the hands of an expert, but can’t be relied upon to summarize even a single text without hallucinating material and misrepresenting information.
The version of Grok I'm using is 4.20 (Beta). It's made up of four agents, one of whom fact-checks the results. The claim is that it reduces hallucinations by about two-thirds. So, progress is being made.
Sorry, CharlesWT, but LLMs are incapable of doing research or of taking a critical perspective on the research that it is parsing, sampling, and remixing. At best it can assemble a preliminary reading list and gather a sampling of annotations for that list. It's potentially a powerful research tool in the hands of an expert, but can't be relied upon to summarize even a single text without hallucinating material and misrepresenting information.
It does, however, assemble very convincing imitations of scholarly research, for those who want to scratch an authority itch without having to go through any of the actual work of building expertise.
I think this whole discussion of how boys and girls behave in school is a wild goose chase. Even if girls tend to be, on the whole, more well behaved in school than boys, that doesn't mean that expecting both girls and boys to behave themselves equates to "making boys act like girls." It's a stupid and lazy framing. And, really, what's the alternative - letting boys be disruptive while keeping girls in line?
wjca: I don’t know about current practice. But when I was growing up, girls were socialized early on to not run around, yell, be generally disorderly, etc.
Say, rather, they have been taught not to behave like they are.
The research indicates that this is only a partial explanation.
nous: That’s a lot of qualifiers for that research (boys in 1) traditional 2) US 3) public 4) primary schools).
I specified traditional public schools since they're the schooling most kids experience, and most of them are of the "sit down, be still, be quiet, and pay attention" type.
How does that compare to boys in other countries?
"Evidence from international assessments and national studies indicates that the gender patterns observed in US primary schools—boys tending toward higher externalizing behaviors like restlessness, impulsivity, and disruption, while girls show stronger self-regulation, compliance, and prosocial engagement—largely hold across other Western countries, including the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and much of Western and Northern Europe."
Are their issues related to family socioeconomic status or socialization patterns rooted in those socioeconomic groups?
The research indicates that this is only a partial explanation.
And not specified – when were those studies done?
The dates listed for the key citations are 2010-2025.
Updated link to include information on other countries.
Grok says - Research suggests that, on average, boys in traditional US public primary (elementary) schools exhibit more externalizing behaviors—such as higher activity levels, impulsivity, restlessness, and disruption—compared to girls.
That's a lot of qualifiers for that research (boys in 1) traditional 2) US 3) public 4) primary schools). How does that compare to boys in other countries? How much of this is influenced by the US public schools being the school of last resort for students with behavioral issues? Are their issues related to family socioeconomic status or socialization patterns rooted in those socioeconomic groups? And not specified - when were those studies done? Do we have data over a span of years, decades, or were all these studies done over a relatively short span of years or months? Were they pre- or post-pandemic? Do we have data that compares those periods? Are all of these studies from the standardized testing era? Are they from schools that still provide recess and physical education, or from those who have done away with those two things in order to maximize test prep time?
Not questions that I expect anyone to answer, just the sort of questions I think need to be looked into in order not to bake in some leading assumptions.
Also, I automatically bracket anything that comes from Grok, especially where it concerns gender studies. I think it prudent always to wonder if Musk has tried to tweak the algorithms and training to pander to his own biases on gender issues. We know he has a whole host of those issues.
That aside, I would never call any synopsis that any of these LLMs put out a survey of the research. At best it is what I'd call a "preliminary pre-search." At a minimum, I'd have to go through every one of the sources that Grok "cites" to look at its parameters and methodology, and see if those studies said anything about the questions that I ask above, or express any uncertainty about their own conclusions, etc..
Yes, Frum did indeed coin "the axis of evil", which is why I believed for many years that I would not be interested in his other views (and I was also influenced, later, by the fact that China and Russia seemed often to be included). But the emergence of Trump, and the abject surrender of most of the GOP, made me re-evaluate. The existence of the Never Trumpers has made me interested in the beliefs of what one might call "principled" conservatives, and I think that is worthwhile.
Regarding the appalling cost to the US of the Iraq war, I have to say I don't even think that is the worst consequence. Frum was wrong in his opinion, and he admits he was wrong. I don't think that renders his opinions worthless. In fact, when people are capable of admitting they were wrong it makes me take them more seriously.
