Morons of the Internet: The Wessex Scene (28/08/18)

This is the segment where I scour my favourite forums around the internet and find some particularly interesting articles about current affairs told in the words of my favourite human beings.

In this edition we return to our favourite journalists over at The Wessex Scene, who like a growing number of woke students have decided that blatant misandry is their next cheap tactic in trying to get people to take them in any way seriously. So let's see what one of these provocateurs have come up with:
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https://www.wessexscene.co.uk/opinion/2018/04/26/i-am-allowed-to-say-men-are-trash/#comment-2232151
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It always fills me with confidence that quality journalism is close at hand when you see a disclaimer before the fucking article has even started. Just to highlight, this student publication, without a hint of irony, just described their writers as 'talented', which doesn't sound arrogant at all. Firstly, if your writers were in any way talented they certainly wouldn't be writing for a shit publication like The Wessex Scene, and secondly, your writers are often more concerned with who has a new microwave rather than any meaningful stories. Let's not pat ourselves on the back for the quality of writing when the following article is one big pile of manure. This disclaimer is just an excuse to print irresponsible, provocative shite whilst saving face in the process. Some idiot allowed the following shit to be published, so take some fucking responsibility for your shit journalism.

This particular moron at The Wessex Scene knows she's being a careless idiot, yet has so little self-awareness she can't see how much of a bigoted fool she appears. In her warped mind it's completely acceptable to proudly exclaim 'men are trash', even if she then has to fully explain her point and backtrack on this ludicrous statement. If you're so far away from hating all men, then why the fuck are you spouting out 'men are trash' in the first place? Your actions make no fucking sense. Do you not think for one second that when you proclaim 'men are trash' people are going to believe that you have an irrational hatred for all men? How selfish are men to not be able to read your mind?

I just can't imagine why you would start demonising these innocent men that you alledgedly care for when by your own admission it's power systems rather than individuals that are at fault. But no, in your fucked up mind it just has to be all men at fault, and me and my superior wourldview will always assume men are inherently awful. What a disgusting attitude to have. The number of men who are detrimental to your health and safety, especially in this country, is astronomically low. How fucking dare you make such a damaging generalisation that supports such a shitty way of thinking when the argument is based on a miniscule minority. Surely you must be aware that your anecdotal experiences do not change this fact. I'm truly sorry for what's happened in your life, and I'm sorry you feel these horrible events are somehow just expected in any girl's life, but this does not justify your heinous statement. People may have treated you like shit, but that doesn't give you the right to treat others the same woeful way based on nothing but pure bigotry.

Wait, you're now claiming trashy behaviour isn't a trend in men. Well why the fuck are you making these ridiculous generalisations then? People are always going to be wary of terrible events, but that doesn't mean they're likely to happen. I'm petrified of being attacked by a maneating shark when I'm out at sea, despite the fact that I've never even seen a dangerous shark in the wild. It's the same story with forming relationships. I've never been close friends or in a realtionship with a truly horrible person, but that doesn't mean I don't gain the trust of potential suitors first. This is standard human behaviour, and is not just exclusive to women. Then you decide to directly compare men to dogs, which is not only another excuse to bash men, but a fucking terrible analogy. There's a fine line between being anxious of dogs because of personal experiences and loudly shouting that 'all dogs are trash'. I doubt people would be so understanding if you obnoxiously starting shouting that in their faces.

Interestingly it turns out that trans women are treated even worse than your average woman. Basically the writer is saying that select few men are treated worse than women, which is funny, because I could have sworn that all men are trash. This article of fucked up generalisations is now just spiraling out of control. We're still flip flopping between blatantly calling all men trash, and then retracting that by saying that most men are alright. The lack of clarity within this argument is a great indicator of just how moronic this whole shtick is. I hate the false dichotomy that all women are presented as these charming creatures that would never hurt a fly, whereas all men are bloodthirsty berserkers that live to wage war and pillage. In the real world personalities are far more complicated than this reductionist view, and women are often just as bloodthirsty and violent as men, whether this is in terms of waging wars or comitting sexual assault. There's certainly a huge disparity between levels of sexual assault in each sex, but by no means is it as black and white as the generalisations in this article. I don't know where your statistics came from, but ONS statistics paint a different picture.  Why a piece was allowed to be published without including any fucking sources is a mystery to me, and I would have thought a 'talented writer' would have learned how to fucking reference, but here we have yet more evidence that this is a misleading article that needed to be thrown in the bin.

This paragraph concludes with some classic feminist rhetoric. Still no sources of course, because feminist bullshit is always enough evidence to support these extraordinary claims. Still, surely that's the end of the terrible generalisations.

