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Comment by gavanwilhite | Hacker News Reader

While an interesting topic, the author needs to tone down the sexism before it seems like it deserves a place on HackerNews

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If you're referring to the Christian tradition that the author brings up - it's usually men that are admonished by that tradition explicitly, because men need to hear it. Generally, it's considered that women and mothers don't need as much instruction being a later (or more fulfilled) act of creation than men.

It's also why the deceiver focused on Eve first - if she fell, Adam would surly follow.

And yet it's not only men who are admonished by the article. An example of a woman is given, too. That one example is of a woman who isn't monogamous and is "left with nothing".

What is it that she has lost?

I think it's a shorthand for implying the application of her youthful beauty funneled into a deep romance to establish a lasting relationship. Some beauty can prolong into older ages, but some of us are just beautiful and highly desirable when we're young. I think it's sort of an interesting population level evolutionary trait, it makes sense that the desirable/attractiveness phase would overlap with the fertile phase, and would both decline together. Having the infertile mix with the fertile is not populationally optimal.

I suspect your the nature of your objection is something you can't quite grasp yourself. Calling it sexist seems a safe way of attack.

It is one thing to know that we like or don't like something. Much harder is understanding why. Usually we give the first acceptable "reason" that comes to mind rather than trying to figure it out. Figuring out why we like or not often takes a number of thought experiments.

Nope, I’m looking at some pretty specific frames the author is pushing, see below.

> Calling it sexist seems a safe way of attack.

Not really, this article is sexist. But alright, this is not reason enough to dismiss it.

The illustration of nihilism show a complete misunderstanding of what nihilism is (the enlightment strawman is pretty intersting too).

Theologians usually do have an education in philosophy and in history, so the man writing this is probably not one. I'm not saying only theologians have the right to reflect on religion, but they are often more thoughtfull than random bloggers.

Although i was educated with classical/continental philosophy, i did read a lot of analytic philosophy, and if the writer is American or from the commonwealth, he was exposed to analytic philosophy (or at least more than i was). And that shows in the development of his article.

But before you craft, you should learn from your master and from your peers, and the writer pretty much ignored all modern analytical works and wrote something that is so behind his time that it becomes interesting to read and to understand.

What sexism specifically?

Well this to start: “ A woman who sleeps around throughout her twenties and is left with nothing is not free.”

There’s a lot of pretty messed up sexism packed in there.

That's also the author's only reference to women by my reading (did I miss another?), the rest are explicitly directed at men.

That's not sexism. It's contrary to the modern feminist idea that woman can do that the same as men and it's perfectly healthy for them. That's just an idea, not a fact, and personally I've come to doubt that it's true for most women. Maybe not for most men either, tougher to say.

It's reflective of the authors values, not sexist. It's not discriminatory towards women.

> It's reflective of the authors values, not sexist.

It’s reflective of the author’s values, which are sexist.

Maybe, maybe not. You'll have to share with me proof if you want me to believe that.

I hope you're not just saying that on the basis of that one statement, that'd just be trying to pass ignorance off as knowledge.

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