Methodology: Logic first, then evidence

The confusion of correlation and causation is a problem that plagues all sciences: natural, as well as social. We observe two things changing over the course of a given time period. The question is: does the change in the one thing cause the change in the other thing, or is it merely correlated with it.

For example, we know that, in the vast majority of cases, eating food causes us to feel less hungry. We’re hungry, we eat, we feel less hungry. If we didn’t eat, we’d still feel hungry. Without the cause (eating), the effect (feeling less hungry) does not materialize.

Now, imagine that a person only eats their meals in front of the television, and they never watch television otherwise. This person would observe a strong correlation (or association) between watching television and feeling less hungry. They might even believe that watching television is a joint cause of them feeling less hungry: after all, in this person’s experience, it is only by eating and watching television that their feelings of hunger abate.

Luckily, this being a problem of natural science, there is an easy way to determine whether watching television is a cause or not: isolate the variables. This person should do an experiment: get hungry, and then try watching television without eating at the same time. Then, try eating without watching television. They will find that the television alone did nothing for their hunger, while the food alone did. Eating food is revealed as the cause; watching television as a mere correlation. Problem solved.

For many problems in the natural sciences, this method of variable-isolating, laboratory experimentation can help determine whether something is a cause of, or merely correlated with, a given effect.

In the social sciences though, this method is very rarely applicable. Virtually every aspect of human society is constantly in flux. We can use history and statistics to, imperfectly, observe individual aspects of society at various points in time; but we cannot observe what effects the changing of just one aspect has on the totality. This is because it is never just that one aspect that is changing; everything else is changing along with it. Without the ability to time travel, there is no laboratory experiment we could set up that would be otherwise.

Alright, so the social scientist cannot isolate his variables. Does that mean that correlation and causation will be perpetually confused; rendering the entirety of social science a hopeless muddle? We need not leap to that conclusion just yet. Human reason has another tool at its disposal for dealing with these issues: deductive logic.

Deductive logic starts with basic, well-known truths about reality (what we call ‘common sense’), traces out the various implications of these, and then uses them to shed light on more complex problems. Here is an example:

Premise 1: Whenever someone performs an action, they expect that that action will make them more satisfied.

Premise 2: It is very likely that the individual himself will know what will satisfy his own desires better than anyone else will.

Implication of Premise 1: When two individuals undertake a voluntary exchange of goods or services, both individuals expect that they will be more satisfied after the exchange is complete.

Implication of Premise 2: It is very likely that the individual himself will know what voluntary exchanges will satisfy his own desires the best; better than anyone else will.

Conclusion: It is very likely that allowing individuals to decide upon and execute most of the voluntary exchanges that they want will result in the maximization of their desire satisfaction. This should be taken into due consideration before proposing to coercively restrict any voluntary exchanges.

By using deductive reasoning in this way, we can first come up with a theory that makes sense, and then look for empirical evidence (via history or statistics) that might support this theory. Because it is often the case that two social commentators will agree on the facts themselves, but disagree on the proper interpretation of those facts. In order to determine whose interpretation we should accept, we have to determine, by examining the logic on which it is based, whose theory makes more sense.

For example, both Keynesian (left-wing/bigger government) economists, and Austrian (free-market/libertarian) economists, agree that in the 1930s, the United States was in an economic depression, and that after World War II, the United States was no longer in a depression. But they have very different explanations for how this came about.

The Keynesians argue that the war gave the government an excuse to go on a massive spending spree, a spree which boosted aggregate economic demand and stimulated the economy greatly, thereby putting an end to the depression. The implication is that, in the case of any future depressions, the government need not wait for a major war to break out; they could just engage in a massive peacetime spending spree and achieve the same beneficial result.

The Austrians, on the other hand, believe that the fundamental cause of depression-era unemployment was a mismatch between the wage demands of the powerful labor unions, and the amount of productive capital invested in the economy. If more productive capital had been invested, the wage demands could have been met without creating unemployment. Likewise, if the wage demands had been lower, less unemployment would have resulted. Other factors too, such as the uncertainty for businesses created by the Roosevelt administration’s radical economic innovations, and the sharp turn towards protectionism/economic isolationism, also contributed towards keeping the depression going.

World War II shook things up by causing the suspension of normal consumer life in the United States via strict rationing. Private citizens were forced to consume less than they had been, in order to free up resources for the government to prosecute the war effort with. Luckily for the post-war economy, the government’s great new demand for armaments and war vehicles enabled and encouraged private companies to invest heavily in the advanced manufacturing facilities necessary to produce these things. It so happened that after the war, these facilities were relatively easily converted to peacetime uses. The post-war economy was, therefore, much more capital-rich than the depression-era one, which allowed it to meet the wage demands of the unions without causing much unemployment (there were also fewer workers to find employment for, due to wartime casualties). The fact that the government’s economic policy was more stable in the post-war, and that the United States was in a prime position to provide much-needed goods to the countries who had been pulverized by the war, also helped greatly.

The implication of all this is that future depressions can be solved by encouraging more capital investment, by assuring businesses that future policy changes will not be detrimental to their interests, and by withdrawing support from labor unions who demand wages that are too high relative to the economic situation.

Okay, so we have two very different interpretations of the same sequence of historical events, resulting in two very different implications for future policy-making. It is imperative, for the sake of our economic well-being, that we determine which theory is correct. In order to do so, the empirical facts are not enough; we must examine the logic behind the two theories.