Back early, and don't need to go out again for a while, so here are my comments on what Pro Bono and nous said.
Luckily for me, I don't find discussions of this sort unpleasant, as long as I am talking with people who a) take it with appropriate seriousness, and b) don't get turned on by it.
On Pro Bono's comment, I wonder if how he defined rape is influenced by what was, when I was in law school decades ago, a very narrow definition in English law. In those days it was defined, leaving aside the issue of consent, as the insertion of the erect penis into a vagina, and in the Act (as far as I remember) they didn't even say "penis" but "person". Which meant that the addendum was unforgettable, even after all these years "For the purposes of the Act, for 'person' read 'penis'." So I think that is where Pro Bono might be getting his idea that "for a man, rape has to be partly about sex". I believe the definition may have been changed (although I am not sure even now that it includes "with an object", which might be classed as a serious sexual assault), but whether it has or not, I think rather than "sex" one might more usefully substitute "desire", and in that case I agree with what lj says in his final paragraph. And that allows one to say, which I think is correct, that rape is not to do with desire for the victim, but desire for power, or desire to inflict pain, or desire to humiliate etc etc, like nous's other examples (with all of which I agree). For the purposes of this conversation, by the way, I am perfectly prepared to include "with an object" in the definition of rape. What the Pelicot case unfortunately makes impossible to ignore, is that the number of men who have such desires is far higher than one might otherwise have thought, which explains some of the shock and disbelief which have greeted the details, particularly among men.
Regarding what nous calls Pro Bono's "first disagreement", which nous thinks is with me, this is a mistake. I did not say, and have never thought, that "of course men want to rape". That was reported (imagined) speech, in a substack post by someone called Celeste Davis, which I posted in three parts. And I believe (without going back) that she was quoting it in order to disagree with that argument. What I believe is that the patriarchy encourages men subconsciously or consciously to believe, from birth, that their desires are more important than those of women, children, effeminate men etc. And that men who have warped paraphilic desires of certain kinds are therefore predisposed to allow themselves to enact them.
Chiming in briefly to note that the underlying assumption in Charles’ comment is that sitting still and paying attention are somehow feminine behaviors.
Girls don’t get restless in class?
I don't know about current practice. But when I was growing up, girls were socialized early on to not run around, yell, be generally disorderly, etc. Generally before they even got to kindergarten, certainlly before they finished elementary school.
The parental, teacher, and social pressures may have been barely visible to the little boys, but in retrospect they were definitely strong. Perhaps, although I don't want to put words in his mouth, that kind of experience influenced Charles' comment.
"Research suggests that, on average, boys in traditional US public primary (elementary) schools exhibit more externalizing behaviors—such as higher activity levels, impulsivity, restlessness, and disruption—compared to girls, who tend to show greater self-regulation, compliance, and prosocial engagement."
"And yet, in Western societies, boys are often expected to act like girls. Starting in school, where they’re expected to sit down, be still, be quiet, and pay attention. If they don’t, there’s something wrong with them."
Chiming in briefly to note that the underlying assumption in Charles' comment is that sitting still and paying attention are somehow feminine behaviors.
nous, I really appreciate your comment, it is always hard to talk about this stuff. This isn't to keep the conversation going and draw you out, but I would make an additional observation. You wrote: I’d posit that, yes, all of the men involved were feeling sexual desire, but that the attraction in that case was to be doing something secret about which the woman had no knowledge and over which the woman had no say. The men were demonstrating to each other their power and control over a woman who had been “shared” with them by the man to whom she belonged, and that sharing was a secret that was withheld from any of the women in their lives. That makes it a moment of homosocial bonding in which they violate a societal taboo, and there is a type of in-group status that comes with that sort of secret violation, as many fraternity brothers might whisper to each other when in private.
I'd also add that sexual desire is often less about the specific object and more about the internal meaning we project onto it. Your suggestion that the breaking of a societal taboo may be the focus seems likely, and because there is a shame factor involved with sex, it's easy to see how breaking those taboos can be become intertwined with sexual desire.
Just in case anyone forgot, Frum was the one who coined the phrase 'Axis of Evil', which started out as Iran, Iraq, and North Korea and was expanded to include Cuba, Libya and Syria. Including Iraq cost the US $800 billion to $1.1 trillion, and while Frum isn't responsible for the full price tag, he doesn't seem to think the mistake should impinge on his bona fides.
