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"That willingness to dive completely into the unknown is an act of a true seeker of truth."

The question would be: What if the unknown remains unknown, can we still call it the truth?

There is a famous thought experiment written by philosopher Frank Jackson called "Mary The Super-Scientist." It is meant to be a knowledge argument in regards to physicalism. If knowledge is physical, then wouldn't it have to interact with any phenomena before we could know that phenomena, as opposed to be mental and can be derived through non-physical means such as direct observation? The thought experiment goes like this:

Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like "red," "blue," and so on. She discovers, for example, just which wavelength combinations from the sky stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces via the central nervous system the contraction of the vocal cords and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering of the sentence "The sky is blue." What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a color television monitor? Will she learn anything or not?

Ultimately, this question was answered by explaining that there are two truths. Unfortunately for the western philosophers, no one bothered to give the Buddhist philosopher, Nagarjuna, the second Buddha after Siddhartha Gautama, credit for this discovery. Making them look kind of stupid. But nonetheless, the doctrine of two truths is instrumental in explaining both experiment, and answering the question.

There are two truths. The first is the truth of experience. This is everything that you observe objectively or subjectively by which you can affirm that in terms of reality, it has no fault. If you drop a stone, and it hits the ground, you can say to a reasonable certainty that stones hitting the ground when you drop them, barring any unusual circumstances, is a truth of reality.

Then there is the truth that lies beyond what is known or knowable. That is the truth that is unknown and unknowable.

Mary has the first truth about color. But she doesn't have the second truth about color, because color is out of the scope of her experience. So will she be in possession of new knowledge when she finally sees color? Well, yes and no. She will have new knowledge in the form of experience, but that won't necessarily tell Mary anything more about how color works than what she already knows. In fact, it may even tell her less. Because just experiencing color doesn't tell you, in a reductively logical way, what is color. Just that it is a thing.

So using this information, what could we say about a person who lived in darkness all their lives, and never saw light. Like a blind man. Does this mean he cannot define darkness? Does this mean that he cannot conceive of light? Like, have you ever been dead? So not experiencing death means you can't understand life for what it is? Saying someone else experience death, or even light, and told you about it, doesn't really deliver knowledge, does it? Other than knowledge of the other person (objective) rather than their perception (subjective).

Blind people have actually defined their darkness before. The difference being that they did not define it in relation to light. They defined it in relation to their own experience. As their existence. As not-light, whatever light is suppose to be.

If you think about it, all humans do this, as well. No human has ever experienced absolute nothingness or non-existence. We don't even have a way to define it besides saying it's not existence. But we can still imagine it in a way. But this is only because we make use of other dualities we can model after. So while we may not be able to see light, we can still conceive of a thing called light. And understand darkness for what it is. A thing that is to us a singularity. It is not alone in being singularities. Though most of them are abstract.

What is God? How are we able to define and understand it if we cannot experience it? We certainly don't define it objectively. Just conceptually.

The funny thing about blind people and color blind people is that there exists some technologies that now allow people who have been blind from birth to see. Or color blind people to see color. In many of the videos, mostly children, their reaction to seeing for the first time is often surprising reserved. Their reaction is usually one of curiosity rather than shock.

And oddly enough, many color blind people can tell the difference between different colors, and even name them, never having actually experienced them before that moment. Because what we have become accustom to as color, they have become accustom to as shades of gray. More shades of gray than we ever notice. So for them, the experience of color can really be a little more underwhelming than we would expect.

In a more modern context of truth relativism in logic theory, we'd call the practical truths, relative truths and the greater truths absolute truths. Relative truth are the truths of the world as we can know them in terms of objective and subjective knowledge. Absolute truth is the truth of ontological abstraction. Like the truth of the form of a circle. Typically expressed only logically (mathematically), not materialistically.

Truth (satya) can be divided into two categories: What Nagarjuna usually teach as truth (samvrti), which is a practical kind of truth, and greater truth (paramartha), which is the truth that has greater affect on our existence. According to the two-truths doctrine, all truth ultimately doesn't matter because the one truth of reality .. that it has as its foundation a state of absolute emptiness that cannot be logically determined (shunyata); renders all truths we have to say about reality meaningless.

