An Open Letter To People Who Think "Man Coulter" is a Funny Joke

Dear [insert form of address],

It has come to my attention that, when discussing a certain conservative pundit, you think it is a valid criticism, or funny, or in any way appropriate, to make "jokes" to the effect of "she has an Adam's apple" or "she's a man" or the like. I would like to disabuse you of this notion.

To begin, I believe you identify as liberal, correct? You believe in equality, and standing with he oppressed against their oppressors, and the rights of the downtrodden, correct? You believe that membership in a class, even or especially an unprivileged class, is not cause for shame?

Furthermore, you believe, as I do, that Ms. Coulter is a throughly vile human being, correct? You agree that she is a hateful, racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, poverty-bashing, genocide-advocating, torture-apologist, victim-blaming, idiotic, willfully ignorant, talentless, unfunny, Christian-supremacist, jingoistic, warmongering, self-loathing, self-absorbed, arrogant, narrow-minded, dichotomously thinking, hypocritical, violent mouthpiece for some of the most disgusting ideologies in mainstream political discourse?

Why then is it, that the best insult for her you can manage amounts to "ha ha ugly t****y"? There is much to criticize: her idea that Christianity should be brought to the Middle East with a sword, her defenses of people who are actively trying to bring about the End of Days, her inability to distinguish between nuance and treason, and all of the things listed in the previous paragraph; so why are you going with something fundamentally irrelevant to her opinions?

For that matter, why are you using "ha ha ugly t****y" as an insult? Why are you choosing to criticize a woman pundit with "ugly", implying that her looks are at all relevant to the validity of her opinions? Why are you criticizing anyone with "t****y", implying that being trans* is fundamentally a bad thing; much less criticizing a pundit with it, and implying that trans* people's opinions are fundamentally invalid?

In conclusion, you should engage with ideas you don't like, instead of dismissing them by claiming that the person who has them is a member of an unprivileged class.

Signed,
A Liberal Who's Tired Of You Undermining The Cause

(Note: This letter is also addressed to people who think "I wouldn't sleep with [name]" is a valid criticism of a conservative politician.)

Atheism+: A (Not) Brief Reflection on Pick Up Artistry

Normally, I wouldn't care about such things. But because I somehow got onto the spam list of a bunch of PUA sites (and keep seeing PUA ads on Pandora and such), I think I'll post a rant about PUA from an Atheist+ perspective.

The following material is flagged Red Level. It deals with the blogger's original ideas, personal beliefs, and delusions; and might not be believed by any expert in any field anywhere.

There will be two parts to this rant: one explaining what PUA is, one dealing with the problems with PUA from a Skeptical perspective, and one dealing with the problems from a Feminist perspective.

Three parts.  There are three parts to this rant: what PUA is, Skeptical problems, Feminist problems, and a conclusion.

I'll come in again.

The following material is flagged Red Level. It deals with the blogger's original ideas, personal beliefs, and delusions; and might not be believed by any expert in any field anywhere.

There are four parts to this post, yadda yadda. Cardinal! Read the charges!
Charges? I thought this was just a rant.
The rant is the charges, Cardinal. Never mind; I'll do it.

First off, what is PUA? PUA, or Pick Up Artistry, is a technique that a number of people teach. These people claim that, by using their techniques, any person (usually but not always male) can enjoy the intimate company of any person or persons (usually but not always female) xe desires. Usually, these techniques are claimed to be "perfect", "undetectable", "irresistible", and so forth. It is claimed that by buying the book or taking the class that the "trainer" offers, the subject will never lack for intimate company again.

The advertising used will be discussed here (because I don't feel like shelling out cash just to write a more thorough take-down). Often, the advertising is based on a testimonial, often personal, claiming that the person was completely unable to attract intimate company until having taken the class, after which people (almost always women) were desperate to give xim their company. Other methods are used in the advertising, such as social proof ("everyone's doing it!"), appeal to authority ("let me tell you what Einstein said!", as well as references to the author's questionable credentials ["I've read three books on this subject!"] in psychology or "female psychology"), time pressure ("limited time offer! Act now!"), low-balling ("this would normally be worth $700, but we're giving it away for a tenth of that!"), likeability ("I'm really on your side!"), mock anti-authoritarianism ("I'm on the run from THEM, because THEY want to suppress this!"), and so forth. Generally, any component of the advertising that is not posted in plain sight in a public place is overtly sexual (at least, for the version aimed at men).