"I was powerfully swayed by the fact that the proposed invasion of Iraq was supported by those who had been most right about the Cold War, and was most bitterly opposed by those who had been wrongest about the Cold War."
Pro Bono - I'm not getting into your first diagreement since that was with GftNC's comment, and I'm not going to assume that I know all the particulars of her critical perspective and would rather not distort her position. But the other two...
It’s not exclusively about sex. But it’s a biological fact that, for a man, rape has to be partly about sex.
Standard warning I would give if this were a class in which the conversation turns to subjects that can be difficult for survivors of sexual violence to manage - mediate your engagement with this as necessary for your own wellbeing...
Rape, sexual assault, and sexual or gendered violence do not at all have to be about sexual desire on the part of the person perpetrating the violence. A heterosexual man can rape another male with an object and feel no sexual arousal. Likewise, rape during war often has less to do with any sexual desire than it does with "spoiling" the enemy's women, which is why, again, it can often involve inanimate objects. The purpose of such things is not the sexual pleasure of the attacker, but rather for the person subject to the violence to be penetrated against their will - preferably in front of witnesses - to demonstrate to them their powerlessness and lack of agency, to reduce them to the status of a woman if they are male, or to demonstrate to any males that the woman "belongs to" that they were powerless to protect their women from harm.
(Disclaimer - this conversation assumes a patriarchal society. People who do ethnography in matrilineal cultures say that the individuals in those cultures have a hard time making sense out of these attitudes because none of those assumptions about personal agency and dominance have a place in their worldview - and those societies have very little in the way of sexual violence. I've just read about this in the last couple days since this conversation came up.)
It's for these reasons that I said that rape was not about sex. Rape often has more in common with torture than it does with sexual desire gone rogue.
I don’t think that’s true of Epstein’s associates – those men had widely acknowledged power and status. Nor can it be true in the Pelicot case, where the rapes were largely secret, and the victim was unconscious.
If I had to try to make sense of the Pelicot case in relation to my points above, I'd posit that, yes, all of the men involved were feeling sexual desire, but that the attraction in that case was to be doing something secret about which the woman had no knowledge and over which the woman had no say. The men were demonstrating to each other their power and control over a woman who had been "shared" with them by the man to whom she belonged, and that sharing was a secret that was withheld from any of the women in their lives.
That makes it a moment of homosocial bonding in which they violate a societal taboo, and there is a type of in-group status that comes with that sort of secret violation, as many fraternity brothers might whisper to each other when in private.
----
That was unpleasant, but hopefully helpful for understanding the positions I've taken on both patriarchy and sexual violence. I don't necessarily want to discuss more, but I've had to put in the time to understand all this in my research on war and violence, and in all those classes where we read and discussed the history of feminist thought. I'm happy if any of this can move our collective understanding more towards the direction of those non-patriarchal cultures I mentioned above.
russell, I think Frum was identifying both of THEM as resistance liberals. And though he/they might not have stood toe to toe with cops, they both spoke very highly of the people of Minneapolis who had done so. As I've said before, I would never have believed this in the "axis of evil" days, but I find myself wishing these were the kinds of people we were opposing nowadays.
I know what you mean about who are these leftists, though. I don't know enough about all the people he or you mention to understand it, but he does seem to have it in for Mamdani. However, he said he would (reluctantly) vote for AOC over Trump, and I thought in US terms she counts as something of a leftist?
My question is: who are these real leftists? I don't mean college kids, or some online rando. I mean people who have some public voice, and some IRL feasible path to creating an actual outcome, and who also want to "smash bones".
I can think of - maybe - a handful. Thom Hartmann? Bill McKibben? Chomsky? And Hartmann primarily wants something like a restoration of republican self-governance, as opposed to oligarchy. And McKibben primarily wants us to stop burning the world up. So I'm not sure they acually qualify as folks who want to "tear down the institutions", unless "the institutions" are grossly unregulated capital.
Which, perhaps, they actually are at this point.
But I guess I'm looking for names here. Who the hell is Frum talking about? Black bloc kids? Portland anarchists? Are they a realistic example of effective political actors - people who actually might make substantive changes to anything at all?