An often misunderstood term regarding Nagarjuna's understanding is the term "emptiness." This term does not imply a denial of the world / substratum nihilum. Rather it is an absence of svabhava or the essence of the self.

The Muslims had all similar to this in Sufism.

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Just saying, there are facets and lines from many religious texts generally say to do harm or to inflict punishment on those who are different, because to be different is to be bad, historically speaking.

A lot of non-religious ideologies do the same thing. Those things used to be written into the laws of a lot of countries. But people chose not to obey them any more. Just like a lot of religious people choose not to follow the outdated and barbaric rules of the religious scriptures. Whether mainstream religious people want to sidestep that fact is irrelevant, it's still part of that religion, or you can argue "Depends on the many of interpretations."

It comes down to what kind of person you are, not what religion (or no religion) you are following. If you want to be a evil piece of shit, you will be whether you are religious or not. And you don't need a verse to justify it. But a verse is just as good as any other excuse.

It's easy to blame religion for this. If we say it is the fault of religion, then we can segregate the problem to "all religious people" or "that religion specifically." But if we say it is the fault of human society, then no one is exempt.

A lot of religious people would agree with non-religious people on these points; however, non-religious people make it very hard to religious people to side with them. Especially when every point about the illogical nature of a particular doctrine comes with a condemnation of the entire religion itself. Religious people are forced into a position of defending their faith and siding with the fanatics who are the actual problem.

And since the minority of non-religious are never going to get anywhere without the help of the religious, they may want to rethink their strategy. Of course, remaining the downtrodden and oppressed minority has its philosophical appeal too, I guess.

The Quran specifically states that they must destroy the infidels. Whether mainstream Islam wants to sidestep that fact is irrelevant, it's still part of that religion and there are many interpretations. And yet, not all Muslims are going around killing infidels. Not even a minority of Muslims, but a fringe.

Talk about irrational. And I'm not talking about the religions.

There is a tendency for religious people to make the assumption that human civilization somehow revolves around the dictates of organized religion. There is also a tendency for non-religious people to lump all religion up into one big theological mishmash, neglecting to realize that if all religions were the same thing, then we wouldn't have so many claiming the real one in contrast with the others.

I'm religious. And yet I manage to put rationality and logic above all other things, including religion.

Religion never did a single thing wrong in all of human history. Humans did those things. Using religion as a reason or excuse. Using anything convenient as a reason or excuse. And if something good happens to a dogmatically religious person will thank God for it because they feel they are not worthy enough to take pride in their own accomplishments. Later, they will secretly get angry at God for taking all the credit for their talent, of course.

Fanaticism doesn't start with "I believe in God." It starts with, "You believe in MY God, or else." Fanaticism can also start with "Believe in my government or else," "believe in this ideology or else," "Do what everyone else is doing or else," or even "Don't ever do that again or else." Religion isn't the cause, it's a condition.

Religion is a justification of metaphysical ideology incipit. Metaphysical ideology comes in many shades, and people are just broken inside. Actually, since a lot of the leaders of these ideologies and religions don't really believe it themselves. Especially if it is just being used as a tool for manipulation and domination. Of course, it was still quite an effective tool in getting the people all riled up.

Is the weapon dangerous without the person who uses it? What drove the creation of the weapon in the first place? Someone gave it a purpose before it was even forged. The very first weapon, a stick or a rock, was just a stick or a rock until a primitive human thought to bash someone's head in with it. Aggression and wickedness comes from four sources: fear, ignorance, attachment, and ego. These can be applied to anything, not just religion. If religion had never been invented, we would still be oppressing killing each other for the sake of being right over one thing or another.

Is the weapon dangerous without the person who uses it? Maybe. The creator has the intent of making a weapon. It is made. The intent is what makes an action moral, not always the use. Do we make missiles like we make lollipops? Can I use a lollipop as a weapon? That's semantics. The creator of a weapon is still a user even if he doesn't pull the trigger himself. You can put an eye out with a lollipop if you had the will too, but there are more effective tools handy.