First, I will start with a skeptical perspective on the subject. The claim made is that the person has discovered an easy, generally applicable, undetectable, and irresistible form of what is essentially mind control. At the very least, the claim is that the person has discovered a way to block impulse control while controlling emotion.

To which I respond, "Why then are you not the Evil Overlord yet?"

There are many better uses for mind control than obtaining intimate company. One could go with the old standby of RULING THE WORLD! MUAHAHAHA! One could sell the secret to military or intelligence organizations (heaven knows the CIA would be interested). One could easily go viral as an artist or a pop-culture phenomenon.

One could even, say, make irresistible and undetectable advertising to sell the secret.

And yet, the world remains unruled, the military does not field mind control battalions, intelligence agencies are restricted to conventional propaganda, artists and pop-culture phenomena have less-than-universal appeal, and the secret to mind control is sold using transparent and resistible manipulation.

Doubtless the defenders would claim that there are reasons for this: it only works on women, it can only be used for sexual purposes, and so on. To which I respond: this is classic special pleading. Nothing in the advertising suggests that this might be the case. Nothing in conventional (read: appearing in respectable peer-reviewed journals) psychological research indicates that there are inherent psychological differences across gender lines, or that there are neural pathways tied to sexuality that are unrelated to anything else (in fact, the common adage that "sex sells" is very much true).

(I might do another piece more fully examining the problems from a skeptical perspective, such as regression to the mean in the testimonials, placebo effect, committedness bias, and so on; but that's for another time. This is already starting to run a bit long.)

Next, the feminist perspective.

There are some truly serious problems in this.

First, there's the problematic takes on sex and sexuality and intimacy. The advertising plays into the gendered tropes surrounding intimate relationships: that men only think of sex, and that women only think of relationships.

And this sounds like an excellent time for another installment of Tropes Versus Men and Women Alike!
(Be warned: there are TVTropes links ahead.)

1.Men Are Horndogs
Versus Men: It's an old joke: men are always interested in physical intimacy. The running assumption is that men are incapable of thinking while female secondary sexual characteristics are visible, that a man who receives any sexual attention wanted it (even if he transparently did not), and that it is the Natural State of Men to always pursue physical intimacy. Naturally, this leads to a number of problems for men: men who are harassed or assaulted sexually are treated, at best, as the butt of a joke; at worst given a "why are you complaining?" treatment. It is believed that men "cannot be trusted" around anyone they might possibly be interested in. And men who do not fit this template, who do not pursue every woman around them or are capable of thinking clearly even while near conventionally-or-otherwise-attractive women, are "not Real Men".
Versus Women:  Naturally, if men cannot control themselves while seeing women they find attractive, this places a duty on women to, as some Evangelical Christians put it, "prevent their brothers from stumbling". Under this idea, there is an assumption that a woman who does not do this is "asking" for any unwanted attention or action she receives; and therefore that if a woman receives unwanted attention, she may have done something to "deserve" it or she may have been "asking for it".

2.Women Are Sensitive
Versus Women: The other side of that trope is that women care about emotional intimacy to the exclusion of physical intimacy. The idea is that while the Man enjoys himself, the woman "lies back and thinks of England" (or her country of choice). Of course, the main problem with this is that this presents a stunted and severely warped perspective on women's motivations in relationships: it's always about the emotional (or in some cases, financial) aspects, and never about the physical ones. This has the effect of causing women who feel physical attraction (which is most of them, at some point) to feel as though there is something "disgusting" or "wrong" about them for it, and to be shunned for their "impure" thoughts.
Versus Men: Of course, if caring about emotional attachments is an exclusively feminine trait, this means that men cannot be allowed to care about such "soft" things. Men are expected to only enter into relationships for the physical aspects, or sometimes for the cooking or cleaning; never because they "feel" something as wussy as an "emotional bond" with another person. This means that men are supposed to function without any emotional support network, or even a supportive emotional bond.