"Resistance liberal" sounds like, basically, people like me. I understand, and in many cases agree with, the idea that we are ineffective and not quite what is needed at the moment. And it's definitely true that, for most of us, there is a limit to what we are willing to put at risk. It is, frankly, a lot easier to be bold and uncompromising when you have little to lose. So, there is all of that.
FWIW, my wife and I had a conversation a few years ago about the whole carbon economy thing. We both have - and at this point to a large extent live off of - our 401k's. I'm sure we have some holdings in carbon-based energy - oil companies or similar.
A huge amount of the book value of those companies is oil that is still in the ground. Were there to be any public action to prevent that oil (or similar) from being extracted, the value of those companies would probably collapse. At the time I did a sort of very rough back of envelope calculation and figured that, were that to actually happen, we - my wife and I - would take a significant haircut. I forget what the actual seat-of-the-pants number was, but it was a lot. Enough to make a difference in our daily lives, for the rest of our lives.
And we both agreed we'd take the hit if it was on offer.
Maybe we are extraordinarily exceptional, but I find that unlikely. I'm not seeing us as the root of the problem(s). And I really and truly do understand and appreciate that young people coming up now face challenges we did not, but the fact that we have a house and 401k's is not the root cause of all of that.
It is, frankly, not that big of a house. And we only have one.
The regulatory arms of the government have basically been crippled under Trump. The folks who are in a position to do something about that - primarily Congress, but also the freaking SCOTUS - have been captured and are beholden, not to me and people like me, but to the great big bags of money that keep them in office. And, FWIW, line their pockets, personally.
Maybe that's the problem, right there.
I've stood toe to toe with cops to exercise my "resistance liberalism". I didn't see Frum there that day. Maybe he could try it on before he dismisses it.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “As it all falls down around our ears: An open thread”
Many of us thought that the war-mongering, torturing, lying Conservatives that got the US into the Iraq war were the worst of the worst.
We were wrong, as is now abundantly clear.
"
Anyone have thoughts on this Anthropic thing? It's a topsy-turvy world when the tech bros have more restraint than the federal government.
On “Perpwalk Imperial”
Putting this up, in hope that Grok might watch it and pass it on to Charles.
Grok analyzes the video.
"Adult stereotyping exists and can limit options—research consistently shows it. Yet children’s own preferences emerge early (by 18–24 months), show large effect sizes, and appear in primates, suggesting adults both respond to and reinforce existing inclinations. Effective parenting may involve offering a wide range while respecting individual interests rather than assuming all differences are imposed."
BBC Gender Toy Bias Experiment Analysis
"
Putting this up, in hope that Grok might watch it and pass it on to Charles.
https://youtu.be/nWu44AqF0iI?si=le7FLj87qVUlVihK
"
OK, this is not up-to-date in any sense but I remember studies from my own time at school (so, mainly the 1980ies) from Germany that stated that girls behave differently, when a class is girls and boys mixed from when they are separated (talking about the same class but taking some lessons mixed some separated). If the boys are present the girls were far more reticent, would raise their hand less often and would not speak about personal experiences. In separated lessons their behavior was far less different from the boys, they were more active, would also bring in personal experiences etc. The behavior of boys in class in the absence of girls was iirc only slightly different. So, there was a bit more show of dominance by boys in the presence of girls than in their absence but it was visible only in direct comparison. It also depended on what lesson was on the menu. On topics that were traditionally connoted as male (math, physics, chemistry, less so biology) the boys displayed more dominant behavior than in 'neutral' areas (humanities, geography) and the behavior of the girls showed the greatest difference there too. This led to public discussions, whether classes should get separated occasionally in the former. Administratively that would not have been a problem since classes were often split for science anyway since experimental setups for full numbers were often difficult to obtain (=not enough material/devices in store) and one could have done so along gender lines.
There were a few attempts in that direction and those proved successful (for the girls at least) but the experiment was soon ended because of protests and reservations/suspicions that this would be used (by conservatives) as a tool to abolish coeducation again and also that the girls should have to learn to counter the male dominance behavior while still in school (the separation seen as a step backwards there). When I went to university, the gender gap in the 'hard' sciences had more or less disappeared, in some cases even reversed.
I think at the school I went to the differences were much smaller than in general, so there would not have been much of an effect in having non-coeducative lessons (PE excepted, where there was separation in secondary school from iirc 7th to 10th or 11th grade where the emphasis was on athletics, which put the girls at a disadvantage).