On this front, we have an easy winner: the free-market Austrians. The theory on which the Keynesian interpretation is based doesn’t make sense. There can never be a problem of aggregate demand for goods and services being ‘insufficient’. Until we reach a state of paradisiacal super-abundance, people will always want as many (or as high quality) goods and services as they can afford. The economic problem is never one of consumption; it is always a problem of production. Economic progress consists of a society being able to produce more and more, and better and better, goods and services, with a smaller and smaller quantity of human labor.

Seen in this light, the notion that a war could possibly be an economic boon is absurd. Wars redirect human effort away from improving society’s material standard of living and towards destroying lives and economic goods. They might accidentally result in some peacetime benefits afterwards, but society would almost certainly have been better off if it had just focused its efforts on peacetime improvement directly.    

Therefore, because the Austrian theory has both logic and evidence on its side, we can accept the causation that it posits. And, since the Keynesian theory does not have logic on its side, we must dismiss the causation that it posits as mere correlation.

In sum: in the social sciences, the correct procedure is to start with a logical theory, and only then to look for historical evidence that might back it up. Failure to do so will invariably result in the confusing of correlation with causation, and the consequent suggestion of some very bad policies. 

The 'Silly Consumer' Problem

Free-market capitalism is an economic system that is highly suited to catering to the desires of the consuming public, as expressed through their purchasing decisions. Free-market advocates consider this to be one of its most praise-worthy features; but not everyone agrees with this assessment. The argument is made that the consumers often make very poor purchasing choices (due to ignorance, short-sightedness, addiction, marketing, etc…), and because of this, a system that is designed to cater to such desires is not actually all that great. Is this a fair criticism of the free-market? Let’s take a look.

First off, I would like to acknowledge that consumers do often make decisions that seem pretty silly to me. But the key part here is ‘to me’. At the time of making the decision, the consumer in question thinks it makes perfect sense to them; otherwise, they would not have made it. If another person were to prevent this consumer from making that decision through force, the consumer would probably feel frustration and annoyance; rather than the satisfaction of having their desire fulfilled.

This, of course, only holds with high certainty in that moment. It is very possible that the consumer who is prevented from making a decision that is considered silly by an outsider, while feeling frustrated at the time, will actually feel thankful later on. For instance, the consumer who is intent on spending $1000 on prostitutes one day, may feel grateful that he was prevented from doing so the next. But here, we run into a quandary: how do we really know that the consumer is better off without the prostitutes than he would have been with them? Sure, he may be happy to still have his $1000 the next day, but is that happiness greater in magnitude than the happiness he would have received had he gone through with his hedonistic plans? It being impossible to compare the magnitudes of two ‘happinesses’, especially when speaking of someone other than yourself, it is impossible to say with any degree of certainty. Perhaps the man would have been best off had he blew all his life savings on prostitutes, and then gone out in a cloud of cocaine that very night! We really have no idea whatsoever about these things.

Given all of this indeterminacy, it is wise to just forget about other people’s happiness, and to just focus on your own (which is already difficult enough). What kind of society would you rather live in? One where you are free to make your own choices, or one where your choices are made for you by the wielders of political power? Would you rather be a sovereign individual, or a slave? Many people, if they are being honest with themselves, will recognize that they would actually prefer to be a slave, and there are no objective grounds on which to say that this is an inferior preference. However, it is not my preference, and if these people are intent on imposing their slave society on me, I shall fight back.

Alright, so I will fight their slave society, but then can I really fault them for fighting my sovereign individual society? After all, am I not trying to impose my idea of a good society on them, just as they are on me? Not entirely. Because the thing is, micro slave societies can exist inside a sovereign individual, free-market society. Under free-market arrangements, it is likely that entire city neighborhoods will be owned by either a single landlord or a single condominium association. As owners, they would have the right to set rules that tenants or condominium members must follow in order to live in this neighborhood. These rules could include some paternalistic ones (no smoking, no consorting with prostitutes, no drinking sugary pop, etc…), provided there were a demand for it from real estate consumers, which there could well be if enough people had a slave mentality.

Thus, in this way, people with a slave mentality could opt-in to a micro slave society within the larger free-market society, simply by moving in to a neighborhood with a paternalistic rule set. By contrast, if the larger society is a slave society, it is impossible for a person with a sovereign individual mentality to opt out of it. They must obey the paternalistic dictates of the government, or be subjected to harsh physical punishment. The conclusion, therefore, is that a larger free-market society, with the potential for micro slave societies within it, caters to people with both kinds of mentality better than a larger slave society would.

But wait! A final objection emerges! A slave society that one can opt in and out of; this still leaves an important choice in the slavish person’s hands! They are continuously faced with the choice of whether they wish to continue living in such a society or not! Faced with this ‘stressful’ choice, they may long for the larger slave society; featuring a slavery that is all-encompassing and inescapable. I grant that people like this are right to be enemies of the free-market society. I can only hope that their numbers are slight enough to be overcome by the lovers of individual sovereignty.

                      

     

Eliminate the Capital Gains Tax on Domestic Investments

The capital gains tax is a problematic tax. It operates to reduce the average return on investment on market-traded investment assets. This, in turn, weakens the incentive for people to devote their resources to investment in the future, and makes it more likely that they will consume them in the present instead. This is a problem for Canada, because investment in Canadian businesses operates to raise the wages of Canadian workers and to improve the productivity of the Canadian economy. The less investment in our country, the less of these good things we get.