But how does this apply to PUA? Simple. Male!PUA and Female!PUA are advertised very differently. In Male!PUA advertising, the usual formula in video media involves a man who is depicted as vaguely pathetic and meant to be the audience: not a True Man because He Is Not Sexually Active. With the Help Of Our Product, he becomes a True Man who is depicted (sometimes in ways bordering on pornographic) enjoying the company of a number of Beautiful Women in Various States Of Undress. On the other hand, Female!PUA advertising focuses on a woman who is Interested In Pursuing A Relationship With A Man. Instead of showing her undressed and physically involved with the man, she is shown as getting him to The Marital Altar (both fully dressed, of course). This suggests completely different goals in the products sold: men getting some action, and women getting some commitment. The idea that men might want commitment, or women might want action, or either might want a relationship (even just for one night) based on mutual respect does not seem to occur to the producers.

And that segues nicely into the next point. A good sexual relationship (from what I understand anyway; I can't really speak from experience here) is based on communication, mutual respect, mutual desire, and very importantly consent. See, consent is the difference between sex and rape (regardless of what Todd Akin might have to say on the subject). And this leads to a very important problem in PUA: if it worked, how would any "consent" given be meaningful? If consent absolutely must be given, and not consenting is psychologically impossible, that consent is not consent. And so, using mind control to obtain intimacy, especially physical intimacy, is a Very Bad Thing.

And so, to conclude: PUA is a technique that cannot possibly work as advertised, because if it did the advertising would be a lot better (at least). It seems to be marketed in ways that play into and reinforce gender stereotypes that are fundamentally harmful to both men and women (the ways in which they harm genderqueer, agender, and genderfluid persons are left as an exercise to the reader; as are the harms to LGBTA persons). And it is a very good thing that it does not work, because if it did using it would be a horrific crime.

On the Problems with the Privatization of Justice

I really, really, really, really, really should not have to be writing this.

But you know what? I'm writing this anyway. I''m writing this because I got into an argument with someone in the YouTube comments of a video about the proper role of government* and what socialism (SOCIALISM!!!eleventy-one!!) is** and is not. And I'm writing it because a) YouTube comments don't give me enough space to do a full-on rant, and b) it feels a lot better to rant where I can be arbitrarily censorious, like a good little Atheist+ #FTBorg know the people who read this thing are capable of rational argument and basic reading-comprehension skills.

And here is where I explain what's up with the title. This person's final comment (or rather, the one that led to me ragequitting on trying to get through to xim) asserted that the United States had socialism (SOCIALISM!!!one-hundred-eleven!!) because among other things, the government controls the police.

Now, that's not strictly wrong. The government is representative (though I do tend to doubt this person would agree, what with a [slur redacted] with the middle name HUSSEIN Kenyan Muslim Communist Fascist Atheist child of Malcolm X***  in the White House), and it does own the means of producing law enforcement.

My problem with this line of argument is that the person was presenting socialized police as a Bad Thing.****

The following material is flagged Yellow Level. It contains material that is disputed by some experts but accepted by others. Caution is advised when deciding whether you personally choose to believe it.

Let us look at the suggested way this could work, being as charitable as possible.

In this person's ideal world, there are no (jackbooted) government police enforcing the law. Instead, the law is enforced by private companies. This arrangement works rather like insurance: you pay a protection subscription fee, and if something bad happens to you your justice company will investigate, arrest the suspect, hold a trial, and administer punishment.

We will start with the most obvious objection that applies in the most charitable world. It is this company's job to do all of the above, but only for paying customers. Doing this for non-paying customers would cut into their profit margin (and it's unethical in this framework to accept a service you haven't paid for).

Meet Freddy. He lost his job when the factory closed, and is scraping by on his meager savings while he looks for another. Because he hasn't got a source of income, he has to cut a few things out of the budget: medicine, news, justice subscription, gas. He gets robbed at gunpoint. Freddy brings the case before his old justice company. Because Freddy does not have a subscription, the company does not do anything beyond laughing in his face (spitting optional) and having security show him the door. In other words, such a system decides that the poor do not deserve to have any protection, and it is open season on anyone who cannot afford justice******. Ladies, gentlemen, children, teenagers, and non-binary adults, some people are now below the law, so there is no longer any such thing as Rule of Law!