Fuck me, the generalisations get worse. I wasn't aware that men are still able to behave the way they have historically towards women, but I guess it's still acceptable to prevent women from voting and legally being allowed to beat them. Again, where are the sources. A BBC article from 10 years ago claims that 6% of rapists are convicted, which is a long way off from the 0.6% you claim. I actually think we were looking at the same statistics, but you just have the inability to do basic maths. Obviously the lack of rapists being convicted is further proof of sexism, and not all because rape is a very hard crime to prove. Often it comes down to a single victim statement, which isn't enough evidence to convict a man of a very serious crime, and certainly not the type of situation for your careless tendencies to claim every single man as guilty. This point carries over to Donald Trump, where you just assume that because there's allegations against him he must be guilty. Obviously it just has to be true because I don't like him, and no president in US history has ever had untrue allegations bombarded at them.

I really hate to break it to you, but men don't all have the constant desire to rape people. Even if there's not strong enough reprecussions it doesn't mean the average man is going to start sexually abusing women without a care in the world. You really think that people in Britain are taught that raping people is okay? Please show me the part of your rhetoric that provides evidence for this. You also seem to be targeting a very specific demographic, so I'm still confused as to why you're demonising all men when your very disdain is focused on a small minority. I'm not a rich white man, so why the fuck should I be labelled as trash? Can you at least get your head out your ass for the single second it would take you to realise that these negative comments might anger people? When will you learn that you can't just play the victim card when you've been aggresively stabbing hornet nests?

Let's face it, the reasons cited in this article are a fucking terrible justification to hate roughly half the world's population. I can think of many groups of people considerably worse than the standard male human who you just give a free pass to. You're just a sexist hypocrite with a shitty attitude towards other people, and masking your prejudices as gender issues is a thinly veiled disguise.

I'd go one further than your friend. I'd say by having this hateful attitude you'll alienate the average man from your cause, with the added effect of creating an aggressive underbelly of men who feel personally attacked by your comments, giving them further reason to treat women like shit. I just don't know how you can act like this attitude is a moral and sensible one when it's primarily based on hate, and you're creating the very thing you wish to destroy. As for that point about men needing to be careful about what they say. Fuck you, you self centered cunt. How dare you try and preach about civility when you behave like a scumbag. How can you sit there and tell me that words have consequences when you can't understand why the comment 'all men are trash' has had such a negative backlash? You fucking moron. By your own logic you're normalising harmful behaviour. If you really do adore a great many men then maybe do them a favour and not refer to them as trash. You can't just hide behind the idea of empowerment with all this nastiness. I will happily admit that a number of men are not the most pleasant of people, and a smaller number still are complete monsters, but that doesn't mean I should accept the horrific generalisation that all men are trash.

The message I'm getting form this piece is one of immaturity. I hate the idea that just because other people are being conditioned to be assholes it's only fair this writer gets to be one as well. You criticise men for being predominantly full of hatred, yet spew inherently nasty comments like 'men are trash'. What a fucking hypocrite you truly are.

I propose a challenge. I'd rather not submit anything to this wretched paper in person, but if anyone could produce a low quality article like this and replace the masculine terms with feminine ones I would be very grateful. Let's see how quickly an article proclaiming that 'women are trash' gets rejected. Maybe then we can start to highlight the shameful double standards displayed by these bigoted students. An article senselessly bashing women would quite rightly be heavilly scrutinised, so why is this blatantly disgusting attitude towards men given free reign?

I'll conclude by saying that I think all women are trash. Of course when I say that I don't mean all women, just the ones I dislike. Saying that doesn't make me an asshole because some women are terrible people, and I've personally had some bad experiences with them. Maybe now you'll start to see how pathetic that argument sounds.

Is Autism The Next Stage in Human Evolution?

It was not so long ago that I was introduced to the idea that some people believe autism to be the next step in human evolution by a strange man in your average pub debate. I may have been a few pints down at that point, but even still, feelings of doubt were all I could muster up. To my surprise there are those both in the academic sphere and random morons of the internet that do side with this hypothesis, so I thought I'd take an objective look at some of their articles in this post. First, we'll visit an analogy from Dr Frank Gaskill, and then in case that doesn't convince you we'll be dissecting a reply from some idiot in a comments thread. That's all to come, but we'll start with a discussion on lemons from Dr Gaskill. How exciting.
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https://www.psychbytes.com/lets-talk-lemons-why-autism-is-the-next-stage-of-human-evolution/

https://medium.com/social-club/autism-the-next-step-in-human-evolution-c22d8d9648be
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This is a terrible analogy. Lemons provide a bitter flavour that may well enhance foods such as fish, but have no place in a full English breakfast or a Greggs steak bake. Just because something adds flavour does not mean it instantly compliments that said item. If we apply this logic to autistic individuals we find that they add flavour to humanity in some aspects but are detrimental abominations in others. The comment that really struck me was how not enough autism will not add flavour to humanity. Surely there are much better ways to add flavour to humanity than encouraging people to be born with a mental stigma. It's all very well being supportive of autistic individuals, but let's not brush over the very serious consequences this condition may have on not just individuals, but the people around them as well. I don't see this lemon analogy being of any use in clearing up queries about the spectrum.