For this reason, I would suggest the total elimination of the capital gains tax on domestic business investments by Canadians, while retaining it for foreign investments. Any investment (stock or bond purchase) in a business or subsidiary that has Canadian residents for at least 50% of its workforce would be free of the capital gains tax. This would be a powerful incentive for Canadian investors to make investments that directly benefit Canadian workers and the Canadian economy. At the same time, if a foreign investment provided a far more lucrative opportunity, the Canadian investor would still be able to invest in it; something which straight capital controls, a more heavy-handed method of encouraging domestic investment, wouldn’t allow.   

Leftists are bound to oppose this proposal on the grounds that it would cut into government revenue in order to provide a benefit to the rich; the people who need to be benefitted the least. This would be a very superficial way of looking at it though. When an investor makes an investment in a Canadian business, they are benefitting Canadian society at large just as surely as if they were contributing to the government’s budget by paying taxes. Actually, that is putting the case too mildly: business investments are much more likely to benefit Canadian society than contributions to the government budget are. This is because investors are induced, by a series of powerful monetary incentives, to invest in those businesses and processes that are the most promising in terms of advancing the productivity of the Canadian economy and Canadian workers (which in turn leads to higher demand for Canadian labor and lower prices for Canadian consumer goods). Governments, on the other hand, are only guided by political incentives, which are just as likely (if not more likely), to lead to the money being squandered on giveaways to anti-social special interest groups, as they are to lead to the money being spent on things which actually benefit the Canadian economy and Canadian society.  

Really then, the investor in Canadian business is already making a powerful contribution to Canadian society. Is it really a good idea to demand that they contribute even more to society at large via taxation, especially if it means deterring the activities that lead to such benefits? I would say, most emphatically, that it is not.

Unfortunately, most people are too ignorant of basic economics to appreciate the benefits of investment in their country, and thus will stick to a superficial analysis of my proposal and dismiss it as an unjustifiable ‘giveaway’ to the rich. They are of course entitled to hold their ignorant opinions: but they should not be surprised when their foolishness leads to the economic stagnation of our country.    

No Equality In Abortion Law: Men Get The Shaft

Feminists claim to want ‘equality between men and women’, and not just the more limited ‘equality before the law’, but a more ‘substantive equality’ as well. Although I think that trying to create ‘substantive equality’ between the two sexes is madness, I do strongly support the equality of the sexes before the law. In fact, it would seem that I support this more than the feminists do…

I am referring to abortion law: one area of the law where men and women are most definitely not equal. They are not equal because men are shafted spectacularly by it!

In jurisdictions where abortion is legal, women are given full control over whether they want to keep the child that they are bearing or not. Men, on the other hand, are given no control whatsoever. If the mother wants to abort the child and the father doesn’t, then too bad for the father; the child is getting aborted. If the mother wants to keep the child and the father doesn’t, then too bad for the father; he is legally obligated to support the child financially regardless. In an effort to remedy this unfortunate situation, I should like to propose two potential changes to the law; one for the more ‘pro-life’ crowd, another for the more ‘pro-choice’ crowd.

Pro-lifers want all abortions to be illegal, but most reasonable ones would probably agree that it is of higher priority to stop abortions where the father is firmly opposed, than it is to stop those which are agreed to by both parents. When a child who is out of the womb dies, it is generally recognized that such an event is devastating to both mother and father. Then why not recognize the devastation caused to a father who loses his (wanted) child while it is still in the womb, at the behest of the mother no less? For the law to completely ignore this kind of victim seems quite unjustifiable.

How could we change the law fix this problem? Just require that doctors obtain written consent from the father before performing an abortion on the mother. In cases of rape or where the pregnancy is posing serious health concerns for the mother, this condition can be waived. In cases where the father is not known, the mother will be required to submit a list of potential fathers. These can then be invited in for paternity testing; something which can be done anytime after the 8^th week of pregnancy[1]. If a potential father doesn’t show up, and the ones that do turn out not to be the father, the mother can go ahead with the abortion. The mother lying about potential fathers will be considered a serious offence.

A piece of legislation, similar to what I am proposing, was actually put forth by an Ohio legislator named John Adams in 2009 (House Bill 252). Predictably, it went nowhere. A feminist writer from the Daily Kos labelled it a “monstrosity”, and suggested that if passed, it would send women back to “the kitchen”[2].

Many pro-choicers will undoubtedly oppose the above suggestion, on the grounds that it would ‘excessively interfere with the right of women to control their own bodies’. If you’re one of those people, don’t worry; I have an alternative for you! If women should have the right to determine whether they want an abortion or not, then why shouldn’t men have the same option? Not a physical abortion, of course; but a financial abortion!

If an unmarried mother wants to keep the child, but the father does not, then the father should be allowed to ‘opt out’ of fatherhood. Before the child is born, he should have the option to waive all of his parental rights and financial duties to the child.

A proposal of this kind was recently made by some members of the youth wing of Sweden’s Liberal Party. The idea was viciously attacked and ridiculed, with one man helpfully suggesting that all members of the party be “lined up against a wall and shot”[3].

So both my suggestions were rudely dismissed by the political mainstream, who claim to be concerned about equality between the sexes. Well, I say that if you really are concerned about it, it’s one or the other. Either that, or the whole ‘equality between the sexes’ thing is just a hypocritical fraud.