And next, a less obvious objection that still applies in the most charitable world. Suppose Alice, the CEO of Al's Protection Racket, breaks into your house and empties your safe. Now, how are you going to get any justice? Bring a charge against her -- no, she owns the arresting officers and the court, if you subscribed to the Racket; and if you're one of Boxing Jack's, that would mean a hot war between the companies if he decided to get involved. Organize a boycott -- boycotts are tricky to manage, especially boycotts of an essential service, or of a provider you don't buy from anyway. We now have people who are above the law, and again, there is no longer any such thing as the Rule of Law!

Now, let's move to slightly less charitable worlds.

The first one: Pierre subscribes to Bertha's Bruisers. Dave does not. Pierre accuses Dave of cheating him out of millions, and it ends up in the court of Bertha's Bruisers. Dave is innocent, but Pierre writes a letter to Bertha threatening to take his business elsewhere if Dave gets off. This one time, justice prevails, but this isn't the first time this has happened, and the Bruisers are losing business. Bertha gets a clever idea: premium membership. Pay an extra monthly fee, and her courts will find in your favor no matter what, as long as you aren't outbid. Presumption of innocence? Reasonable doubt? Nah. The judge is already bought.

Next: Meet Six-Finger Johnny, co-owner of It's-Getting-Hard-To-Think-Of-Original-Names Limited, a name his business partner Harriette advised him to go with when he couldn't come up with a name. Johnny's business has been flagging lately, but as he walks past Alice's building, he gets an idea. When he gets back to the IGHTTOON Ltd. offices, he pulls up a list of the people who live near subscribers but don't subscribe to his services. Then he sends some of his employees around to rearrange the faces of anyone on the list. Coercive? Yes. But who's going to stop him? The other companies all decide that it's not worth an open war to avoid losing a little business, especially since Johnny offers reduced rates to anyone who enlists and as such has the biggest army of them all.

Finally, Harriette. Harriette is a bit of a homophobe. A lot of one, in fact. She believes that being gay should be punishable by death. So, with Johnny's acceptance, she issues a law that applies in all territory influenced by IGHTTOON: sodomy is now a capital offense. Pleased by the success of this law (none of those filthy people exist in her domain anymore!), she starts writing new laws and, with the help of Johnny's work, rules with an iron fist. Johnny and Harriette are now warlords in all but name.

*according to this person, "none at all". At least as far as I can tell.
**for the curious, it has a specific technical meaning. It is not just any government program you disagree with. Socialism means that the methods used to make things and provide services belong to either the people who use them to do so or a part of society that represents the whole. I spent hours arguing with this person about why any totalitarian or dictatorial state was by definition not socialist (that being that the part of society that operates the means of production does not represent the workers or the people). Heck, it's possible to have capitalist socialism; you just need to have a market economy where people own the things they use to make a living and the products of their efforts.
***Amalgamated trademarks of the Birthers, the John Birch society, WorldNetDaily, and other far-right sources. Used without permission under Fair Use for purposes of parody.
****For the record, the police system as it currently exists has a lot of problems (racism in the ranks, cops protecting their own from responsibility for wrongdoing, a tendency to attract people whose reason for wearing the uniform is to legally assault people [or as a certain Australian game reviewer puts it, SERVE AND PROTECT!], et cetera). All of these problems would also exist with a privatized police system, and I suspect most of them would be worse.*****
*****Holy [expletive redacted] Batman, that footnote looks like it's got swearwords in it.
******A bit like the current system*******, but this time it's actually codified. In the current system, our hypothetical poor person at least theoretically has some ability to see justice done. In the proposed system, the poor person not being able to get justice is a [expletive redacted] feature. 
*******Which is why we need to eliminate societal prejudices against the poor. Unrestricted capitalism is only going to exacerbate them, if anything.

Atheism+: Of Opportunity and Outcome.

I know that some of you might be capital-L Libertarians, and that some of you might be the lowercase-L ones who find the American Right Wing Nutcase Libertarians absolutely insufferable. And yes, I know that some of you aren't libertarians at all. But there's an argument that keeps getting thrown around that I thought I'd debunk.