In order for something to be dangerous and fanatical, someone has to make it so, and their motivation can be whatever they choose. Case in point: Christianity. It could had been a philosophy of universal brotherly love. Or it could have been a tool for subjugating the weak and inspiring conquest. The church founders made their decision independent of what Christianity actually was.

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If the universe apparently popped into existence out of pure nothingness with absolutely no cause and for absolutely no reason. How do you think this can be used to prove something? What thing? 

Although an argument can be given for something existing without a cause, there are no viable theories to explain how something can exist without a cause "inside" our universe. Creationists (and theologians) propose that God exists outside of our universe and is therefore exempt from the law of causality; however, we have no way of actually knowing if anything outside of our universe is truly exempt from causation. It's little more than a notion at this point.

Actually, one cannot logically argue God at all. God defies any logical principles since nothing concrete can be applied to a "spiritual" being. Hell if logic is Its creation, it would be illogical if God is submissively to Its creation's law. We can logically argue any realistic principle which can be applied to a theoretical Supreme Being (which in fact originates from man, not the divine), however, outside of the realm of multiple universe theory, arguing that something can exist or be possible according to the principles of logic does not in any way establish their actual existence.

I don't know of a better word to use in English to describe God than spiritual. I can use "fictional" but some of y'all will not like it. I don't know the best translation for the word "ghaib." Without actual evidence, God is indeed a fictional being, in that everything we know about him comes from the literary constructs of writers. There is no proof of God outside of that literature. At all. Which is why Its very existence is based on faith. Not fact. Logically, it is not a requirement to prove something for which you have no evidence in the first place. You can prove something for which you have evidence, or disprove the evidence itself, but you cannot prove or disprove something that has no evidence to support it's existence.

"Evidence" of faith does not in any way equal evidence of God. That's nonsense. In order to have evidence of God we need recordable proof. We don't have that. And if we had God showed up in person is a proof, well Christianity would be the only one religion that unquestionable. Do they? The historical of Jesus still a debate until now.

It is irrelevant to question and ponder the nature of God, any more it was irrelevant for man to ponder the nature of the stars or the existence of the soul. One proved to be real, the other a fantasy.

I believe that if God existed (of the personal variety, anyway), that such a being would ultimately act in accordance with logic and reason. After all, an illogical being would not craft a completely logical universe would it? And if God be the logical being I believe, why would such a logical being who has so much interaction with the daily lives of such a primitive species as man fail to identity It purpose or convey Its instructions in a meaningful and verifiable fashion, instead acting through the dream-inspired ramblings of bronze-age poets? If I am wrong, I rely on God Itself to point that out in person—not other flawed human beings such as myself.

I too am religious and a believer. But my God is of the impersonal variety and influences this world in a way which is inseparable from natural law. So, investigation into Its "true" nature is as simple as picking up a science book, which I'm sure It encourage me to do.

Scientists are such that they approach the world under the auspices of reason and rationale. In fact, they usually consider it a requirement that cannot be dismissed. Not so of the theologian or priest. In fact, for their purposes, the less rational the doctrine, the better. Rational thought, after all, can be questioned. And you don't want questioning in certain religions. It can blow the whole doctrine out of the water.

I would also challenge the "theory" that religious people are somehow more moral than the scientific investigator. In my humble opinion based on a lifetime of experience, they are not. Oh, they claim to be, indeed. But they are not. Unless intolerance, prejudice, and cruelty are the standard for said morality.

What many religions make attractive to many people is the license to suspend disbelief, discard personal responsibility, and embrace ignorance and blind faith as paths to a "truth" which can be claimed but never materializes. It's the transformation of the thinking person into an emotionally-driven sheep. Some religions do embrace science and education as paths to more realistic truths, but for the most part, this is not the case.

