I did something I promised myself I would stop doing on Twitter the other day, I made a snarky remark about climate change. I wasn’t going to write about the ensuing debate, or the topic itself, as it does not fit the nature of this blog, however, then it struck me; climate change and the red pill have many things in common. They are both issues that have strong components within both facts and policy, both are emotionally loaded and they tend to involve policy solutions that have unforeseen and negative consequences.
The reason why I tend to avoid issues like climate change is for the simple reason that they are highly emotional issues. In addition, many of the climate change adherents are pushing policy, and predictably engage in typical name-calling rather than discussions regarding underlying principles.
This is very similar to discussing social issues, where statements of a red pill nature frequently can have you branded a misogynist faster than a 35 year old single girl empties a box of wine.
The Facts
I have no issues with the main facts of the climate change debate, co2 emissions are at the highest recorded level ever, high levels of Co2 in the atmosphere traps heat, thus leading to the temperature of the earth increasing, leading to a string of other consequences.
In the same manner, I have no issues with the facts in the red pill debate, women do earn less than men, there are more men than women at high levels of business and government. There are inherent biological differences between the biological sexes, and also a string of social differences. Women are disproportionately victims of sexual violence, men of violence in general. Women tend to live longer, and men commit suicide at higher rates. Back in the day feminism was founded based on an empirical observation that women could not vote, then that women were not treated equally in the workplace, then that women were not treated in a way that would make Kim Jong Un jealous.
My issue in neither case are with what can be documented in terms of facts, meaning empirical structured observations according to positivist methodology, that tells us the “what” of a situation. It is with the convolution of problem with solution.
For instance, the suffragettes who got women the vote, were uniquely focused on one side of the equation. The right to vote, they did not also demand the duty to protect your country in the advent of war. The female libertines who demanded the pill and free abortion as baseline female reproductive rights, were not focused on securing the same for men.
This highlights a tendency to ignore facts one does not like, that either reduces the value of the right by adding a duty, or adds nuance to the factual hammer being used to nail up the policy.
The Policies
The policies enacted in order to solve the perceived problem established by the facts on the other hand are often lacking in empirical information and tend to be driven by ideological perspectives. For instance, with the climate change crew, its lead by a string of celebrities that have multiple massive mansions in a myriad of countries and are flying around the world in private jets, telling everyone else that they have to stop driving to work. Who are largely being helped by politicians who seeing that the clock is ticking for how long they can fool their constituents are aiming to land a cushy gig in an international organization where they can follow in the footsteps of the celebrities.
On the right on the other hand, they are seeing that the mere acceptance of the facts means that the left will push their narrative and ideological solutions, which will cost them millions in corporate sponsorship. Not to mention the fact that they have spent the last 50 years being pounded harder than a middle-aged housewife on a Jamaican “find myself” vacation. So, they are refusing to accept that its getting warmer.
The policies to respond to the facts under point one, are predictably problematic, where the right seeking to alleviate the situation without pissing off their lobbyists from the fossil fuel industry, and the left seeking to enact more regulations and more taxation that hurts the average consumer.
In the same way, the left has taken the position that anyone who is not a white man is always going to be oppressed, while being founded on more questionable research than polling companies in the 2016 election. The fact that women and men come out with different results in various statistical measurements are simple facts. However, the problems has been packaged to propose policy that inevitably produces more problems.
The irony of over 100 years of “female liberation” in the west is that the more policies that are put in place to promote equality within the sphere of alleged oppression, the more women suffer from depression [1]. Within some of the most gender egalitarian countries in the world, women are in fact seeking more traditional roles [2] and within education the gender divide is in fact increasing. [3]
The Overlap
Having provided the outline, I can draw the comparisons between the issues and why they are so similar in their strategy. One of the major things that are rarely mentioned is the tendency to rely on unstated premises. Such as feminists always having “A global patriarchy is seeking to oppress women” as an ideological lens prior to viewing the facts. Thus, being prone to such non sequiturs as every observed difference in demographic distribution within a field being caused by sexism.
Step 1: For CC this is the fact that carbon emissions are rapidly increasing. For social justice warriors this is the fact that within a field of human endeavor, perfect demographic distribution of success does not exist.
Step 2: Draw up a set of policies and proposed solutions that would seek to solve this problem in a rapid manner without considering whether it is a problem that can be solved or what the longer term consequences of the proposed solution could be.
Step 3: Package the solution so closely with the underlying facts that it becomes very difficult to disagree with the former, without appearing to be refusing to accept facts.