The following material is flagged Yellow Level. It contains material that is disputed by some experts but accepted by others. Caution is advised when deciding whether you personally choose to believe it.

Now then, some people say "I'm not against equality of opportunity, I'm against enforcing equality of outcome. It isn't fair to the hard workers for someone to be given the same outcomes they earned just for being black/female/gay/etc. Why do you keep insisting that I'm racist/sexist/homophobic for saying this?"

And here is where I will explain, in detail, that yes, that is a bigoted argument. I will tell you why accepting that argument makes you bigoted. If you dislike being called bigoted more than you dislike actually being bigoted, this is the moment when you should  leave now and come back next week.

Let us start with a few basic premises:
P1: Inequalities of outcome exist, when not compensated for.
P2: Those inequalities have a statistically significant tendency to favor some ethnic groups, genders, sexual orientations, and such over others.
P3: Any difference in individual outcomes results from an inherent trait (defined as a trait that is purely internal to a person), an extrinsic trait (defined as a trait that results from the actions of others, including actions based on intrinsic traits; this is what we will discuss when considering differences of opportunity, [EDIT: as well as initial conditions, such as family situation]), or a difference in luck (defined as traits or differences in circumstance that are neither intrinsic nor extrinsic as defined above, such as differences in the realization of an opportunity due to events beyond the control of either the individual or any person with power over the individual).
P4: Luck cannot account for statistically significant differences between groups. That is what statistical significance means.
P5: Any inherent trait that is evenly distributed (defined as distributed as probability dictates without any bias toward nor against any population) between all populations cannot cause a statistically significant difference of outcomes.

Let us add an implication of that argument as a premise:
P'6: It is possible, given the current population, for general equality of opportunity to coexist with general inequality of outcome.

Now, let us draw conclusions:
C1 (P3, P4, P5): If a statistically significant difference in outcomes exists between groups, it must result from either a difference in opportunities or an inherent trait present in one group to a statistically significant greater degree than in the other.
C2 (P2, C1): Either different groups have significantly different opportunities, or inherent traits are distributed such that an inherent trait impacting outcomes is predicted by membership in one group.
C'3 (P'6, C2): An inherent trait impacting outcomes is predicted by membership in one group.

Or, in other words, if you believe that significant inequality between average outcomes of racial, gender, or similar groups does not imply inequality between opportunities, you logically must believe that one group is less moral/intelligent/hardworking/suited for the task in question than another, which is the definition of bigotry.

That said, though, there's multiple kinds of bigotry. You might be making arguments that you haven't thought all the way through, or you might not have noticed the tendency of black characters to die a lot in movies, or you might be the person who uses the word "f*****" without realizing what it means. The fact that you are actually concerned about being seen as racist/sexist/ableist/etc. seems to show that you aren't the sort of person who goes around burning crosses.

Atheism+: Misandry!

A common trope in some circles is that there are stereotypes about the privileged group(for instance, in race, the idea that white people can't jump), and therefore that equality has been achieved. Leaving aside for the moment that the stereotypes are in no way equal (h*nk**s can't dance vs. "THEY'RE COMING FOR OUR WOMEN!!!1!!"), my response is "So? The fact that the harmful tropes exist for everyone is not an argument in favor of their continued existence. For each of the harmful tropes, we would all be better off without it."

The following material is flagged Yellow Level. It contains material that is disputed by some experts but accepted by others. Caution is advised when deciding whether you personally choose to believe it.

I know all of you are itching for some examples, so I proudly present the first part of "Tropes vs Men and Women Alike".

(and yes, I know that the examples I'm giving and the discussion associated with each assume that the men and women in question are straight, neurotypical, and cis. This is to make the discussion easier; if you want to go into the problems these tropes cause for gay, lesbian, bisexual, asexual, neuroatypical, and trans* people, I leave that as an exercise for readers who want extra credit. Read a bit on intersectionality, and be sure to show your work.)