To-day, at least around here, the problem has re-arisen due to the steeply rising percentage of children with Middle Eastern background. Now it IS about inculcated ideas girls and boys bring back from home. While the girls with that background 'know how to behave correctly' (from the boys' POV) this is not true for the German girls which leads to increasing conflicts with the boys of that cultural background, who try to display dominance and can get angry or even violent, if the girls don't put up with it (even worse, if it's a girl from 'their' side that has gone native (=Western)).
I have to add that at my primary school the percentage of 'foreign' children was exceptionally high for the time but that problem did not exist because they all were German in all but looks and some had to learn their 'native' language in afternoon courses because they did not use it in their day-to-day lives except to play translators for elder relatives.
"
Grok 4.20 (Beta) uses a native 4-agent multi-agent system (released February 17, 2026). Four specialized agents run in parallel, debate internally, fact-check each other, and synthesize one polished final response.
Grok 4.20 Beta: Four-Agent System
"
The version of Grok I’m using is 4.20 (Beta). It’s made up of four agents, one of whom fact-checks the results. The claim is that it reduces hallucinations by about two-thirds. So, progress is being made.
And what would you say if you were teaching a research class and one of your students told you that they had two friends helping them find sources and a fourth who was checking to make sure that none of the other three were making up quotes, and that the one in charge of checking was now able to find two out of every three references that one of the others had made up or misread?
I'd rather have a student who actually read his sources, understood them, synthesized them in productive ways, and could be relied upon to manage his attribution transparently, accurately, and ethically.
None of the four agents can do those things, and the research is built on the hope that at some point of scale that sort of thing will just emerge, spontaneously, out of scale and a momentary spark of genius. They think their agents are all little synthetic Hellen Kellers just waiting for their water pump moment.
But their agents are not beings. What is there that they hope will miraculously self-actualize?
"
It’s potentially a powerful research tool in the hands of an expert, but can’t be relied upon to summarize even a single text without hallucinating material and misrepresenting information.
The version of Grok I'm using is 4.20 (Beta). It's made up of four agents, one of whom fact-checks the results. The claim is that it reduces hallucinations by about two-thirds. So, progress is being made.
"
Sorry, CharlesWT, but LLMs are incapable of doing research or of taking a critical perspective on the research that it is parsing, sampling, and remixing. At best it can assemble a preliminary reading list and gather a sampling of annotations for that list. It's potentially a powerful research tool in the hands of an expert, but can't be relied upon to summarize even a single text without hallucinating material and misrepresenting information.
It does, however, assemble very convincing imitations of scholarly research, for those who want to scratch an authority itch without having to go through any of the actual work of building expertise.
"
I think this whole discussion of how boys and girls behave in school is a wild goose chase. Even if girls tend to be, on the whole, more well behaved in school than boys, that doesn't mean that expecting both girls and boys to behave themselves equates to "making boys act like girls." It's a stupid and lazy framing. And, really, what's the alternative - letting boys be disruptive while keeping girls in line?
It's f**king ridiculous.
"
wjca: I don’t know about current practice. But when I was growing up, girls were socialized early on to not run around, yell, be generally disorderly, etc.
Say, rather, they have been taught not to behave like they are.
The research indicates that this is only a partial explanation.
nous: That’s a lot of qualifiers for that research (boys in 1) traditional 2) US 3) public 4) primary schools).
I specified traditional public schools since they're the schooling most kids experience, and most of them are of the "sit down, be still, be quiet, and pay attention" type.
How does that compare to boys in other countries?
"Evidence from international assessments and national studies indicates that the gender patterns observed in US primary schools—boys tending toward higher externalizing behaviors like restlessness, impulsivity, and disruption, while girls show stronger self-regulation, compliance, and prosocial engagement—largely hold across other Western countries, including the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and much of Western and Northern Europe."
Are their issues related to family socioeconomic status or socialization patterns rooted in those socioeconomic groups?
The research indicates that this is only a partial explanation.
And not specified – when were those studies done?
The dates listed for the key citations are 2010-2025.
Updated link to include information on other countries.
Gender Differences in US Primary School Behavior
"
Grok says - Research suggests that, on average, boys in traditional US public primary (elementary) schools exhibit more externalizing behaviors—such as higher activity levels, impulsivity, restlessness, and disruption—compared to girls.
