I used to think that the concept of "male privilege" was a bit kooky, but, nowadays, not so much. In the future, certain practices that are now dismissed, for example, as "boys being boys" will, in retrospect, be looked at with disgust. Riling up the "extreme", outspoken feminists and then pointing out how "extreme" their viewpoints are is strawman. In any movement, there will be extremists. In this case, where we have an issue at an active locus of cultural evolution, it can be good to have more extreme voices, as it then requires a smaller shift in that direction to get to where we "should" be.

In short, our culture is moving in a direction where "male privilege" is now ready to be seen as a problem. Soon, the issue will be grasped on a larger scale.

To me calling it 'Privilege' is like if the mafia demanded protection money from business A but not from business B and business A went on to say business B is 'priviledged'! No, they aren't - it's crime!! Not privilege!

Indeed I would even say calling it 'privilege' is the new 'boys will be boys'. It's still advocating for it, just to a lesser extent than 'boys will be boys' does.

Maybe it's a mid phase term. Eventually 'male privilege' will be looked upon with disgust as well. And I'm on the suck end of 'ahead of their time'.


Anyway, here's the list someone gave in the thread I'm talking about, which just seems to propergate the idea that women's first thoughts about anything aught to be fear. Rather than having fun and enjoying life (with perhaps the secondary or even tertiary concern of self defence against broken brained people).

Fair points. Perhaps I need to emulate the climactic build up - the thing with a enemy that they can cause problems as you build up to a climactic show down. But with a mountain range - well...might be able to use that same build up pattern. Will have to think about that one.

And ooh yeah, do I use alot of internal monloging!

I think working up to a climax is the dealio - yet I don't want the climax to also result in 'oh yeah, and now you're rich and shit'. I'll have to think about that one as well. Thanks, Curethan.

If he did preserve his soul, then Akka is the final mandate schoolman - the final, non distributed resting place of Ses's soul.

I ran across this idea of 'male privilege' recently.

The idea of calling it a 'privilege' handed out to other males (which is a fallacy anyway) that they aren't rape targets seemed utterly false to me. Indeed to call it a 'privilege' seems by common standards to legitimise the sex preditor. As much as regular law is seen as legitimate and regular law hands out privileges, to call who a sex preditor will or wont rape some distribution of 'privilege' seems to legitimise the sex preditor as some governing authority as much as regular law is legitimise.

Got my reply to it deleted in responce, of course. Hopefully the admin on that other board helped rather than hindered female liberty in enacting such intellectual dishonesty.

To me, the post I replied to (I can link if you want) seemed to have women base every activity they do in life, first and foremost, around evading sexual assault. Eg, not having a ladies night because that might be fun, but a ladies night as a kind of wagon circle. Out of fear.

Is that liberty?

Yeah, as a secondary concern women might want to set up defences. But as a secondary concern, that's not making your life revolve around such things.

But when someone treats fear of sexual assault as the normalised first and foremost way a woman should think about her life - is that liberty?

And to call it male privilege - it smacks of 'just world' bias to call it privilege, as if some system is being enacted?

Or what, when I think calling it 'privilege' is legitimising the sad twisted wrecks that the predator is, am I mistaken? Sounds kind of legitimising to me? But then neuropath has the serial killer as the new rock star, so maybe I'm behind in the times?

Anyway, it seems like it's a big word around town and I remember it from the ROH run ins a bit now - so whut up with male 'privilege'? Society, I question you through your fragments! 

So I've kind of set myself a few handicaps in working out some writing. I'm keening away from violence as being the thing to get everything revolves around. And let alone focusing on a last unicorn, I don't really want to focus on the dudes who have the special (and uncommon) power (whether it be martial power or magical).

I'm thinking of a world mostly covered in wilderness, with small villages scattered around. The main focus would be those peddlers who travel on foot in between. The world has magic and occasional trans dimensional portals opening randomly. Raptors hunt amongst its forest (they are too tough to fight, and they are actually the smallest of threats, really).

To add more handicaps, I don't really want to fall into the trope of heavy, heavy social interaction focus (probably also cause I'm male!) in villages then gloss over the many hundreds of kilometers of walking in between villages. The traveling aught to be focused on, instead of just a plot device to get to social interaction in so and so village (which is what most journeying stories seem to do).

Basically the focus is on the peddlers who are poor. Traditional stories are about dudes who get swept up into some big dealio because they have some useful resource (skills, items, lineage, etc)

I just don't have it in my heart to so genuinely believe such a miraculous resource story enough to earnestly write it.

So now I ask, and I know all the trope handicaps I've put in will make you think 'sorry, is there anything you are cool with?', what can I have the character doing? Sliding down slopes, shuffling over slippery log bridges, suffering lunge attacks from wolves and starving dogs, swinging across chasms, etc.

The thing is, violence typically has a climax point, potentially an unexpected climax point. Traveling just doesn't build up to a climax, unless you count arriving at a destination and exchanging goods for a few coin (which lacks any unexpectedness as a climax, pretty much).

Thought I'd think out loud on the matter.

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Aphorism of the Day: Give me an eye blind enough, and I will transform guttering candles into exploding stars.

Isn't it the other way around?

More information (exploding star) -> bottlenecked data-bus/consciousness (eye blind enough) -> less information (guttering candles)

Have Bakker's aphorisms finally gotten the better of him? 

It suffers a little that way. But you need more information to tell what you're seeing is a guttering candle, not less. It's like when you give a little kid a dollar and they get really, really excited. Because they don't know any better. But yeah, blindness tends to remove information, fuzzifying stuff and making less of more. It does seem more like it's Cishy that way.

Probably something like : Give me an eye small enough and I will transform a guttering candle into a super nova.

'Blind' probably has too many cultural connotations in regards to people recognising they are losing their sight. It doesn't harken much to anognosia or whatever it's called.

Edit: Anosognosia. Sog of sogs.

While what he says has a fallacy in it (it's like the job experience fallacy - where you wont be given a job because you have no experience in it - how do you get experience? By doing the job. Here he wont listen to the idea until it's widely promulgated. How does it get promulgated? By people listening to the idea...) atleast he sets out his terms for acceptance, instead of falling to the usual human habit of throwing up a smokescreen of rationalisations. So a tip of the hat to that.

It kind of reminds me of games companies - you might have an awesome idea for a game, but someone in a games company has about a dozen of their own ideas they've come up with over the decades that they still haven't actually made into a game and would go and make way before they'd consider your game idea. Here, the dudes have an abundance of ideas to work through.