1. Men's and Women's Separate Spheres
   
   Vs Men: You've all seen the ads where a man tries to cook and succeeds in burning water. There are other issues with this, that go deeper: male teachers, especially at the elementary level, are looked at askance (more on this later); male nurses don't fit in with the ladies; a man who is interested in interior design or fashion or hairdressing or [at this point the Bedlamite becomes somewhat shifty-eyed] who likes cartoons about magic talking horses and friendship isn't a "real man"; men tend not to get custody in divorces; and so on. This is one of the few points on which I actually agree with the people who tend to end up sporked on Man Boobz: this trope needs to go.
   Vs Women: I will leave aside for the moment that tech is generally marketed to men, and that (despite actual demographic studies indicating, if anything, the reverse) video games are considered a male-dominated space, and that appeals to masculinity are common in advertising, and that a lot of people have trouble imagining a female engineer or soldier. Let's look at how "men can't operate a blanket", specifically,  harms women. Someone needs to do the hard work of making dinner, teaching students, tending the sick, designing house interiors, designing clothes, fixing hair, raising children, and operating blankets. If men can't do that, who needs to be the ones doing it? That's right, people who aren't men. Women. And if she wants to code, or fight in a war, or put out fires, or walk a beat; well, sweetheart, you can do that on your own time.
2. Men Think, Women Feel
   
   Vs Women: I shouldn't need to explain this, but here goes anyway. The idea here is that women are more emotional than men, which is something of a double-edged sword. First off, emotion is usually portrayed as inferior to reason in a number of works (science fiction is a particularly bad offender) and our culture tends to view emotion as inferior. We don't need any of that artsy ****, or anyone who can talk about "feelings"; we need people in the Hard and Dismal Sciences! Second, emotion includes the more painful emotions. If an author needs someone to go into hysterics [language choice deliberate] or someone to traumatize, odds are that they'll pick a woman. And this means that a girl reading these stories learns that she can't be strong, or shut out emotion when she needs to, if she wants to be a Real Woman.
   Vs Men: And if women have to be emotional all the time, the flip side of that is that men aren't allowed to be emotional. They aren't allowed any of that mushy stuff. Well, only a little. Just hate, anger, lust, and anything else that drives them to compete. No going into "cute overload" at the sight of a box of kittens. No showing fear when your mates at the pub dare you to stick your **** in a box of scorpions. No remembering what your wife wanted for Valentine's. No talking about the desire to demonstrate any of the above to your shrink. Just the stuff that makes you want to work 9 to 5 so that you can upstage the guy you don't like, or go into a war to shoot at the guy Glorious Leader doesn't like. Everything else has to be bottled up or channeled through one of the above.

More on this later. If you want to submit an example that you think runs only one way, or you have a favorite example of your own, mention it in the comments.

Atheism+: A Glossary of Terms

The following material is flagged Yellow Level. It contains material that is disputed by some experts but accepted by others. Caution is advised when deciding whether you personally choose to believe it.

So, some of you (especially the atheists among you) may have heard about Atheism+. Some of you (if there's even any of you who read this thing) may be wondering what my own position is on it.

I'm for it.

The "'Guys, Don't Do That' Incident" made it clear that the atheist movement has some problems when it comes to social justice issues. More recent events have shown that the problems are fairly pervasive. So, a new branch of the movement is necessary. If we want to be better than the religions we oppose, we must move beyond their mistakes. We must take an active stand against the traditions of bigotry that our societies have inherited from their religions. Otherwise, we are only better than they in that we know that evolution works and homeopathy doesn't.

As my first contribution to the movement (and in keeping with this blog's tendency to be Things I Find Interesting 101), I am posting some jargon for newcomers to the Atheism+ movement to help them understand discussions.

Note: If you can't find a term in its alphabetical section, look under "*" first, then go through the "Common variants" listing of similar terms.