That's a lot of qualifiers for that research (boys in 1) traditional 2) US 3) public 4) primary schools). How does that compare to boys in other countries? How much of this is influenced by the US public schools being the school of last resort for students with behavioral issues? Are their issues related to family socioeconomic status or socialization patterns rooted in those socioeconomic groups? And not specified - when were those studies done? Do we have data over a span of years, decades, or were all these studies done over a relatively short span of years or months? Were they pre- or post-pandemic? Do we have data that compares those periods? Are all of these studies from the standardized testing era? Are they from schools that still provide recess and physical education, or from those who have done away with those two things in order to maximize test prep time?
Not questions that I expect anyone to answer, just the sort of questions I think need to be looked into in order not to bake in some leading assumptions.
Also, I automatically bracket anything that comes from Grok, especially where it concerns gender studies. I think it prudent always to wonder if Musk has tried to tweak the algorithms and training to pander to his own biases on gender issues. We know he has a whole host of those issues.
That aside, I would never call any synopsis that any of these LLMs put out a survey of the research. At best it is what I'd call a "preliminary pre-search." At a minimum, I'd have to go through every one of the sources that Grok "cites" to look at its parameters and methodology, and see if those studies said anything about the questions that I ask above, or express any uncertainty about their own conclusions, etc..
On “As it all falls down around our ears: An open thread”
Yes, Frum did indeed coin "the axis of evil", which is why I believed for many years that I would not be interested in his other views (and I was also influenced, later, by the fact that China and Russia seemed often to be included). But the emergence of Trump, and the abject surrender of most of the GOP, made me re-evaluate. The existence of the Never Trumpers has made me interested in the beliefs of what one might call "principled" conservatives, and I think that is worthwhile.
Regarding the appalling cost to the US of the Iraq war, I have to say I don't even think that is the worst consequence. Frum was wrong in his opinion, and he admits he was wrong. I don't think that renders his opinions worthless. In fact, when people are capable of admitting they were wrong it makes me take them more seriously.
On “Perpwalk Imperial”
Back early, and don't need to go out again for a while, so here are my comments on what Pro Bono and nous said.
Luckily for me, I don't find discussions of this sort unpleasant, as long as I am talking with people who a) take it with appropriate seriousness, and b) don't get turned on by it.
On Pro Bono's comment, I wonder if how he defined rape is influenced by what was, when I was in law school decades ago, a very narrow definition in English law. In those days it was defined, leaving aside the issue of consent, as the insertion of the erect penis into a vagina, and in the Act (as far as I remember) they didn't even say "penis" but "person". Which meant that the addendum was unforgettable, even after all these years "For the purposes of the Act, for 'person' read 'penis'." So I think that is where Pro Bono might be getting his idea that "for a man, rape has to be partly about sex". I believe the definition may have been changed (although I am not sure even now that it includes "with an object", which might be classed as a serious sexual assault), but whether it has or not, I think rather than "sex" one might more usefully substitute "desire", and in that case I agree with what lj says in his final paragraph. And that allows one to say, which I think is correct, that rape is not to do with desire for the victim, but desire for power, or desire to inflict pain, or desire to humiliate etc etc, like nous's other examples (with all of which I agree). For the purposes of this conversation, by the way, I am perfectly prepared to include "with an object" in the definition of rape. What the Pelicot case unfortunately makes impossible to ignore, is that the number of men who have such desires is far higher than one might otherwise have thought, which explains some of the shock and disbelief which have greeted the details, particularly among men.
Regarding what nous calls Pro Bono's "first disagreement", which nous thinks is with me, this is a mistake. I did not say, and have never thought, that "of course men want to rape". That was reported (imagined) speech, in a substack post by someone called Celeste Davis, which I posted in three parts. And I believe (without going back) that she was quoting it in order to disagree with that argument. What I believe is that the patriarchy encourages men subconsciously or consciously to believe, from birth, that their desires are more important than those of women, children, effeminate men etc. And that men who have warped paraphilic desires of certain kinds are therefore predisposed to allow themselves to enact them.
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Say, rather, they have been taught not to behave like they are.
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I don't know about current practice. But when I was growing up, girls were socialized early on to not run around, yell, be generally disorderly, etc. Generally before they even got to kindergarten, certainlly before they finished elementary school.