I'd also like to question the factual accuracy of these statements. If we measure intelligence by IQ, which does provide a good general overview for intelligence in humans, we find that autistic children are indeed of average intelligence, even if the researchers like to sugarcoat their findings a lot less than this article. However, to call an autistic child averagely intelligent is missing the critical point that they have imbalanced components associated with intelligence, and so whilst they may have average IQs, they're often critically lacking in areas surrounding socialisation. The problem we're faced with here is that human beings are naturally a social species, and we remain heavily so in the modern age despite our more sedentary lifestyles. If we're presenting the idea that autism is the future of humanity then we have to address this huge hurdle of limited social skills.

The professor then goes on a detailed history lesson on the origins of autism and Aspergers, but we'll skip ahead for more lemon analogies. Can't wait.

You can tell this is the argument of a psychology professor. It's quite hard to imagine a 'Human 2.0' when evolution is a constant process, and we don't suddenly get massive updates that change our genetics forever. Its true evolution occurs at differing rates, with often huge changes seen in a short space of evolutionary time, but I'm still not seeing how spicing up humanity like a lemon is going to lead to rapid evolutionary change.

But let's live in this professor's fantasy world anyway. We have here a very romanticised version of medieval history where mere intelligence is enough to propel you to the most privileged positions in society. Even if we ignore this humongous flaw we have the glaring fault that this example is clearly equating modern societal norms with life in the middle ages. Just because there's a stereotype that people with limited social skills don't get invited to parties nowadays doesn't mean this same stereotype existed in the past. Surely the most lavish parties would have been thrown by the aristocracy in medieval times, so if you so happened to have found your way into one of the positions listed above you probably would get invited to a lot of parties, whilst also getting a pick of the women. The first man to build a refracting telescope, Galileo, had three children. Martin Luther, who translated bibles in his spare time, had six children. Obviously, you wouldn't have children in a monastery, but you get the idea that the people you're describing here are happily procreating.

In the Industrial Revolution I would have thought these flavoursome individuals would have lived in the British Empire, where the revolution actually happened. Casting aside my national pride I think we're diverting away from these lemons even further now. We're now becoming Benjamin Franklin, and whilst we don't know if he had autism, we do know he had three kids and a wife. What differs Benjamin Franklin from your previous examples? Not only do we have a psychology professor who thinks he understands evolution, but we now have one that thinks he's an expert in history as well. I have no fucking clue how any of this relates to the evolution of autism, and I find it strange we're now using modern examples of people who don't have autism to illustrate this poor analogy. The only trends we find in this analogy are that people now have a greater freedom of moment, higher social mobility, and the growing separation between church and state. How in any way does this provide evidence that autism is the future of humanity?

Okay I get it, similar individuals are more likely to copulate with one another and so the genes for autism are conserved and become correlated with higher intelligence. We'll ignore the fact that this process only describes a tiny minority of the population, and that intelligence is only one of many reasons men are seen as attractive, because that's not the case in this man's fantasy world. I think I need a sick bag to get through this paragraph. Thank God there's no evidence that this 'Human 2.0' is taking over the world because I don't want my life to end up like a fucking Ladybird children's book. Fuck you and your lemons, this is just anecdotal horseshit.

It wouldn't be one of my blog posts without looking at how some nutjob on the internet sees things, and so here we have an even less rational approach to this argument:

Oh boy have the standards dropped here, and they weren't very high to begin with. How do you even attempt to dissect everything wrong with this one? Firstly, you may well see elements of pack mentality within humans, but that doesn't mean pack mentality is the very foundation of modern society. There are huge differences between wild dogs and modern humans, and I'm not just referring to how distantly related we are to wolves. Just because these wolves and humans share a hierarchy system does not mean their social tendencies are related or in any way similar. We can actively see changes towards oppressed members throughout human history, whether that be the civil rights movements in America, or Rome's acceptance of Christianity. There's no indoctrination into certain systems, and the Western World prides itself on the freedom of thought. Maybe in some households individuality is stamped out, but in general children are free to express themselves. What I'm getting at is these brief and terrible generalisations of society are painfully reductionist and describes a world that doesn't exist. Autistic children do not only hang around with other autistic children, and in Western countries we aid these troubled individuals in tasks they may find difficult. That's not pack mentality, and it certainly isn't brainwashing.

Whilst I agree people tend to look down on autistic individuals, I do not agree with your blanket assessment that these individuals are not 'defective'. As we've seen in my analysis autistic individuals generally suffer from social deficiencies, so I'm bemused as to why this writer would claim the inverse to be true. Surely autistic people are just as much a part of society as anyone else, and so by separating autistic people from the rest of society you're creating the very boundaries you seek to destroy.

