18.May.2010 IJCS
We are now accepting submissions for the inaugural print run of the International Journal of Crappy Science. If your paper is accepted, you will receive a monetary compensation.
We are looking for short academic papers, complete with abstract that a) exhibit a complete lack of understanding of the basic tenets of science b) cover a topic so asinine that nobody could possibly ever care or c) come to conclusions based on sound scientific approach of faulty data that come to obviously false conclusions.
Send submissions to info@mixedmessagemedia.com
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This is probably an unnecessary defense. There are enough people out there who love, view, and use porn on a regular basis that there is no real risk of it going away. (Even if it becomes illegal, so suck it morality-legislating assholes.) That being said, I’m tired of self-righteous prudes using the pretense of science and journalism to attack something they find repulsive.
I’ll start by admitting that I’m not unbiased. I love porn. And I think my love of porn is healthy, common, and respectable. Yesterday, the National Review Online (hardly a paragon of journalistic integrity, I know. But still, a response must be made) published yet another attack on the world’s most universal genre of entertainment. (How many Americans have watched a foreign film? Ok, now how many have watched foreign porn? Thought so.)
The article begins, “Imagine a drug so powerful it can destroy a family simply by distorting a man’s perception of his wife. Picture an addiction so lethal it has the potential to render an entire generation incapable of forming lasting marriages and so widespread that it produces more annual revenue — $97 billion worldwide in 2006 — than all of the leading technology companies combined.” There is enough wrong with this one paragraph, that I’m going to spend most of my time on this, never mind the two pages of misinformed tripe that followed.
First, the quality of the journalism here is most evidenced by the $97 billion figure the author cites. She (the author is a woman) may have pulled this figure from NBC or CNN, as they have also used it, but as a statistic, it has been widely discredited. Most companies that produce pornography are privately held and do not have stringent profit reporting requirements. Many estimates that people make, including those published by the industry magazine Adult Video News, are dependent on highly unreliable, self-reported numbers. And even these estimates are generally lower than the $97 billion number cited in the article. For instance, Playboy – one of the best known brands – had revenues of less than $100 million this year. In fact, only a few of the biggest players crack the $100 million plateau. So no, $97 billion is not a reasonable estimate for global revenues.
Then there is the issue that she compares porn to a drug. This comes along with some scientific research (there is some recently published, and more from a decade ago) that indicate the effects are similar to recreational narcotics. As she puts it, “neurological data suggest its effects on the brain are strikingly similar to those of synthetic drugs.” This is probably true. In fact, the more we learn about the brain, the more we learn that supposedly has the same effect as drug use. It’s getting to be the popular thing to look at these days. In fact, we now know that many foods have similar biochemical effects. Bottom line is: the brain’s behaviors concerning things that we like are extremely similar.
For instance – let’s look at the so-called “runner’s high”. Running releases endorphins, a nuerochemical linked to the experience of pleasure. Because it is in an activity that prudes are comfortable with, this is a good thing. Viewing porn also releases neurochemicals linked to the experience of pleasure. Because it is an activity that prudes are not comfortable with, this is a sign of its evil, destructive capacity.
Following the ‘drug’ attack, we have the claim that pornography is creating an entire generation “incapable of forming lasting marriages”. Now, this is a common claim – that porn hurts marriages, but the fact is the porn does not hurt marriages, nor is it always (though it can be) a symptom of other problems in marriage. In fact, porn can be a vital part of a healthy marriage’s sex life, assuming one partner does not demonize the other out of feelings of false righteousness, jealousy, inadequacy, etc.
Looking critically at divorce data, we see that the divorce rate (as figured by divorces per capita) peaked in 1979 and again in 1981. According to the US Census bureau’s divorce information, the divorce rate first climbed in the early 1970s, peaked in the 80s, and had a steady decline in the 90s – the years that porn was becoming easily, cheaply, and anonymously available through the Internet, I might add. It has held relatively steady since then, though we are now in a small uptick. Obviously, this argument sounds good, but ultimately fails to hold water.
So finally, we get to the real issue here, porn’s ability to “destroy a family simply by distorting a man’s perception of his wife.” We later learn that the author’s own husband has left her for another woman after, “he began to reject my sexual advances outright, claiming he just didn’t “feel love” for me like he used to.” The woman that he left her for had “all the physical qualities of a porn star — bleached blond hair, heavy makeup, provocative clothing, and large breasts.”
