Monday, November 09, 2015

Asking questions as a fit test

Those who study human nature often try to use evolutionary psychology to understand behavior. Evolution teaches Survival of the fittest, so women must somehow assess the fitness of a potential mate. Men are less selective.

So women devise fitness tests for the purposes. Such a test could be called a "fit test", but the more common term is a shit test:
A test that a girl performs on a male by saying or doing something to judge the reaction or response from him.
Men find these tests puzzling because they can flunk a test by correctly answering a question.

Typical scenario: Girl tries to manipulate a boy with some remark or question. Boy appeases girl. Girl decides boy must be weak or low-status if he is so easily manipulated.

I am wondering if the same concept can be applied to political campaigns, and other social issues.

Example: Politician is accused of racism or sexism. He apologizes. Voters decide he is weak for being so easily manipulated.

In this view, maybe there are voters who don't really care if the politician might have made an offensive remark. But they do care whether he can be manipulated by race-baiters or gay-baiters or other liberal thought police, so they are very interested in how he handled the accusation. The voters want the fittest candidate to survive the struggle.

I used to be annoyed when politicians duck a direct question. Now I have reversed my opinion. Some questions serve no useful purpose except to bait the candidate into saying something that can be used by his enemies. The more fit candidate will either smoothly transition to answering a more appropriate question, or directly object to the question.

This partially explains the popularity of Donald J. Trump. Most of the Republican politicians are disgustingly weak, and will cave in to the demands of their enemies if they face a little criticism. They are easily manipulated. We need a President with a backbone.

White Christian Americans are the least racist people on Earth. They are far less racist than blacks, Jews, Moslems, orientals, Hindus, or just about any other group you can name. But liberals are always calling them racists anyway. Why?

I used to think that liberals believed white Christians to be racists. Now I believe that is an error. Evolution teaches that people (and animals and plants) will do whatever works to propagate their kind, without necessarilary any understanding of what they are doing.

Liberals are like women who are unable to directly assess the fitness of others, and must resort to fit tests. So they try to manipulate white Christians by calling them racists. It does not really matter whether the accusation is true or even whether it makes any sense. The important thing is that it is an exercise in manipulation.

Likewise with accusations of misogyny, homophobia, anti-semitism, or other liberal sins. These accusations do not mean anything, except as a means to show weakness.

The big story on colleges today is about students who want protection from possible frightening Halloween costumes. The NY Times reports:
In response, Erika Christakis, a faculty member and an administrator at a student residence, wrote an email to students living in her residence hall on behalf of those she described as “frustrated” by the official advice on Halloween costumes. Students should be able to wear whatever they want, she wrote, even if they end up offending people. ...

Ms. Christakis’s email touched on a long-running debate over the balance between upholding free speech and protecting students from hurt feelings or personal offense. It also provoked a firestorm of condemnation from Yale students, hundreds of whom signed an open letter criticizing her argument that “free speech and the ability to tolerate offence” should take precedence over other considerations. ...

Ms. Christakis’s email also led to at least one heated encounter on campus between her husband, Nicholas Christakis, a faculty member who works in the same residential college, and a large group of students who demanded that he apologize for the beliefs expressed by him and his wife, which they said failed to create a “safe space” for them.

When he was unwilling to do so, the students angrily cursed and yelled at him, according to a video posted to YouTube by a free speech group critical of the debate. On Sunday it had been viewed over 450,000 times.

“You should step down!” one student shouted at Mr. Christakis, while demanding between expletives to know why Yale had hired him in the first place. “It is not about creating an intellectual space! It is not! Do you understand that? It is about creating a home here!”

“You’re supposed to be our advocate!” another student yelled.

“You are a poor steward of this community!” the first student said before turning and walking away. “You should not sleep at night! You are disgusting.”
It is hard to believe that Yale students are this pathetic. If kindergarten kids behaved this way, they would be called crybabies.

Another explanation is that the students know that they are being completely unreasonable, but testing the extent to which they can bully college officials.

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