You can always tell a point is going to be well argued when it begins with the letters 'IMO'. I also don't know why 'gifted' has become a proper noun, but I can only assume this is some strange term originating from this writer's fantasy realm. It must be a fictional world if psychic gifts are being cited as evidence for evolutionary processes. I dread to think what these 'New Age Gifts' are, but they're probably called that because in days of yore society would actively burn people who had these gifts whilst they were still alive. Maybe not being persecuted anymore is why being autistic is suddenly an evolutionary advantage. With this level of bullshit you just never know.

Just to clarify, the reason why autistic individuals are often socially inept is that apparently they feel everything, rather than the fact their abnormal brains might lack depth in areas, which is a point we've already seen scientific evidence for. The exposing of nerves, often called multiple sclerosis, is yet another terrible comparison, and has nothing to do with feeling everything; or autism for that matter. In actual fact the demyelination of neurones often decreases the sensitivity an individual experiences. Not only is this writer wrong, but the direct opposite is actually true. Yet more evidence is piling up that this person has no fucking clue what they're going on about.

Sorry, you're now arguing that normal people are categorised by their lack of empathy! Surely that's the other way round. A lack of empathy is one of the defining features of autism. Do you have the first idea what autism even is? Surely people with impaired social skills would have more emotional barriers, not less. The lack of barriers apparently means autistic people have never been cruel or unkind throughout history, which is just an absurd generalisation. and paints the average human being as an emotionally detached zombie. Incidentally we've still yet to find a shred evidence, which is strange, as all this sounds so plausible.

Another point I disagree with is that people interact less with each other. I actually think the opposite is true, and the increased connectivity provided by social media services and global cell phone networks means we can talk to potentially billions of people from just about anywhere on the planet. Sure, you could argue these interactions aren't on a personal level, but you can't deny the number of conversations between individuals is increasing in volume as we progress through the digital age. I just think this writer is trying to force a deeper meaning out of an issue that isn't there in the first place, and has been doing so throughout her whole piece. Never has the term 'faux intellectual' been more appropriate.

I really want to question whether humanity really is more hateful than it has ever been. Is it really more hateful than when we used to invade whole areas of the world in the name of religion? Is it really more hateful than in the days when we used to enslave whole countries in exchange for goods and services? Just a quick trip to any moor in Britain will give you all the evidence you need that humans have historically cared little about the environment, with whole areas of forest being felled into barren grassland. Caring about the environment isn't an adaptation, and these processes have nothing to do with autistic people. If you take issue with this then provide some fucking evidence for once.

That's a big fucking 'what if'. A more sensible 'what if' would be suggesting you're a complete moron who has no fucking clue what they're talking about. Nature's solution doesn't necessarily try and improve the status quo, and in fact when faced with peril species will often enter what's known as an extinction vortex in which rapid adaptations and rapid environmental change lead to destructive changes. Nature has no concept of morality, and doesn't give a toss over the fight between good and evil, so let's cut out this spiritual crap. This has just become pseudoscience now, plain and simple. It's just one poorly explained statement that's trying to convince people to make a radical change that has dramatic effects on the very future of mankind. It's the sort of prophecy you would expect from a sadistic lunatic, and the quicker thoughts like this are moved to the fringes of society the quicker humanity can sort itself out through rationality and empirically based reasoning. This rationality will not magically reach a golden age if we start worshipping autistic people, but by actually analysing the facts and stop spouting nonsensical tales that are counterproductive in aiding individuals with special needs.

Funnily enough the scientific literature is strangely quiet when it comes to proclaiming autistic people as the future. Evidence has shown that individuals with autism are more likely to mate with each other, passing on the genes correlated with autism through generations. Furthermore, studies on honey bees demonstrate how genes linked to autistic tendencies are conserved through generations, even if this particular organism displays vastly different social tendencies than humans. It's when we start to ask ourselves why these traits have been selected within human populations that these articles above start to fall apart. There are a variety of differing hypotheses surrounding the evolutionary history behind autism. Some studies entertain the idea that autistic behaviour originated in individuals that preferred to forage alone, whereas others have suggested that autistic traits arise in mating strategies geared towards longer partnerships. Some have even suggested that increased sociality is advantageous when procuring resources from parents, with the reduced ability to procure resources being attributed to autism. All we need now is evidence that autistic traits are heritable, and we have a potential mechanism as to how autism evolved.

Critically evolutionary studies have not found any evidence to support the hypotheses proposed by the idiots in this article, nor is there any substantial evidence that these evolved traits will be advantageous in the future. The unfortunate truth is that we simply don't know how autistic genes became fixed in populations, let alone why they've been conserved over time. Somehow the opinions presented by the writers in this piece thought differently, relying on ignorance instead of evidence, and only aiding in turning a complex problem into reductive hogwash. There are clear negative consequences from being autistic, and simply misinterpreting this behaviour as evolutionarily advantageous is certainly not a compelling enough argument to start rejoicing mentally handicapped individuals as the new master race. Both of these articles are useless quite frankly. They draw up these idyllic pictures of how genetics works, yet fail to analyse any key components of how genes become fixed within populations. It's yet another example of how ideological idiocy can easily be labelled as scientific, even if the very foundations are complete bullshit.