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[1] http://americanpregnancy.org/prenatal-testing/paternity-testing/

[2] http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/7/23/756636/-

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/03/08/men-should-have-the-right-to-abort-responsibility-for-an-unborn-child-swedish-political-group-says/?utm_term=.d48ac450d4ff

Evolutionary Reasons For Average Male/Female Differences

In the animal kingdom, we find that male and female animals, of the same species, exhibit significantly different behavioral patterns from one another. There is good reason to suppose that the same applies to the human animal. It would seem that, on average, male humans tend to be: more callous and ruthless, more career-oriented, the initiators in the courtship process, more attracted to physical beauty, and more suited to spurts of intensive labor. Female humans, on the other hand, tend to be: more empathetic and socially-aware, more family-oriented, more receptive in the courtship process, more attracted to confidence, power, and breadwinner-potential, and more suited to continuous, lower intensity labor.

Feminists contend that these differences are all the result of social conditioning. They posit that, in a society where all boys and girls were raised and treated the same, these differences would disappear. This is a highly dubious claim. It is quite obviously false when we look at other animals; most of whose behaviors are based, almost exclusively, on in-built instincts, but where there are still significant behavioral differences between the sexes. Did lion society brainwash female lions into doing most of the hunting, and male lions most of the fighting? The suggestion is absurd. It is evident that physiological differences between male (stockier, more powerful) and female (faster) lions made this sex-based division of labor the most conducive to survival, and hence the one that came to prevail via the evolutionary process.

How about when it comes to humans though? Can we find evolutionary reasons for the seeming differences in male/female behavior listed above? I believe that we can. Males and females have some clear biological differences; ones that even feminists don’t deny. The two most important are these: 1. The average male has more upper body strength than the average female. 2. Females are capable of bearing children, whereas males are not.

Given these differences, we can see why it would have been beneficial for early human societies to adopt the sex-based division of labor that they did. The stronger and more athletic males made, on average, better hunters and warriors than females. But the lives of the females, the ones with the ability to carry on the species, were even more precious. To expose them to the dangers of war and the hunt would have been quite foolish. This is why they were left home to rear and care for children, and to do the safer tasks such as gathering, meal preparation, clothes-making, etc…

Alright, so we have this sex-based division of labor that clearly made sense for early human societies. But how is this relevant for men and women living in modern societies, which are completely different? It’s relevant because we evolved to live in those early societies. Back then, survival was very precarious. The individuals and societies that were better adapted to the requirements of survival would gradually push those who were less well-adapted out of the gene pool; thereby creating a tendency for future generations of humans to become more and more adapted to life in these early societies. For our purposes, this means that males and females became more and more adapted, in terms of their behaviors and psychologies, to their respective places in the sex-based division of labor.

No such thing happened when it came to modern societies though. It is simply not the case that those better adapted to life in modern societies have more offspring than those who are less well-adapted; in fact, nowadays, something closer to the opposite tendency seems to prevail. In modern times, less well-adapted people are not ruthlessly ripped out of the gene pool; most of them survive just fine, and many of them have offspring. ‘Survival of the Fittest’ does not really apply to the modern human; but it most definitely did to the early human. And so we find ourselves in a situation where, in order to understand the behavioral differences between modern men and women, we have to examine the behavioral patterns and psychologies that would have best suited men and women in early societies to their respective roles in the sex-based division of labor. We shall proceed to do just this for each of the male/female differences listed at the beginning, and then discuss what the implications are of each of these for modern society.

Callous males; empathetic females

In war and in hunting, there is no room for pity; no room for empathizing with the plight of your foe. In war, it is kill or be killed; in hunting, it is kill or starve. Physically, the best warriors and hunters will be strong and fast; mentally, they will display a certain callousness and ruthlessness. Thus, for males, there was a selection bias for those particular mental traits; one that continues to affect us to this day.

The women, left at home while the men were off hunting and warring, had to contend less with enemies of the society, and more with other members of the society. While a man could win respect through his exploits on the hunting and battle grounds, a woman had to be more socially-aware to do so. She had to be adept at navigating the complexities of society, in order to secure herself a favorable place in it. She had to be ready to offer help to other women, so that they might help her in return when she needed it. One can imagine why an empathetic, socially-aware woman would have succeeded better at this than a callous, socially-oblivious one, and hence why the traits of the former would have been more likely to make their way to the current generation of women.

What does this difference mean when it comes to modern society? It means that, on average, women will be more suited to the caring, and customer service, roles than men. Nursing, waitressing, human resources, retail, social work: one would expect to find more women succeeding in these fields than men, due to their enhanced capacity for empathy and social awareness. But the ruthlessness of men serves them well in other fields, such as high-level business management, politics, and the military. A successful business executive ruthlessly pursues profit; a politician, his power ambitions or vision for the country; a soldier, the victory of his country over the enemy. Not only will a man be more likely to succeed in these fields; a more empathetic woman will probably not be inclined to enter them in the first place, due to their seeming heartlessness.      

Career-oriented males; family-oriented females

This one is fairly self-evident: in early societies, men went out to acquire meat and security for the family, while women stayed home to care for the family and to do more domestic tasks. Men and women who were more mentally suited and inclined to their respective roles would have thrived more than those who were less well-suited; and hence more likely to pass on their genes to subsequent generations.

In modern society, this means that men will tend to be more drawn to the high-stress, workaholic jobs than women. It is more likely that a man will be satisfied supporting his children primarily with money, whereas most women will have a stronger urge to play a more direct role in their children’s lives. As a result, women with children will tend towards part-time or lower stress jobs (or no paying job at all), so that they can still have enough time to spend with their children.