Morality does have nothing to do with a person's profession, vocation, calling, or religious / historical title. I do not judge the theologians, priests, and prophets on the basis that they did not practice science. I judge them on the basis that they followed a moral code that was not particularly "moral" in most circumstances at that time they lived. My opinion (and the general opinion of today's moralists) is that a truly ethical moral code must benefit (or at the very least do no harm to) your fellow human being, either physically or emotionally, or impair their advancement. This is not the nature of most religious moral codes put forth by the prophets. Religious people may often lower this standard in accordance with their own beliefs, but I do not. It is not in any way illogical to deny a "prophet" or devotee an elevated status of moral authority. It is illogical NOT to question that status.

I endeavor not to insult actual persons or their beliefs so long as they don't attempt to impose those beliefs on me; however, the prophets and other historical figures are fair game. Nothing exempts them from examination and scrutiny. Don't take my rejection of "religion over science" in any way as an attempt by me to impose my views on you. I have no qualms with anyone religious affiliation or views. Labeling things we don't understand is how primitive human dealt with the uncertainty of the universe. And the rest of us should certainly move beyond this ancient mode of thinking. Label the unknown as an unknown and move on.

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Religion is not the art of living. "Living" applied generally suggests an unhindered degree of behavioral freedom. Religion is the art of obedience and faith. And that which one is obedient to in any particular religion defines the faith and the actions of its devotees. If your obedience is to a non-corporeal being who makes up arbitrary rules about how one is to behave, regardless of the affects that behavior will have on those who do not declare obedience, and without any mechanism for eliminating harmful elements in that religion (for example: hatred of transgenders and mistreatment of women), then it is a prescription for disaster and social unrest. See the last 1600 years of world history for proof of this fact.

The difference between society's rules and a religion's rules is that a society's rules can be applied to all those who live within that society as a whole. And being diverse, a society's rules can be applied to a number of different people, or adapt to fit their needs. Religious rules can only be applied to persons of that particular religion, unless forced onto others who do not practice said religion; as if often the case. And there is no adaptation within the framework of religious rule. Society's rules can apply to the Christian, the Hindu, the Muslim, the Buddhist, and the atheist alike. Christian rule cannot. Muslim rule cannot. Hindu rule cannot.

There is nothing wrong with obeying rules that can be applied universally. Although religion might contain some rules that are universal, rules pertaining only to a specific religion are not universal. So unless that religion is willing to drop those rules that do not apply to a larger, diverse population, attempting to enforce those rules on others amounts to oppression.

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A hero who never cries is always sure of his intentions; who don't really rely on anyone, including those he has gathered around himself as followers and has his machismo entirely wrapped up in his sense of self-worth in achievement ... is a masculine hero. No matter how many times you try to apply that foil to a female character.

Wonder Woman, Alice (Resident Evil), Laura Croft, Ripley, Xena, Buffy, Jamie Summers, Charlie's Angels, Sarah Connor, Clarice Starling, Selene (Underworld), Black Mamba (Beatrix "The Bride" Kiddo), Katniss Everdeen, every character ever played by Michelle Rodriguez—these are all masculine heroes with tits. They are heroes specifically designed to appeal to men and the "ideal of manhood." Tough, loner, detached, an expert in the killing, and gets the panties wet. Or this case, the dicks hard because they also represent that unattainable woman that men all obsess over. You know, the "ideal of a perfect male conquest"?

That's why these characters rarely have a sexual identity of their own beyond the usual vulgarities. Unless, at some weak point in their development, they go all soft for some male character's hard penis. Even when he's a complete douche. Feeds into the male fantasy that no matter how strong a woman is, they all pause for the penis. Not exactly a feminist principle.

Women have been telling us what true femininity is for literally centuries. Men just don't listen. A woman starts talking, and all a typical male hears is "blah blah blah." They don't pay attention. Especially in the internet era, they are demonstrating this quite clearly.