The Top 7 Feminist Animals

This blog doesn't usually devote time towards zoology in crappy student publications, but I'm afraid I just had to comment on this pile of shit. Here we have a brilliant example of shitty scientific journalism in action, written by some moron who I can assure you has never even studied the subject in question. I shouldn't care what gets published in student magazines, but it fucking angers me that this shit is actually promoted as science considering the quality of the argument is non existent, there being numerous factual innacuracies, and a social message being shoehorned in for good measure. The writer in question hails from Emerson College, which has a total number of zero modules dedicated to zoology on their prospectus. That key detail is about to become very clear:
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https://www.theodysseyonline.com/top-feminist-animals
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With the very first line we're already being sold the classic feminist narrative that all women have it hard, and all men are just happy for it to be that way. The good news is that according to this writer that's not the case in the animal world, and feminist animals are in abundance. Surely if lowly animals can get gender equality right then humans must also follow suit. That really is the low standard of argument we're dealing with here. Of course animals can't be feminists, as they have no knowledge of human society, and can't comprehend this ideological nonsense. Sure, you may be able to cherrypick traits to mangle into your narrative, but describing animal behaviour as 'feminist' shows a complete lack of understanding in behavioural ecology. What's even stranger is the idea that anyone would advocate human society to be more in touch with radically different beings, especially considering in most cases the behaviour that this writer aspires towards isn't even biologically possible.

I'm not aware of any person with at least one brain cell that claims societies in nature determine human society, nor are they claiming that feminism has manifested itself in natural populations. Yet here we are, bastardising the great subject of zoology on a false premise. Human society is not accurately comparable with animal societies, and the quicker this writer learns this simple truth the better. I suppose we better get this shitshow over with. Roll out example number one:

I'm not quite sure why you've highlighted meerkats as ideal feminists, and a good part of me thinks you're just bringing up these examples to spite men. I don't know what would give me such an impression, but maybe it's something to do with your complete denial that male meerkats even exist unless it's to breed with the dominant female. I'm not sure I'm willing to take lessons in animal behaviour from a writer who idolises the African meerkat, which is a great example apart from the small issue that this animal doesn't exist. There's no such thing as an African meerkat, but for argument's sake I'll assume you've just incorrectly identified the only species of meerkat; the meerkat. Why do you expect me to just eat up your unsourced information when you can't even identify the animal you're claiming to be informed about?

I'd honestly love to see some sources, because this is some very sketchy evidence that isn't supported by the primary literature. For starters it's entirely misleading to proclaim there is an alpha female in a mob of meerkats. It's more accurate to say there is a dominant breeding pair that is able to manipulate the reproductive rights of subordinates. Funny how the lack of freedom over reproductive rights is supported as feminist in this example of meerkats, yet opposition to bodily autonomy in women is met with cries of sexism. It's clear this writer knows absolutely nothing about meerkat reproduction, as not only do subordinates have the ability to breed, but they actively kill offspring of the dominant pair. Meerkats avoid inbreeding by preferring to mate with unrelated immigrant males. If only alpha pairs were able to breed then that would do nothing to solve the problem of consanguinity.
I'm now wondering why you would think that tales of infanticide and selective breeding are feminist qualities to shout about, so meerkats are probably not the best example if we're going to start proclaiming feminism is this great and wonderful phenomenon found in nature.

Please tell me this is satire. I must be imagining things, but there appears to be a published article claiming that killer whales are intersectional feminists. The words 'killer' and 'whale' shouldn't be capitalised by the way, and neither should 'orca' for that matter. Still, that's not the most pressing issue. Calling killer whales intersectional feminists is probably the bigger one. Just how the fuck can you claim they're intersectional feminists with the information provided?

It probably won't surprise you that there are factual inaccuracies with this example, but let's just quickly address these. Killer whales actually live in pods, but it is true that these are formed of multiple matrilines, but this doesn't mean there isn't conflict to be found in these groups. Conflict is present at every level of life, and just because you proclaim an organism to be feminist doesn't exclude them from this fact. I have no idea how all these points relate to intersectional feminism, and I can only assume the author read about a social structure relating to women and instantly tied that in with feminism. There's clearly zero relationship between intersectional feminism and killer whales, so let's just move on.

I would like to point out that beauty standards are subjective to each organism, which is bad news for this journalist, who would only be considered attractive in a pack of rabies infested stray dogs. This example however is just a weak excuse to bash men, but then again so is the whole fucking article. Surely only a sociopath would find inspiration from this unique mating strategy, and I personally find it deplorable that this writer is happily endorsing this kind of behaviour for human populations. It's not intersectionally feminist to try and dictate reproduction.