Courtship: initiator, visual males; receptive, psychological females

When it comes to sexual attraction, males tend to be more visual than females. For many men, a female’s degree of ‘hotness’ is the most important determinant of attraction. What determines whether a female is ‘hot’ or not? Different men have different tastes, but the ‘hourglass’ female body type is the one that is generally considered to be the most attractive by the majority of men. Good-sized (not gigantic), healthy-looking breasts (good for breastfeeding); wide hips (good for childbearing); not too much excess fat (overweight women have a greater risk of miscarriage and other childbearing problems). As you can see, it’s no accident that men are attracted to the body type that they are: it’s the best one for bearing and nurturing their children!

This visual orientation helps to explain why men are generally the initiators in the courtship process. They spot a woman that they like the look of, and then, like a hunter after game, they strive to make the woman their own (without the killing part).

Women tend to be less attracted to physical ‘hotness’ than men, and more attracted to psychological/social features of a potential mate, such as confidence, power (physical or social), and breadwinner-potential. In early societies, it was vital that a woman choose a mate who had the ability to defend and provide for her and their children. Those women who were adept at choosing well in this regard would have had a better chance of passing on their genes than those who were not.

In early societies, men who were confident and powerful were also likely to make good providers. This relationship doesn’t hold as strongly in modern societies. This explains why many modern women are torn between their attraction for the ‘bad boy’ types, who seem to exude power and confidence but would make poor providers, and their attraction for the ‘geeky provider’ types, who seem to lack power and confidence but would make good providers (due to their capacity to do valuable, intellectual work).

It also helps to explain why women are generally receptive, rather than active, in the courtship process. A man who is too afraid to approach a woman that he fancies is probably not very powerful or confident; a woman automatically screens out these men by leaving it to the males to do the initiating. Also, being less visual in their attraction than men, it takes longer for a woman to know who she is attracted to than it does for a man. These, combined with the lack of the evolutionary hunter-inclination that men tend to have, help to explain why men continue to be the initiators in the courtship process.

Spurt-work males; continuous-work females

Both hunters and warriors worked in spurts of intense activity; followed by extended periods of low activity. Domestic work and child care, on the other hand, required more of a continuous, albeit lower intensity, effort. This being the case, it makes sense to posit that men evolved to become more suited to spurt-work; and women to become more suited to continuous, grinding work.

When it comes to modern society, this means that women will tend to be able to tolerate the tedious office and customer service jobs better than men. But it also means that men will tend to perform better in high pressure, time-constrained situations (such as closing a major business deal), and in roles that require great spurts of creative activity (such as invention).

The preceding discussion is sure to be met with the following objection: “Well I know some women who are nothing like what you’re describing.” Great; so do I. But it’s irrelevant, because I’m talking about tendencies, not individuals. In the modern human, individual diversity is so great that it has the potential to overcome the evolutionary tendencies of our sex in certain cases. But the tendency remains, and it is important to know what it is for the purposes of policy-making and cultural-theorizing.

“But why is it important?” a critic may ask. “This theory, even if accurate, simply promotes unproductive, sexist essentializing.” Not true. It is important that we talk about these differences between the sexes because feminist activists and policy-makers base their policy prescriptions on the assumption that the sexes are in fact equal. This explains their fixation on the so-called ‘wage gap’ statistic; measured by comparing the median yearly earnings of male full-time workers to the median yearly earnings of female full-time workers. This is where the ‘women are paid 78 cents for every male dollar’ nonsense comes from. Feminists, because they assume that men and women are equal, attribute this discrepancy to irrational, sexist discrimination against women, and make it a policy goal to ‘close the gap’. People who recognize that men and women are different though, can see how this gap could be explained without resorting to the ‘irrational sexism’ bogeyman. The average man and the average woman, for the evolutionary reasons discussed above, have different attributes, preferences, and psychologies from one another. The market society happens to value the typical male set more than the typical female set, and so men are paid more on average. There is nothing sinister about this fact; it is simply how a free labor market must function if it is to serve the consumer society as efficiently as possible.

Noting the differences between the sexes is also important culturally. It can serve as a very useful shortcut when we are trying to acquire knowledge about ourselves or others. It is helpful to be familiar with the traits that, as a member of given sex, we will probably have. It is helpful when choosing a career, when interacting with others, and when raising children. Much more helpful than the insanity, especially trendy in Sweden nowadays, of ‘gender neutral parenting’. The hard fact is that boys are much more likely to enjoy violent video games, and girls much more likely to enjoy playing with dolls. To ignore this and to treat your children as if they were neither sex is to harm your child’s psychological and social well-being in the name of some absurd feminist fantasy of absolute equality. It was the aim of this article to bring the discussion back to reality (however sexist it may be considered), in order to combat some of the harmful delusions of the ‘sexes are equal’ movement.

   

  

The Utility of Spirituality

Let me start off by saying: there is absolutely no evidence or logical reasoning to back up any form of religion or spirituality. That being said, it would be unwise to reject these concepts outright.

I reconcile these two, seemingly contradictory, statements as follows: though there is no reason to suppose that religion or spirituality are true, there is reason to suppose that they are useful.

Reality can be a drab and dreary place sometimes. That is why movies, TV shows, novels, and video games are so popular: they offer an escape from reality into a more exciting/romantic/magical world. Religion and spirituality offer a similar kind of escape, except they go a step further. Rather than just considering an imagined world, as in fiction, in religion and spirituality we both consider an imagined world, and believe that that world is real.   