*H*T: Acronym: (foo) Hurts (bar) Too. The fact that members of privileged groups can suffer as a result of the underlying systems resulting in their privilege, often as a result of deviation from the expectations of that system or the forbiddance thereof. See Also: MRA. Common variant: PHMT (Patriarchy, Men)
*ism: Institutionalized oppression of or bias against an unprivileged group by a society. Differs from the colloquial definition in that the bias or oppression must be systematic or institutionalized and must be supported by the society. Common variants: sexism, racism, ableism.
*splain: To assume that one's position of privilege grants one better knowledge of a subject than less privileged persons, and to attempt to educate them on the subject unasked, esp. on issues related to privilege and/or in defiance of statements that they already understand the subject. Not simply an explanation or correction to an error of fact issued while a member of a privileged group; *splaining must include an assumption without reason that a member of the non-privileged group is lacking in the knowledge presented, or, in the case of a dispute over a point of fact, an assumption without reason that a member of the non-privileged group is incorrect rather than oneself being in error. Common variants: mansplain, whitesplain, condesplain.
Atheism: A position of disbelief in deities. Ranges from lack of belief in a deity to belief that the existence of a deity is impossible. Typically associated with skepticism. 
Atheism+: 1. A position of belief that combines atheism and fully intersectional social justice. Usually includes a belief that the latter is necessary to or an inevitable conclusion of the former or that both are conclusions of skepticism. 2. A political and social movement based on def. 1, composed exclusively of persons accepting the position of belief but not containing all such persons.
Cisgender: Having an assigned gender role and anatomy at birth consistent with one's psychological gender and body image.
Egalitarianism: A belief that people should be treated equally; that every person should have an equal chance of success, however "success" is defined. Reasons for this vary from simple fairness to the idea that equality benefits everyone.
Intersectional:  Taking into consideration that multiple forms and types of prejudice and privilege may feed into or support one another. For instance, intersectional feminism is likely to take into consideration the ways in which misogyny and homophobia are connected.
Kyriarchy: The social structure that enforces privilege. Common variant: patriarchy.
LGBTIQAAN&C: Acronym: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, Queer/Questioning, Asexual, Agender, Nonconforming, and Cetera. Catch-all term for persons who do not fit the social norm of cisgender, heterosexual, and conforming to typical gender roles. Common variants: Too many to list, but most begin with LGBT or GLBT. Another common variant is QUILTBAG.
MRA: Acronym: Men's Rights Activist. Alternately formulated as Misogynist Raving *******. A person, often male, who believes that effects resulting from PHMT instead result from feminism, and who seeks to reverse the effects of the latter.
Microaggression: The most common manifestation of privilege and *ism. A seemingly-trivial decision, often unthinking, that due to being informed by *ist perspectives harms a member of an unpriviliged group. These decisions may even appear trivial to the person harmed, but add up to form larger problems.
PC: Acronym: Politically Correct. Common denigration of egalitarian movements and ideas, implying that they are a result of conformity to society. Contrasted with Politically Incorrect, which is often used to mask *ist attitudes as "thinking for oneself".
Prejudice: The act of making generalizations or unfounded assumptions about a group of people, typically harmful generalizations or assumptions about a non-privileged group. Often includes applying a generalization or assumption to each member of the group. Unlike *ism, prejudice can be against either privileged or unprivileged groups.
Privilege: A benefit or set of benefits socially granted to one group at the expense of another. Typically takes the form of traditions opposing one group, assumptions about a group or its individual members, and/or socioeconomic factors that for historical reasons place unequal pressures on a group or its members.  Opposed by egalitarianism and social justice. Note that lacking one type of privilege does not mean that one lacks all types; multiple types exist. Also note that simply having privilege is not in itself a negative trait and does not inherently make one's opinions worthless.
Privilege blindness: The tendency of a privileged individual, especially one new to social justice, to not be aware of privilege that has not been pointed out. May involve a belief that certain rights are "zero-sum", or that granting a right to a group currently lacking it will result in the denial of that right to a group currently possessing it; and may be accompanied by a belief that one's own lived experiences are universal. Note that being aware of one type of privilege does not make one aware of others.
Skepticism: A belief that knowledge is best obtained by rational inquiry and the scientific method. Typically associated with atheism.
Social Justice: A belief, almost always associated with egalitarianism, that a) people are not currently equal, and b) that the group most harmed by this should be harmed less or not at all. Typically, it is believed reducing the harm to the most-harmed group, or more accurately dismantling the socioeconomic structures causing the harm, will benefit all people.
Trigger:  1. n. A situation, including written descriptions of situations, that can result in stress responses in persons who have experienced the same or a similar situation. 2. v. To cause such a stress response. Common triggers include war, violence, and abuse.
TW: Acronym: trigger warning. See Also: trigger.
Xe: Gender-neutral pronoun, used for persons whose gender is unknown or neither male nor female. Common variants: ze, singular they. Possessive form: xir. Direct object form: xim.