I can't quite put my finger on why humans haven't adopted the attributes of bees. Might have something to do with our common ancestor being 630 million years old. That's a lot of time, and the primary reason why humans and bees live in vastly different societies. In any case, I'm not sure forcing workers to become sterile, the need for eusociality, and shorter lifespans are what I would describe as a human utopia. Just to clarify, this author is seriously suggesting that it would be beneficial for humans to have a single queen that laid over 1500 eggs a day, which aside from being biologically impossible, is just mental. I don't know why laying more eggs from fewer individuals is desirable for human achievement, but it's not exactly doing bees a world of good considering many species are declining in population.

Let's just ignore the fact that male lions protect the pride, because portraying them as lazy slackers is the only way we're going to be able to sell this lion centred feminism to the masses. Bashing men sure is fun. Really all you've done here is describe a social structure with alpha males, which are common in a great number of social animals. Alpha males arise for a number of reasons, but one big factor is because fact lions are polygynous. Humans form monogamous bonds, and so alpha males are unable to arise, making this comparison between lion and human sexual dynamics bogus.

All these examples of feminism in nature try and create this narrative that feminism naturally blossoms out of sexist hierarchies in animals. Not only is this complete bullshit, as sexism isn't a concept in the natural world, but it's irrelevant in this example, as social hardships are being weakly linked to cooperative breeding. In reality lions are thought to cooperatively breed to ensure pride members have similar development cycles, and therefore can't take advantage of weaker pride members. This behaviour has nothing to do with female lions feeling sorry for each other, and you can paint the image that male lions are complete assholes all you want, but the facts are that infanticide is a common behaviour in animals, and as we've seen in meerkats is not limited to one sex. Infanticide in lions is a very prominent example of why natural systems shouldn't be manipulated into some sort of idyllic paradise. Nature's a hard place, and probably not something you should aspire to be like. That should be the mantra for this piece, but unfortunately there are still two more examples to go.

Firstly, you have no idea what zoology students get up to in their spare time, and secondly, the ability to fertilise eggs without insemination from males is not necessarily an advantageous strategy. Not that parthenogenesis is biologically possible in humans anyway, which is yet more reasons to suggest supporting it is a weird argument. You also forget to mention that Komodo dragons store sperm instead of self-fertilisation, which is a very important detail, and means the male still fertilises the eggs by proxy.

This method of reproduction is certainly very interesting, but there's a very good reason why humans copulate via the costly mechanism of sexual reproduction, and this is in order to maintain genetic diversity. Why would humans want to incur the costs of parthenogenesis, without gaining any benefits from sexual reproduction? I guess I've now learnt that sexual reproduction is in direct conflict with the feminist ideology. I don't know how feminists think educating future generations works when they can't reproduce, especially when they're promoting the idea that only male offspring can be born. I'm not even going to respond to that Jurassic Park point. No scientific writer presenting serious topics would ever resort to fiction as evidence. Pathogenesis incidentally had nothing to do with the collapse of the said fictional theme park, but that's another story for another day.

I'm sure Amy Schumer is delighted about being directly compared to a fucking elephant, but I better keep that humorous thought to myself or Miss Schumer is likely to steal my material. I don't know why feminists are aspiring to behave like elephants, but it's a pretty poor reason when all they do is hang around in matriarchal herds, which as far as I'm concerned is segregating the sexes, and not promoting equality. Sorry, they 'thrive in matriarchal pacts'. That's probably why African elephants are listed as 'vulnerable' by the IUCN. Seriously though, I'm getting sick and tired of this writer promoting female dominated societies as utopian when in actual fact the animal's 'feminist traits' are doing fuck all. The amount of fundamental information you have to actively ignore to reach these slanted conclusions is just astonishing.

Elephants, by the way, are not plus sized, they're elephant-sized, and they certainly don't promote the idea of being healthily obese; or feminist for that matter. Male elephants also don't fuck everything they see, and as with anything in evolution there's a tradeoff between mate selection in both sexes. I implore you to make points based off of scientific evidence instead of just creating your own stories.

I doubt it was the author's intention to irritate me, but as a zoologist I'm pissed off. How can I not be angered by the atrocious standard of journalism on display here when I devote my life to studying this subject? The article presents the idea that oppressing women cannot possibly be natural, yet provides absolutely no evidence that this is impossible in humans. The writer couldn't even find any examples from related species, and instead we get this waffle detailing the lives of animals that couldn't be further away from humans in terms of sociality. Is it any wonder why more and more people are being put off by this ridiculous idea of what feminism is all about when articles like this are just a weak excuse to bash men. Some of these examples are so ridiculous they appear to support some sort of dystopian future where only women survive. How any of these examples are in any way desirable is beyond me, but I suppose that doesn't matter when you can just misrepresent facts throughout the whole fucking article.