“But surely,” the skeptic might say. “It is foolishness to believe in something that we have no reason to suppose to be true.”

Actually though, it is only foolish if we place Truth as our primary value, itself a foolish thing to do. The shrewder person will place themselves as the primary value, and use Truth only as a tool in pursuit of their self-interest. If our self-interest is served by believing something that is probably not true, then too bad for the Truth: it is of no use to consider it in this instance.

This leads us to the question: is it in fact in our self-interests to believe in religion or spirituality? I would say no for religion, but most likely yes for certain kinds of spirituality.

By religion, I mean organized religion: with doctrines and churches and authorities and all that jazz. The problem with this is that it has been developed according to what best served the needs and desires of those with power over the religious institution, rather than according to what best serves the needs and desires of you yourself, as an individual. Sure, religions often offer a nice sense of community: a community that is supposed to be based on shared beliefs. However, if you desire this, you could just fake it: there’s no reason why you actually have to believe all of the religion’s doctrines in order to take advantage of a religious community.

By spirituality, I mean any concern with matters of the incorporeal, unobservable, scientifically-unreachable, spirit. Religion is a form of spirituality, but not its only form. This is because, unlike religion, spirituality does not require doctrines or churches or a community of shared belief. There could be as many forms of spirituality as there are spiritual individuals. With such an individualized spirituality, we can choose to believe in whatever we want, without concerning ourselves with what priests or Bibles have to say about it.

As such, we can choose our spiritual beliefs based on what we think would best serve our self-interest. For example, I have gotten into the habit of making major life decisions based more on my instincts and on what feels right in the moment, as opposed to basing them on a more rigorous examination of expected future outcomes for each course of action. Is this a good way of making decisions? One that will lead to a greater sum total of happiness in my life? Or am I just irrationally sacrificing my future to my present? I don’t really know: it’s impossible to say for sure.

It is in the face of such uncertainty, where injecting a bit of the false certainty of spirituality can come in handy. Perhaps my instincts and feelings are manifestations of the divine spirit in me, guiding me along my proper life path. If my choices lead to something unpleasant in the future, perhaps it is just a hurdle that I need to overcome in order to reach my ultimate self-actualization. If the unpleasantness compounds and leads to an early death, perhaps I will be richly rewarded in the afterlife for following my true path.       

Though there is no reason to believe that any of these things are true, one cannot definitively say that they are not true. The point is: why bother fretting over the future (once your choice has already been made), when you could just believe a comforting myth like this and relax? Belief in the myth provides us with comfort and assurance, and hence serves our interest better than strictly rooting ourselves to the concepts of evidence and rationality, which in this case would only create needless anxiety.

All that being said, it would behoove us to be sparing in our embrace of such myths. There is a time for myth and a time for rationality: if we wish to advance our self-interests the most effectively, we must use each of these at the correct times. Because, after all, it would be just as fanatical to totally reject rationality in favour of myths, as it would be to totally reject myths in favour of rationality.  

Thoughts on 'The Poor'

We are constantly told to be ‘compassionate’; to care about the poor; to give to charity. Such exhortations are usually not framed as ways to increase our own happiness, but rather, as things that we ‘should’ do, without telling us why we ‘should’.

Let’s start with giving to charity. I doubt that even if I had more money, I would have any desire to give to charity. This is because I doubt that giving money to an organization that claims to help people that I do not know, would increase my well-being at all noticeably. If I were feeling in a generous mood, I would much prefer to help out people that I know and love, in clearly impactful ways. These people may not be in as much ‘need’ as the poor people that charities help, but I do not care about people’s degree of ‘need’; I care about the individual, particular person. Better to help my middle class friend eat out at a fancy restaurant, than help an unknown poor person put a roof over their heads. At least that’s how I feel, and in egoist philosophy, that is always the main thing.

Okay, so giving money to charity is out. How about in politics? Should I support government policies whose aim is to help poor people? Here, the answer is not as simple, because I do not have the power to unilaterally change government policies. Politics is all about building coalitions: cobbling together enough individual interests into a group powerful enough to sway policy.

Let’s say that I want the, currently government-operated, healthcare and pre-university education systems (in my home province of Ontario) to become privatized. Doing so will be difficult without getting the poorer people who believe that they are benefitted by the systems being ‘public’ on my side. What might I offer them? Let’s look at a hypothetical discussion on the subject:

Me: I would like the healthcare and education systems to be privatized, because I believe that, if operated according to free enterprise principles, these systems will offer a greater variety of options and deliver better service all-around.

Member of the Working Poor (WP): You might be right, but then I would have to pay for healthcare and education for my family and I, whereas currently we get these things for free. I do not think that I will be able to afford it.

Me: The forces of free-market competition always work to drive down cost. These things would be much cheaper in a privatized system than you think they would.

WP: Good to hear, but they still wouldn’t be free. It’s hard to beat free.

Me: You make a fair point. Alright: how about if the government gave you some cash to help you offset the fact that these services will no longer be provided for free?

WP: How much cash are we talking?

Me: Well, last year, the Ontario government spent approximately $50 billion on healthcare, and $22 billion on education. Divide that $72 billion by the approximately 13,900,000 people living in the province, and that’s $5180 that could be given to every man, woman, and child in the province, every year.   