The parental, teacher, and social pressures may have been barely visible to the little boys, but in retrospect they were definitely strong. Perhaps, although I don't want to put words in his mouth, that kind of experience influenced Charles' comment.
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Girls don’t get restless in class?
Less so than boys at the same age.
"Research suggests that, on average, boys in traditional US public primary (elementary) schools exhibit more externalizing behaviors—such as higher activity levels, impulsivity, restlessness, and disruption—compared to girls, who tend to show greater self-regulation, compliance, and prosocial engagement."
Gender Differences in US Primary School Behavior
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From Charles' Grok summary about prisons
Disciplinary outcomes differ sharply. Women receive misconduct tickets at higher rates—often 39–155% more—for “defiance” categories (disrespect, disobedience, hygiene, tone).
If they just wouldn't act like boys, they wouldn't get punished!
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"And yet, in Western societies, boys are often expected to act like girls. Starting in school, where they’re expected to sit down, be still, be quiet, and pay attention. If they don’t, there’s something wrong with them."
Chiming in briefly to note that the underlying assumption in Charles' comment is that sitting still and paying attention are somehow feminine behaviors.
Girls don't get restless in class?
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nous, I really appreciate your comment, it is always hard to talk about this stuff. This isn't to keep the conversation going and draw you out, but I would make an additional observation. You wrote:
I’d posit that, yes, all of the men involved were feeling sexual desire, but that the attraction in that case was to be doing something secret about which the woman had no knowledge and over which the woman had no say. The men were demonstrating to each other their power and control over a woman who had been “shared” with them by the man to whom she belonged, and that sharing was a secret that was withheld from any of the women in their lives.
That makes it a moment of homosocial bonding in which they violate a societal taboo, and there is a type of in-group status that comes with that sort of secret violation, as many fraternity brothers might whisper to each other when in private.
I'd also add that sexual desire is often less about the specific object and more about the internal meaning we project onto it. Your suggestion that the breaking of a societal taboo may be the focus seems likely, and because there is a shame factor involved with sex, it's easy to see how breaking those taboos can be become intertwined with sexual desire.
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I'm going to be out most of today, so won't be able to comment on what Pro Bono and nous said til later. But I definitely will then!
On “As it all falls down around our ears: An open thread”
Just in case anyone forgot, Frum was the one who coined the phrase 'Axis of Evil', which started out as Iran, Iraq, and North Korea and was expanded to include Cuba, Libya and Syria. Including Iraq cost the US $800 billion to $1.1 trillion, and while Frum isn't responsible for the full price tag, he doesn't seem to think the mistake should impinge on his bona fides.
"I was powerfully swayed by the fact that the proposed invasion of Iraq was supported by those who had been most right about the Cold War, and was most bitterly opposed by those who had been wrongest about the Cold War."
On “Perpwalk Imperial”
Pro Bono - I'm not getting into your first diagreement since that was with GftNC's comment, and I'm not going to assume that I know all the particulars of her critical perspective and would rather not distort her position. But the other two...
It’s not exclusively about sex. But it’s a biological fact that, for a man, rape has to be partly about sex.
Standard warning I would give if this were a class in which the conversation turns to subjects that can be difficult for survivors of sexual violence to manage - mediate your engagement with this as necessary for your own wellbeing...
Rape, sexual assault, and sexual or gendered violence do not at all have to be about sexual desire on the part of the person perpetrating the violence. A heterosexual man can rape another male with an object and feel no sexual arousal. Likewise, rape during war often has less to do with any sexual desire than it does with "spoiling" the enemy's women, which is why, again, it can often involve inanimate objects. The purpose of such things is not the sexual pleasure of the attacker, but rather for the person subject to the violence to be penetrated against their will - preferably in front of witnesses - to demonstrate to them their powerlessness and lack of agency, to reduce them to the status of a woman if they are male, or to demonstrate to any males that the woman "belongs to" that they were powerless to protect their women from harm.
(Disclaimer - this conversation assumes a patriarchal society. People who do ethnography in matrilineal cultures say that the individuals in those cultures have a hard time making sense out of these attitudes because none of those assumptions about personal agency and dominance have a place in their worldview - and those societies have very little in the way of sexual violence. I've just read about this in the last couple days since this conversation came up.)