Here we have yet another naturalistic fallacy parading as serious biology. The writer themselves even sings the praises of the natural world with the very title of this piece. I hate to ruin her fun but nature is a harsh world where often ireddemable behaviour is selected for and actively encouraged in the struggle for survival. We could just as easily write a piece detailing examples of how alpha males mistreating the females in their group leads to preferable societies, and therefore claim oppressing women should be supported in humans because it's found in nature. I doubt my article would ever be published, so why the fuck are we excusing the sort of shit displayed by this rotten mound of feces.

Morons of the Internet: Prahlad Friedman

This is the segment where I scour my favourite forums around the internet and find some particularly interesting articles about current affairs told in the words of my favourite human beings.

In this edition we have one big wanker from the world of poker; a game I hold very close to my heart. As you can imagine there are many assholes attracted to a game that promotes cheating and behaving like a greedy asshole, and many of these mouthy idiots love to spout their rubbish over social media. Here we have a fine example of how not to claim the sport of poker suffers from systemic racism, straight from the mouth of one hateful young man.

The particular poker player in question is Prahlad Friedman, who has had his fair share of success in the past, although he's mostly known in the poker world for behaving like a dickhead to other players. That's not enough for Prahlad who also thinks himself a rapper named 'Pragress', although when we look at his freestyling and latest release we can safely conclude that only Pragress thinks himself a rapper, and anyone with a pair of ears can tell a stroke victim has stronger bars than this wanker. I suppose you don't expect much artistic flair from a man who called himself 'Pragress', but I certainly didn't expect the absence of talent on the level of this douchebag. Can it get any worse? Well yes, he's also a graduate in ethnic studies, and everyone who happily displays that hugely prestigious diploma alongside their name surely has a hilariously warped view of the world. This is about to be demonstrated by the following argument:

Oh wow, just look at that comment to like ratio. It's almost like people hate being demonised by virtue signalling idiots. We'll get to how dumb this argument is in a second, but what I hate the most is just how arrogant and condescending this tweet is. OBVIOUSLY it HAS to be systemic racism causing this complicated issue. It's so blatantly obvious for high-level academics like this guy that Prahlad won't even provide any form of a source to back up this big claim. His only reasoning is that everyone likes poker, so everyone should be playing the game an equal amount, which is possibly the most stupid reasoning it's possible to give. It's like the evidence a four year old child would give it's that plain stupid. I guess those people that turn down offers to play a game of poker with me don't physically exist in Prahlad's messed up world, nor do the countries where gambling is banned. You can easily debunk this moronic point by analysing how race affects almost any sport on the planet. Different cultures have different preferences over sports, and so we see a disproportionate number of Asian players in table tennis, a high number of Cuban boxers, and an abundance of South American footballers. Tell me Prahlad, is racism prevalent in these sports where whites constitute a minority? I've never seen you call for affirmative action in these scenarios.

The issue of racism in poker is a very complicated and divisive topic, and all Prahlad's argument achieves is completely blowing trivial issues out of proportion. There have been numerous people from a multitude of races and backgrounds to appear at the WSOP final tables despite the majority of the field being players predominantly white and Asian. The simple truth is that the cards you're dealt have fuck all to do with what race you are. Instead of promoting diversity in the sport Prahlad decides the best strategy is to penalise other players and criticise the majority who have just as much right to be at these final tables as minorities. The WSOP does not treat players based on race, so you probably do need sources if you're going to make the huge accusation that poker is an inherently racist sport. The good news is that Pragress is on hand to clarify and queries in the most patronising way possible.

With this ridiculous reasoning the NBA would be filled with white players, as would the sports which I've previously mentioned. Interestingly Pragress has never criticised the NBA for a monopoly of black players despite there being OBVIOUS racism involved. That's all the evidence I need to blindly call racism right? Why poker is magically different from other sports is another question I'd like to direct towards Pragress. Reductionist doesn't even begin to cover how simplified this idiocy is. You can simply look at the most successful poker players in the world and then look at the richest countries in the world and instantly see how there is no correlation between these two factors. It's almost as if Prahlad's argument isn't rooted in the truth in any way. To be fair Prahlad has seen non-diverse poker rooms, so his anecdotal evidence must surely trump the actual statistics.

Let's be honest, Prahlad's argument has fuck all to do with race. You could argue that on average black people are in a poorer financial situation than white or Asian Americans, but that's a general statistic, and this man is planning on helping individuals. I have no idea how Prahlad jumped to the conclusion that free time and race are intertwined, but my money would be on the fact he's an idiot. I still don't understand the race boundary. This is an argument solely based on wealth, and not at all dependant on race. It would make a million times more sense to aid individuals struggling financially, yet for some reason it's OBVIOUS, despite still no sufficient evidence being provided, that the sole reason for this issue is race. This is not a logical argument, just pure arrogance.

Oh, that's a simple solution, thanks for your words of wisdom. Once again backed up with some phenomenal reasoning. I guess in Prahlad's world, which is very different from that of a sane person's, repeatedly jumping to conclusions doesn't diminish the validity of an argument. I'd love to think governments across the planet will give equal pay for everything in order for poker to become more inclusive, even in the Islamic countries where gambling is banned, but then I suppose in Prahlad's fantasy world everyone loves poker. How arrogant do you have to be to start dictating that your understanding of the world is superior to others, and that we should take affirmative action towards what you deem as progressive?