Step 4: Attack anyone who disagrees with the set of solutions of fatally failing to accept the facts, while generally ignoring facts that are not convenient to your own ideological perspective, and solutions that are not in line with your own system of thought.
For instance, within the gender equality paradox, it is established fact that men and women do not present as perfectly equal within many areas, from the earnings gap to the death gap. Propose a solution to the earnings gap, which is a range of intrusive governmental policies that have as an end goal to promote perfect demographic distribution.
Closely link the policies with the underlying facts, while making sure that anyone who disagrees with the perception of the underlying 77c on the dollar slogan, is tarred as a misogynist. Attack anyone who proposes that perhaps this is a result of individual choice being observed in aggregate or inherent biological predispositions.
In the same manner, many of the climate change apologists have an inherent predisposition towards utilizing governmental power in order to enact policies to promote solutions.
Summary and Conclusions
The disconnect in both cases come under policies not under the basic facts of the situation being discussed. However, both the left and the right have their own lens through which they see problems and the corresponding policy solutions. Much like a blue pill man is prone towards putting women on pedestals, the left is prone to selecting regulations and taxation as their solution of choice. Whereas the right is prone to relying heavily on a policy variant of Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand“.
Perhaps the greatest problem comes from the holy cows that both sides in the CC debate share, namely globalism. The left loves globalism and internationalism because they have an inherent belief in diversity of ethic origin, religion, culture and values. The right loves globalism because they have an inherent belief in the virtue of big business, and that everything that is good for multi-national companies is good for the government and therefore also good for the people.
Thus, policies are enacted that promote outsourcing of labor, driven by policies loved by the left, but tacitly supported by the right. Consider the carbon footprint of modern globalist trade. If we assume that goods produced in Asia have the same carbon footprint of production. Then one has to consider the carbon footprint of transporting such goods halfway across the world using tanker fleets to their markets.
There is no denying that big business has a bigger boner for bare-bones labor budgets than western women do for breathtaking, Byronic billionaires with a penchant for bedroom brutality. Furthermore, that corporations tend to seek out those locations where the least possible level of regulations exist. Thus, the left and right are both part of the same cycle, wherein the left adds regulations and taxation to cover externalities and the right adds loop-holes that allows companies to avoid those very policies.
In the same manner, as men, and particularly white men are coming more and more under attack by the Marxist inspired left within the western world, the more men are avoiding the situations that would see them harmed by the left’s policies. Either through moving to countries with less damaging influence, or avoiding marriage and children overall.
The reaction to policies says something about their calibration. If one enacts a policy where only one side of an equation is targeted, that means one unbalances a delicate framework that must be in balance. This is whether one elects to add to fuel tax, and thus make commutes to and from work more expensive for the average worker, thus driving down disposable income and creating a need for higher salaries to compensate. However, those higher salaries may not be possible to pay for the person’s employer and thus the employer must outsource or downsize.
When a system is in natural homeostasis, it remains balanced and does not change unless acted upon in some manner. For instance, within the west when the variable of demographics was tightly controlled, the democratic system and liberal democratic states were in balance. When this variable was changed, the system was out of balance and thus has to be re-balanced.
Thus, policy in response to perceived problems, should follow a similar principle as Ocham’s razor. Namely, that policy that creates more problems than it solves should be avoided. For instance, the re-balancing of gender relations leading to issues with single-parent households [4], female happiness falling [1] and declining birth rates [5].
Unfortunately, the consequences of the solution are rarely evaluated in depth, as any debate tends to break down into name-calling across the isle. I find the phrase “climate change denier” to be particularly interesting, as if rejecting a series of policies based on fact, makes one a heretic or blasphemer in the church of Gore. Likewise, the use of labels rather than arguments within the confines of the “culture war” where any participant using arguments against accepted dogma, regardless of their foundations is assumed to be motivated by hatred or fear. As if there are no counter-arguments against the accepted narrative that could be founded in more reality-oriented and grounded positions.
A note:
I recently launched a Patreon page where I will be posting additional content every month for those who support me and I will do a Google Hangout for the highest tier Patrons (limited to 10 people).
I’ve also had some requests for consults, which I’ve declined up until now, but due to demand I’ve chosen to open up for doing some consults on request. For details please check out my Consulting and Patreon Page
As always you can buy my book Gendernomics at Amazon.com as both paperback and Kindle
Sources:
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/may/18/womens-rights-happiness-wellbeing-gender-gap
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiJVJ5QRRUE
[4]http://www.photius.com/feminocracy/facts_on_fatherless_kids.html
[5] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/23/baby-crisis-europe-brink-depopulation-disaster