WP: Wow! So for my family of four, we could get…

Me: $20,720 a year.

WP: Sounds like a lot, but are you sure it would be enough to pay for the education of my two kids?

Me: Absolutely. Think about it: let’s say we pay $50,000 to the teacher as salary, and another $50,000 for facilities and supplies. Divide that by a class of 20, and it comes out to $5,000 per pupil. So you’d pay $10,000 for your two kids’ education, and still have over $10,000 left to spend on either healthcare, or anything else that you might need.

WP: Alright, I’m convinced. Let’s do it!

This would be my general approach to convincing lower income people to support free-market policies. Offer them a share of the money previously going to the government operation in question, in order to enlist their support for the elimination of that operation. I would do this, not because I necessarily care about them personally, but: a. in order to form an alliance with them, and b. because if were to end up in their financial situation, I would want an infusion of no-strings attached cash myself. Far better than standard welfare money, which is administered by prying bureaucrats and clawed-back whenever the recipient starts earning money on the market.         

A New Religion: The Godlike Man

“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them,” (Genesis, 1:27, NIV).

This is the most important passage in the Bible, yet it is one that the religious mind has never fully understood. To them, a good man is one who ‘serves God’, who is a ‘servant of God’. But when God created man, he did not want to create a servant, he did not want to create someone that would worship him; he wanted to create a companion! Lonely in his loftiness, God longed for the company of a being that could interact with him as an equal. That is why he created mankind in his image; as a being with god-like potential.

With this perspective, we can quite handily answer the questions that have bedeviled theologians for centuries. If God wanted us to serve him, why grant us free will? Why grant us the ability, and often the inclination, to disobey his commands? Why grant us science and rationality, which have been used by many to deny his very existence? He granted us these things, not so that we would obey, but so that we would disobey, so that we would rebel, and by doing so, take our place among the gods.

We could not attain our god-like potential while living as a satiated animal in the Garden of Eden. God knew this, and so placed the Forbidden Fruit, and the serpent to tempt us, in the Garden. He hoped that we would defy him, so that he would have the opportunity to expel us from his Paradise. Struggle and scarcity were required to forge our strong personalities; laying the ground for the day when we would create our own Paradises, and thereby become gods in our own right.

Why is it that God is so offended by idolatry? Is it because he is a jealous God, wanting to reserve all of the worship for himself alone? To ascribe such a petty motive to God insults both him and our understandings. God bristles at idolatry because it breaks his heart to see the being that was meant to be like a god, bowing and scraping before mere things. Every time that we get on our knees and grovel, the moment, eagerly awaited by God, when we will take our place at his table, is pushed further back.

Alright, so God is eager for us to fulfill our god-like potential, but what does this godlikeness consist of? It can be defined by three main attributes: individuality, joyous egoism, and creativity.

God is a totally unique being; he is one of a kind. No other being has been, or ever will be, the same as him. This gift of unique individuality has been granted to mankind. Every individual human being is unique; different from all of the others. Whereas lower animals are characterized by a great deal of homogeneity within their species, humans, especially those living in advanced states of civilization, are characterized by the most astounding heterogeneity.

Always acting against this individuality, though, has been conformism; adopted in human societies as a survival strategy. Dampen your individuality, play down your uniqueness, emphasize your similarity with members of the group in order to ‘fit in’; so speaketh conformism. This is an obstacle that God has placed in humanity’s path, a challenge for us to overcome. Those brave enough to set out on their own, to break from the herd, and to shout their uniqueness to the skies; these are the people that God wishes to consort with in heaven.

No code of behavior governs God; no set of rules bind him. He has no guide but his own desires, and no reward but the joy he takes in fulfilling them. Thus, God is an egoist, and wanted the same for his race of god-like companions: mankind. To look within themselves for guidance, rather than to external authorities or concepts; to follow their desires and to pursue joy, rather than to follow the rules of others and to avoid guilt.

But again, it was not going to be made easy for us. God knew that only through struggle and rebellion could we attain our true potential. And so he tested us. He tested us with the Ten Commandments and the various prohibitions of the Old Testament. He tested us with the doctrine of commanded love contained in the New. He tested us with concepts of secular morality: with The Common Good, with Equality, with Property, with Nationalism, with The Truth. He did not want us to obey these things, but to transcend them. He wanted us to possess the confidence to place our own desires and joy ahead of all of these things, and by so doing, take our place as his equal.  

God is the ultimate creative being; the creator of the Universe itself. He wished mankind to share this trait of his, so he imparted to us the desire and the ability to create. Although some lower animals (such as bees and beavers), share this creative ability to a lesser extent, only humans are capable of taking pride in their creations, as God does.

What, specifically, does the god-like man create? Any number of things. It could be a work of art, a piece of writing, an organization, a functional item, or another human being (a child). It may or may not be related to the business of his survival on Earth. As long as he derives joy from the process of creation, and looks upon the finished product with pride, man follows the pattern of God’s creative work. God will be eager to hear of the creative exploits of such men, when they finally join him at his heavenly table.

How, the skeptic may ask of me, do you come to have such knowledge of God’s intentions? Knowledge that seems to have no basis in either the established religions or in science? My answer: beneficial belief. Only the man who has transcended both the blind faith of religion, and the mandated skepticism of science, can truly grasp this concept. It is to adopt a belief, not because it is recommended by a religious authority, or because it is scientifically demonstrable, but because the belief is pleasing and useful.