Game Theory XI: Metagames: The Punishing Prisoner's Dilemma

Now, let us look at another perspective on the Prisoner's Dilemma. Suppose we allow the players to communicate. What happens?

The following material is flagged Green Level. It is intended to reflect material that the author believes to be a matter of consensus among experts in the field. This belief may be incorrect, however; and as the author is not an expert and does not have an expert fact-checking the article, errors may creep in.

Let us suppose that two of the players in the Prisoner's Dilemma make an arrangement. The players decide this: if either defects, that person must make a side payment to the other, equal to the harm inflicted by the defection. While the offer is available, the game looks like this (as again, B>A>F>E and 2A>B+E) and, because A-E>B-A (as proven below), the dominant strategies are highlighted in green:
2A>B+E
2A-E>B
A-E>B-A

	Response to offer: Accept	Response to offer: Reject
Offer	Cooperate Defect Cooperate (A,A) (A,B-[A-E]) Defect (B-[A-E],A) (F, F) =(A,A)	Cooperate Defect Cooperate (A,A) (E,B) Defect (B,E) (F, F) =(F,F)
Do not offer	Cooperate Defect Cooperate (A,A) (E,B) Defect (B,E) (F, F) =(F,F)	Cooperate Defect Cooperate (A,A) (E,B) Defect (B,E) (F, F) =(F,F)

As you can see, applying metagame logic here allows for a rationale for players to cooperate: deterrence. Because a side payment is required for defection, each player benefits more from cooperation than from defection.
Let us examine what happens with pure punishment (no payment is made to someone who is defected against; instead, the defector simply loses the utility in question), with punishments of severity C and D, where C>B-A and D>F-E:

	Response to offer: Accept	Response to offer: Reject
Offer	Cooperate Defect Cooperate (A,A) (E,B-C) Defect (B-C,E) (F-D, F-D) =(A,A)	Cooperate Defect Cooperate (A,A) (E,B) Defect (B,E) (F, F) =(F,F)
Do not offer	Cooperate Defect Cooperate (A,A) (E,B) Defect (B,E) (F, F) =(F,F)	Cooperate Defect Cooperate (A,A) (E,B) Defect (B,E) (F, F) =(F,F)

So, even with no reparations made (or, depending on how one looks at it, no protection against the selfishness of others), each person's interests are served by taking this approach.
Canny readers may note that this is similar to the Hobbesian view of government: that without it, each person would defect (resulting in life being "nasty, brutish, and short" as each person pursues their own gain at the expense of everyone else), but the establishment of a justice system (preferably one as draconian as possible) results in each person cooperating out of self-interest. There are a few problems with this perspective, some of which I will cover here:

1. As a general rule, people who break laws do not do so rationally, or at least with the expectation of being caught. If that were the case, there would be no crime in societies with harsh justice systems and near-universal surveillance.
2. The game only takes place over one turn, or with each turn uninfluenced by previous turns. In the real world, future games are affected by previous ones and the benefits of cooperation especially are impacted by punishment. This will be covered in a future installment of the Topic.
3. The game assumes that justice is perfect: that is, that there is never a false conviction or a false acquittal.

Let us look at the third of these. We will have a probability P(punishment|cooperation), which is the probability of punishment given cooperation (that is, the odds that someone cooperating will be falsely convicted) and a probability P(punishment|defection), which is the probability of punishment given defection (that is, the odds that someone defecting will be convicted).
Remember that C and D are expected utilities. In other words, they are the actual severity of the punishment multiplied by the odds that the punishment will be carried out, or SP(punishment|defection), where S is the true severity of the punishment, or more accurately, S(P[punishment|defection]-P[punishment|cooperation]). So, the true severity of the punishment must be C or D divided by P(punishment|defection)-P(punishment|cooperation). So, for pure deterrence to work, a justice system must hand out stricter punishments if it makes more mistakes, and (assuming a strictest possible sentence), there is a theoretical point of inaccuracy at which the system simply cannot function.

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