The first and most obvious realization we come to now is that her husband left her for a younger woman, one who is more in line with popular beauty standards, and she is bitterly looking for something to blame. Something besides her husband or herself, that is. This is something that happens just as easily in the complete absence of porn – the pornography is merely a convenient scapegoat to avoid looking at the deeper issues in the marriage that caused him to stop loving her in the first place. Which may well have been related to the fact that she continuously chastised him for continuing to enjoy porn, despite its harmlessness on its own.
Beyond that, her invocation of the “porn beauty” is obviously the statement of someone who does not consume porn. Those of us who do know that porn stars come in all shapes, colors, and sizes. There are skinny ones with small boobs, black-haired asians, chubbies, hirsute ladies, redheads, old bags, and every subcombination in between. Porn is the most egalitarian form of entertainment on the planet, bar none. If many performers are blond and big-boobed, that’s because that is what people liked to begin with. We didn’t suddenly start loving blondes with jugs when Pam Anderson joined Baywatch – they hired her because we already loved those things.
At the end, she trots out the ever-popular “think of the children” defense, claiming that porn leads to “promiscuity, voyeurism, exhibitionism, group sex, rape, sadomasochism, or even child molestation.” Healthy sexual individuals will quickly point out that promiscuity, group sex, exhibitionism, and even rape role play can be interesting and fun contributions to a good sex life (for details, go read Savage Love, he says it better than I do). It’s a correlation-causation fallacy that she’s promoting. People who like these things often turn to porn because they can’t get them at home with prudish partners (and that happens to both males AND females!) who aren’t open-minded enough to just let go and have a good time.
So to finish – lady, I’m glad your husband left you. Hopefully he finds someone out there who is not only OK with his porn consumption, but one who will join him in consuming. So leave off the moral crusade and let us be. We’re going to whack off whether you like it or not, and chances are we’re happier than you. So why don’t you save your breath and lighten up a little. And you know what? I bet there’s porn out there that you would like too.
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So I checked out the Hutaree web-site, and my eyes are still bleeding from the experience. In fact, I haven’t been to a web-site that painful since my last visit to TimeCube. Look, camouflage is designed to help hide things. Therefore, it does not make a good background for text. It serves only to hide the message that you are trying to broadcast.
Design travesties aside, the content isn’t particularly coherent. Unless you’re 15. And inventing your own special fantasy army over which you get to be king and general. Seriously, their top three ranks are “Radok, Boramander, and Zulif”. These things sound more like Pokemon than military titles for dangerous people. But then, I find it hard to take fundies seriously anyway. Even the well armed ones. (This will likely result in my death some day.)
Most of the news coverage I’ve seen keeps repeating the claims of the Southern Poverty Law Center (What does poverty law have to do with giving expert opinions about militias?) that these guys were in the mold of a New World Order fearing militia. I read the web-site, and there were no real mentions of a one-world government or of hating the feds. This seems to be yet another example of ‘journalists’ using paste and repeat on the ‘expert’ opinion offered on their competitors’ news shows. Let’s get our flavors of crazy straight, folks.
These guys are end-timers. They think that JC is on his way back RIGHT NOW, and that they have to arm themselves for when he does. (Probably just went for cigarettes. That’s why he’s late, I’m sure.) The only thing that their web-site actually does say is that 1) Christ is coming back, 2) before he does, some bad stuff gonna go down, 3) he wants you to arm yourself for that time and survive the anti-Christ so that when the real deal gets back, he’ll have someone to hang with. Actually it’s never really clear why they have to arm themselves to keep Christ’s testimony alive. Especially since he’s going to be coming back anyway. Are they afraid he’ll be lonely when he gets here? And what about the Rapture? Isn’t that going to take them all to heaven before they’ll get a chance to fight the good fight? (Meh, consistency was never really Christianity’s strong suit.)
It does strike me as odd, though, that they spent all this time playing with guns and drilling tactics, and they couldn’t even put up a fight when they got arrested. Even the Branch Davidians managed to take out a few people – from the sounds of it, these guys never even fired a shot! If they really were planning to kill a cop (bad idea) and bomb his funeral (worse idea), it seems like a bunch of feds showing up on your doorstep would be like manna from heaven – or sheep to the slaughter. After all, if cops are the foot-soldiers of the Federal Gov’t, then the FBI are the commissioned officers, a much better target. But no, as it turns out, they’re actually bad soldiers or wusses, proving that training with a retard psychopath will only make you look like a retard psychopath. And now that they’ve been arrested with no juicy controversy and no body count to keep them in the news, I’ve got 2-1 odds that their trial never makes the front page.