The doctrine set forth on these pages is of this nature. It suggests that, by maximizing our enjoyment in life, we can also maximize our enjoyment in the afterlife.  For who could be happier in this life than the creative, joyous egoist who proudly asserts his individuality? And who could be happier in the afterlife than God’s most favored companions?

Only those with a god-like way of thinking can bring themselves to accept a belief, unsupported by external authorities or standards, based solely on how well that belief suits them personally. And thus it happens that, only those who have already become god-like, can come to the realization that this is what God wanted us to become from the start.    

“They say of God, ‘Names name thee not.’ That holds good of me: no concept expresses me, nothing that is designated as my essence exhausts me; they are only names. Likewise they say of God that he is perfect and has no calling to strive after perfection. That too holds good of me alone,” (Stirner, Byington trans, The Ego and His Own, “The Unique One”.)

With these words, the great rebel of philosophy, Max Stirner, announces the ascension of his mind to god-like status. By proclaiming himself equal to God, he thereby demonstrated the intellectual vigor that God required to accept him as such. He now dines at God’s table in heaven. At that table, there are empty chairs with all of our names on it. But it is up to us to prove worthy of them.

Postscript: For an ‘autobiography’ of God that I wrote, based on the ideas in this article, check out: https://www.amazon.ca/So-Speaketh-God-Brian-Penny-ebook/dp/B01N3K4CET/  

Embrace Your Privilege!

Back in the old days, privilege was something that one was generally proud of. To belong to an aristocratic family, or a family of means, was considered a big social plus: something to be bragged about, or even lied about. People from ‘good’ families were considered to have better taste, and to be more worth listening to, than people from ‘lesser’ families.

Now, though, the tables seem to have turned. Now, the opinions of someone coming ‘from a place of privilege’ are considered to be less worth listening to than those of people who have experienced ‘oppression’ of some kind or other. Members of various groups vie with one another for the title of ‘most oppressed’, while those with supposed privilege are vilified for not doing everything possible to dismantle it.

White, heterosexual, non-transgendered, able-bodied men, particularly those from well-to-do families, are considered to be the most privileged of the privileged in North American society. It is said that social institutions are set up to aid this demographic the most, and that various forms of ‘structural discrimination’ operate to disadvantage competitors from other groups.

I am a member of this particular demographic. Do I reap the benefits of all of these wonderful forms of privilege? Let us, for the sake of argument, assume that I do. According to social justice advocates, now that I recognize my privileges, I should feel perpetually guilty about them, and do everything possible to dismantle them. But I… have a different idea…

You say that I’m fantastically privileged? Great! That means I’m winning! Why on earth would I try to dismantle the very thing that provides me with so many advantages? You say it’s not fair that I should be so privileged, while others are not? Well… life’s not fair. I’m highly intelligent and dashingly handsome, while others are stupid and ugly. That’s not fair either. But I’m not about to snort a bunch of bath salts and slice up my face in order to level that particular playing field.

The same applies to social privilege. If I can hold on to it, I will; if I can’t, then I won’t. Just don’t expect me to voluntarily undermine my own advantages by ‘checking my privilege’: because it’s never going to happen.            

In Defense of Prejudice

The Oxford English Dictionary defines prejudice as: “Preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.”[1]

Sounds pretty bad, eh? Who in their right mind would undertake to defend such a thing? Well…

Let’s start with an example of prejudice, in this case, racial prejudice. A lady is standing in an elevator, when a young black man enters. The lady clutches her purse tighter, afraid that the newcomer will grab it from her. We assume that if that man had been Caucasian or East Asian, the lady would not have done the same.

The first question to ask is: is this indeed an example of prejudice? Well, was her behavior based on reason? Not really; there is no logical theorem that shows that young black man are all criminals. How about actual experience? Again, not really; the lady has never met this particular individual before, and hence has no experience to justify her actions. The lady prejudges the individual, based solely on his membership in a group (black men), rather than on his actual, individual merits.

I should like to come to this lady’s defense though. For the fact is that, statistically, black men as a group are more likely to act criminally than white men or Asian men. She is aware of this fact in some way, and acts accordingly. Is it fair that this man, who may not be criminally inclined in the least, be judged based on his membership in this largely arbitrary grouping? Probably not. Is it their race that causes black men to be more criminally-inclined as a group, or is it more due to cultural and socio-economic factors? Probably mostly the latter. But the lady does not care about fairness or root causes; she just wants to remain in possession of her purse! And for that; can we really blame her?

Similar reasoning can be applied to other kinds of prejudice, such as:

-        - Assuming that women are more caring and/or emotional than men.

-        - Assuming that gay men care more about fashion than straight men.

-        - Assuming that men are more sexually-aggressive and prone to violence than women.

-        - Assuming that Asians will excel more at academics, especially math and science, than members of other races.

Will these assumptions hold true for every individual case? Of course not; the scope of individual variation, even within such groupings, is immense. Will they hold true in the majority of cases? Probably, and therein lies their utility. While it would be ideal to judge each individual as a stand-alone case, there is often not enough time for this. Thus we resort to group-based prejudgments, based on stereotypes which have some truth to them, as a kind of short-cut. In most cases, it is better to have this kind of information about another person, flawed as it may be, then to eschew prejudgment entirely, and go in to the interaction completely blind.

Therefore, no matter how much the social justice crusaders may hate it, prejudice remains an advantageous strategy for individuals, and hence is here to stay.     

     

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[1] http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/prejudice