If this argument on free time were to be correct then we would expect final tables in poker to be populated by retired white men, who don't have a job, and have a ton of money saved up over their lifetime. The strange, and not at all surprising thing, is that this scenario isn't remotely true. Just by looking at the previous final tables you can see a growing trend of young men dominating the standings. Again Pragress, it's almost as if this issue is too complex to be described by your woeful reasoning. At this stage Mr Friedman could have looked at empirical data across poker tournaments in different countries, and analysed the relationship he's banging on about here. However as we've discovered Pragress doesn't use evidence, as his worldview is obviously superior to factual information. Eventually Pragress does treat us to some evidence, and my what a beauty it is:

Oh what a shame, the one fucking statistic is a completely meaningless generalisation. I do fucking hate any point made with 'yall' in it, as it indicates the language of a simpleton. It's of no surprise then that this point is just as idiotic as the others, and can easily be torn apart with a simple example. White people outnumber Asian people in the UK by a big margin, yet a disproportionate number of Asian people are playing in the England cricket team when compared with population statistics. Therefore by Prahlad's logic we can OBVIOUSLY see that there is systemic racism towards white people in England, as if not the ethnicities of national teams would be roughly proportionate to the population. You could just as easily make the same argument for the NBA in America. This is the sort of moronic logic we're dealing with here. What Prahlad has done here is found a statistic and implied misleading conclusions from it, nothing more. This does not constitute evidence, and it sure as hell doesn't constitute an argument.

The quality of this argument can easily display the low intelligence of Prahlad, but for good measure he's added another 'yall', so any reasonable human can join me in not taking him seriously for one moment. Here we have yet another meaningless comment questioning why people avoid taboo subjects. I always thought that was just called civility, and whilst I agree taboo subjects should be discussed, you can't start whining at people when they refrain from openly expressing opinions on these difficult subjects. Also when we're referring to black people we're not all as narrow-minded as Prahlad is to assume that this solely means African Americans. Funnily enough there are loads of black people in Africa, and I bet you tribes in the heart of the Congo aren't talking about racism every single day. It's quite hard to have a broad opinion on something when all you can see is the contents of your own ass. Congratulations Mr Friedmann that is a 100% retention rate of awful generalisations. Truly your idiocy is astounding, and I would have thought that you as a white person would have realised this when you talk about racism non-stop. You deluded idiot.

Prahlad then decided to just go crazy, spurting even more random nonsense with no real relevance to anything.

I just can't imagine why the people you're attacking are the ones getting worked up. It's almost like people don't enjoy being verbally abused. You're the sort of simpleton who kicks a hornet's nest and then blames the hornets for attacking you. But Prahlad is a generous soul, and for being born a certain way you can get coaching from this poker legend. I'll sure fear minorities at the poker table now Prahlad is involved. I suppose I'll also have to fear those Congolese tribespeople as well, because of course everyone likes poker, so I'm sure each one of the clan will have Prahlad in their corners, and with Prahlad in your corner everything is possible. I just worry he's going to have to clone himself when every minority in poker gets to the final table at the World Series and Prahlad has to be in each of their corners. That's the legendary coaching Prahlad thinks he will give, but in reality fuck all difference will be made.

The final hot take I just had to include. I'm not sure that's a sentence, but my God is there some fantastic bullshit in that one. It's the classic 'I can't be racist towards these groups of people because I have friends there' line. I also doubt Pragress is a multilinguist considering he can barely speak English, his mother tongue. It's also interesting how the argument has now shifted into Conservatives versus Democrats, rather than race, but I guess we couldn't have an ethnic studies argument without shifting the goalposts.

I'm not sure what I was expecting by analysing a twitter hot take from some random idiot, but surely any human with half a brain cell can construct a better argument than this nonsense. I'm not angry that Prahlad believes helping minorities is the way forward, and I would happily welcome more diverse tables in poker, as I believe diverse tables generate the best poker games. However what I do have an issue with is the reasoning behind Prahlad's actions, and refuse to accept that the way to reduce inequality at poker tables is by getting suffering black people to gamble more. That's a really slippery slope with the potential to ruin lives, and I hardly see Prahlad's unproven training changing this reality. Basically Prahlad is wanting to take minorities out of a rigged system and straight into another one.

But the most disgusting part of this tirade is not his pathetic argument, it's his arrogant attitude that this viewpoint makes him somehow morally superior. I wouldn't act like the greatest human being alive if I spouted out this sort of shit. Stick to rapping over politics mate, even though you've shown that's beyond your severely limited capabilities as well. Maybe you could find a rapper with the same mentality as you to coach you past the majority of black rappers. Either way, just shut the fuck up.