So, I guess the moral of the story is if you want to start the new civil war, don’t follow a guy who comes up with names for his troops by reading Warhammer novels. Actually scratch that. Do follow that guy. Then all the rest of us will be less at risk of suffering from your stupidity.
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The Beer Party Patriots: imagine if the Coffee Party had a real ideology, the Tea Party had an average IQ in the triple digits, or Libertarians had a conscience. I am calling for the foundation of a political movement based on the principles of freedom, common-sense, and drunkenness. But first, a little discussion of why this might be necessary.
I don’t know about you all, but these new political movements have left a bit of a shitty taste in my mouth. Now I do agree that we are in dire need of fresh ideas in the political sphere, but neither the Tea Party Patriots, nor the Coffee Party really fit the bill.
Let’s start with the Tea Party. Now a lot of electrons have already been galvanized in writing about the collective idiocy that is the Tea Party, but in truth, most have gotten it all wrong. The ideas that form the foundation of their platform are simple, elegant, and fundamentally sound. The problems with the Tea Party lie not with its ideas, but with its constituents.
The Tea Partiers, by and large, are ignorant, uneducated, and uniformly incapable of actually understanding the platform that they claim to espouse. The TPP claims to stand for three basic principles: Fiscal responsibility, small government, and free markets. These sound great, until you actually start talking turkey.
Fiscal responsibility? Yeah, they don’t want pork unless it’s for their community. Those cease to be pork and suddenly look an awful lot like ‘vital infrastructure improvements’ or the like. Small government? Maybe, unless you happen to be talking about the single largest government branch – the Department of Homeland Security, which you average TPP’er will insist is absolutely necessary for keeping us safe from “Turrists.” This is, of course, despite the fact that more we spend far more spying on ourselves than we do on practical programs that would actually save lives. In fact – looking at the economic cost that goes along with the ridiculousness of the DHS, it’s a pretty serious tax in and of itself. How much productivity is lost waiting in airplane security checkpoints that are more porous than the Cleveland Browns’ defense?
The Tea Party’s knee-jerk support of anti-terrorist measures enacted by the Bush Sadministration and joyfully continued by Barry the Fraud, are actually quite confusing for many of us, because the TPP folks, who are a fairly well armed demographic, would normally be against all the domestic spying. (Heads Up Tea Partiers: It’s you we’re spying on. Queers and athiests don’t pose much of a risk to public disorder. It’s your conventions that the NSA is going to be watching, Mr. Armed and Angry.) Except that they’ve been told that it’s important, and because they are uneducated and generally credulous, they don’t bother to question this received wisdom. It is, after all, the same way they get their religion: without challenge, debate, critical thought, or serious consideration. It’s just what’s in the Book, man.
Now the Coffee Party, the “Left” answer to the Tea Partiers, isn’t much better. Perhaps predictably from an organization formed as a response to something else, there isn’t much real direction to the Coffee Party other than “We’re not the Tea Party. And we’re angry too. Well, maybe not angry, that sounds too harsh. How about upset? Does upset sound ok? Ok, we’re upset.” And whiny.
From their web-site, the CP folks say, “Coffee Party USA aims to reinvigorate the public sphere, drawing from diverse backgrounds and diverse perspectives, with the goal of expanding the influence of the People in America’s political arena. We do not require nor adhere to any preexisting ideology. We encourage deliberation guided by reason amongst the many viewpoints held by our members.”
I quoted that in its entirety, because it is wishy-washy enough that I don’t even need to make fun of it. Whoever founded this group clearly never learned much about psychology, leadership, or motivating people. Coming out and declaring that you don’t have an ideology is like saying “Support us even though there is no way to tell what we’ll end up standing for.” Seriously, you’re never going to get people excited about an organization that is entirely devoted to getting people to think more. No matter how badly it’s needed.
An excellent illustration of this effect is that the petition that graces the front of the TPP web-site, currently standing at over 90000 signatures. Meanwhile, the straw poll on the front of the CP web-site boasts a mere 6000 respondents. The CP folks muster less than 7% of the interest that the TPP generates. Primarily because they have no real direction, ideology, or chance of actually succeeding at surviving long-term without a drastic reinvention. Pick something and yell about it, and people will back you. Even if what you’re yelling is nonsense. (see: Glenn Beck) But for fuck’s sake, you DO have to pick something.
Our new Beer Party will have all of the tolerance of the Coffee Party (as long as people stay out of our fucking bars), all of the ideological solidity of the Tea Party, and if we act like retards (like so many Tea Partiers do), we’ll have the alcohol to blame it on.
Details to follow!
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