It's for these reasons that I said that rape was not about sex. Rape often has more in common with torture than it does with sexual desire gone rogue.
I don’t think that’s true of Epstein’s associates – those men had widely acknowledged power and status. Nor can it be true in the Pelicot case, where the rapes were largely secret, and the victim was unconscious.
If I had to try to make sense of the Pelicot case in relation to my points above, I'd posit that, yes, all of the men involved were feeling sexual desire, but that the attraction in that case was to be doing something secret about which the woman had no knowledge and over which the woman had no say. The men were demonstrating to each other their power and control over a woman who had been "shared" with them by the man to whom she belonged, and that sharing was a secret that was withheld from any of the women in their lives.
That makes it a moment of homosocial bonding in which they violate a societal taboo, and there is a type of in-group status that comes with that sort of secret violation, as many fraternity brothers might whisper to each other when in private.
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That was unpleasant, but hopefully helpful for understanding the positions I've taken on both patriarchy and sexual violence. I don't necessarily want to discuss more, but I've had to put in the time to understand all this in my research on war and violence, and in all those classes where we read and discussed the history of feminist thought. I'm happy if any of this can move our collective understanding more towards the direction of those non-patriarchal cultures I mentioned above.
On “As it all falls down around our ears: An open thread”
russell, I think Frum was identifying both of THEM as resistance liberals. And though he/they might not have stood toe to toe with cops, they both spoke very highly of the people of Minneapolis who had done so. As I've said before, I would never have believed this in the "axis of evil" days, but I find myself wishing these were the kinds of people we were opposing nowadays.
I know what you mean about who are these leftists, though. I don't know enough about all the people he or you mention to understand it, but he does seem to have it in for Mamdani. However, he said he would (reluctantly) vote for AOC over Trump, and I thought in US terms she counts as something of a leftist?
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My question is: who are these real leftists? I don't mean college kids, or some online rando. I mean people who have some public voice, and some IRL feasible path to creating an actual outcome, and who also want to "smash bones".
I can think of - maybe - a handful. Thom Hartmann? Bill McKibben? Chomsky? And Hartmann primarily wants something like a restoration of republican self-governance, as opposed to oligarchy. And McKibben primarily wants us to stop burning the world up. So I'm not sure they acually qualify as folks who want to "tear down the institutions", unless "the institutions" are grossly unregulated capital.
Which, perhaps, they actually are at this point.
But I guess I'm looking for names here. Who the hell is Frum talking about? Black bloc kids? Portland anarchists? Are they a realistic example of effective political actors - people who actually might make substantive changes to anything at all?
"Resistance liberal" sounds like, basically, people like me. I understand, and in many cases agree with, the idea that we are ineffective and not quite what is needed at the moment. And it's definitely true that, for most of us, there is a limit to what we are willing to put at risk. It is, frankly, a lot easier to be bold and uncompromising when you have little to lose. So, there is all of that.
FWIW, my wife and I had a conversation a few years ago about the whole carbon economy thing. We both have - and at this point to a large extent live off of - our 401k's. I'm sure we have some holdings in carbon-based energy - oil companies or similar.
A huge amount of the book value of those companies is oil that is still in the ground. Were there to be any public action to prevent that oil (or similar) from being extracted, the value of those companies would probably collapse. At the time I did a sort of very rough back of envelope calculation and figured that, were that to actually happen, we - my wife and I - would take a significant haircut. I forget what the actual seat-of-the-pants number was, but it was a lot. Enough to make a difference in our daily lives, for the rest of our lives.
And we both agreed we'd take the hit if it was on offer.
Maybe we are extraordinarily exceptional, but I find that unlikely. I'm not seeing us as the root of the problem(s). And I really and truly do understand and appreciate that young people coming up now face challenges we did not, but the fact that we have a house and 401k's is not the root cause of all of that.
It is, frankly, not that big of a house. And we only have one.
The regulatory arms of the government have basically been crippled under Trump. The folks who are in a position to do something about that - primarily Congress, but also the freaking SCOTUS - have been captured and are beholden, not to me and people like me, but to the great big bags of money that keep them in office. And, FWIW, line their pockets, personally.
Maybe that's the problem, right there.
I've stood toe to toe with cops to exercise my "resistance liberalism". I didn't see Frum there that day. Maybe he could try it on before he dismisses it.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.