Comment by rainsford | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rainsford | Hacker News Reader

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> This article takes a lot of essentialist positions based on a single point of data: the Yanomamö.

The article feels very much like a thesis in search of support, which might explain the laser like focus on one particular data point that appeared to support the author's premise. It also explains why criticism of the original research is dismissed as "cancel culture" rather than taken as a sign to at least look for other supporting data.

The motivation makes more sense if you look at the rest of that substack (I wasn't familiar with it, so I poked around a bit). The author evidently has a deep interest in sex and gender role topics viewed through a particular lens. The second post I looked at was basically incel ideology 101, complete with Becky, Chad, and links to Jordan Peterson. I'll save you a click, but apparently teenage girls are depressed because they're not having sex with incel teenage boys.

Given the rest of that blog, it's probably not surprising the author managed to boil down a topic as complex as the development of societies into a simple explanation about sex, backed by a single data point that's out of favor with actual professionals in the field.

I agree. I only skimmed their other work but was curious if anybody here thought so.

It's not a direct analog, but the pacing, attitude and tactics suggest they have a worn and dogeared copy of Allan Bloom's treatise Closing of the American Mind on their desk. Though well written and speckled with reasonable arguments, Bloom plainly argued that 'civilized' 'reasonable' white protestant moral and cultural values are correct, and everyone will be better off once they adopt them. Anecdotally, the vast MRA diaspora also coats toxic ideological bullshit in truth nuggets to muddy the lines between them.

The focus on the Yamomamö appears to be simply to ground the article in something concrete, making it more interesting. He does claim that this once heretical view is now widely accepted in anthropology and it's a description of many tribes, not just one.

The author is a woman, unusually for this sort of subject matter and terminology employed (alpha / beta males, etc).

You're right. I thought tove was a man's name for some reason.

I assume you're referring https://woodfromeden.substack.com/p/becky-is-depressed

And your take on it is so utterly bizarre I can't believe you actually read it. He literally talks about how strange it is that the "Becky" concept exists as it never did when he was a teen (it seems equally weird to me).

Right but the point she (I think the author is actually a woman) seems to be making is that the "Becky" concept is a legitimate reaction to actual (and problematic) societal change, rather than an incorrect belief about the world among incels fostered by people like Jordan Peterson. It's less "Becky is an insult now because people are poisoning the minds of young men" and more "Becky is an insult now because of society and feminism".

The reason I brought that up was less that I think that viewpoint is wrong (although obviously I do), but more that it pervades a lot of the content on that substack, so the original post claiming societal development can also be boiled down to sex (and in particular, more 'primitive' sexual roles) should perhaps be taken with a grain of salt.

Ah, yes, of course Tove would be female. I hadn't looked at the name and I thought the picture of Napoleon Chagnon at the top of the article was a picture of the author!

I consider the popularity of arseholes like Peterson to be more symptom than cause but I could be wrong. I'll think about it.

I read it and can confirm that the take is basically the same as my take on it. Totally sexist garbage. Or pro-restrictive gender roles.

Also, charmingly unaware of history. Moving to the cities for free love, gender flexibility, and parties is not some new 2000s thing. That was disco and cocaine in 80s. That was the hippies back when the boomers were young, and that was the 1920s. “How you going to keep them down on the farm after they’ve seen gay Paris”.

Sexism and anti-sexism have neither been newly created nor nearly defeated in the past ten or twenty years.

Now, social media on the other hand…

Really? I read through and it doesn’t seem sexist to me - it’s naïve, sure, but it doesn’t sound like it’s buying into the Stacy/Chad/Petersonian stuff, it’s just acknowledging their existence, and guessing at why they might appeal to people now. It doesn’t seem like it’s pro gender roles.

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