Let's look at some of the characters who typically end up on lists of heroes by women:

Elizabeth Bennet (Pride and Prejudice), Hermione Granger, Katherine Johnson (Hidden Figures), Leia Organa (though I would personally disagree with that one, I can see the appeal given she's the leader of a rebellion), Mulan (the real one, not the Disney butcher job—in fact, we can say this for every female Disney historical character), Merida from Brave (the Disney movie all the male critics didn't like), Elle Woods (Legally Blonde), Erin Brockovich (an actual person, but played as a hero), Sister Aloysius (Doubt), Foxy Brown, Jess Bhamra (Bend It Like Beckham), Jo March (Little Women), Jane Craig (Broadcast News), Marge Gunderson (Fargo), Thelma and Louise, Celie (The Color Purple), Elastigirl and Violet (The Incredibles), Marina (A Fantastic Woman), Zoe Washburne (Serenity), Dottie Hinson (A League of Their Own), Nyota Uhura and Kathryn Janeway (Stat Trek).

Now, some of the action heroes do sometimes make the feminist list. Though all of these characters have something in common that is very rare in the male-hero characters. The male hero overcomes adversity by finding his inner strength and conquering his enemies. He gets a weapon, sometimes his own body, and hits stuff with it until he wins. The female hero model, however, seems to be she who overcomes her own weaknesses and flaws, and despite still having them, is able to combat adversity. This is the differentiating factor that I base on seeing the feminine heroine in films. She never actually loses her vulnerability. She uses it as a strength. Whereas the male hero must be purified of these weaknesses in order to succeed. Luke Skywalker. James Bond. Dutch in Predator. Rambo. Captain America. Wolverine. Thor. John McClane. Neo. Mad Max. Dirty Harry. Hercules. I think Rambo still seems to have a feminine side in few cases.

Characters like Beatrix Kiddo may make the feminist list because she had to personally overcome so much trauma. And Clarice in Silence of the Lambs because she's really smart and determined. And also men like Mr. Spock struggles with his human / emotional side. Or Batman, ironically, who is in a constant battle with his inner demons, but refuses to compromise his ethics and doesn't kill or use guns.

So, as you can see, we do have some idea of the difference between male and female ideals for heroes. Male heroes crash through walls usually all by themselves. Female heroes climb over walls, usually while trying to give someone else a hand up. And this isn't an assumption. This is what women have been expressing for quite some time. It is not about being gentle or emotionally sensitive, but because these things are not considered manly, then men tend to think it isn't—if a woman even hints at such a suggestion.

What is also totally ironic about this is that the first thing you learn in military boot camp (the epitome of manhood) is to deal with your own internal weaknesses and to have your comrade's back. But male heroes conquer armies, not really participate in them. Even when they are military heroes on screen. John Wayne in the Green Berets. Mel Gibson in Braveheart. Demi Moore in G.I. Jane. There is nothing wrong with accepting your weaknesses without insisting that you don't want to appear flawed.

Something else ironic about that: In nearly every action movie written with a strong male protagonist, they have what in Hollywood writer lingo is referred to as the "pet the dog" scene. It usually involves the hero petting a dog, snuggling a cat, holding a baby, kissing his wife or mother, helping out an old person, saving a homeless person, being nice to a Muslim villager in a war movie. The reason why they include this scene is to indicate that even though the hero is going to be later mercilessly killing a lot of people, they are not entirely without compassion and empathy. It's only a momentary show of compassion, but it seems to be enough to convince most male audiences—because even a little bit of that is enough. It's as if men think that if we pet a dog every now and then, it doesn't mean we are violent, egotistical assholes. Self-delusion.

Outside the context of Bechdel Test. In terms of decency codes, for example, the Japanese have a completely different view of what is acceptable for children than we do, and feminism doesn't exist in Japan. The objectification of women in that nation is rampant and epidemic. Especially among younger men and teenagers. You can show rape in an anime, but in regular adult porn there, it's forbidden to show genitalia because pubic hair is a taboo. Feminism is something that can be moral related to culture and geography. So go figure.

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Western society is patriarchal in a historically demonstrable way. Scholars on both sides of the concept have verified this in many ways. Doesn't really require that we wait for people to believe it. Nor does it require that we teach them how it is patriarchal. They obviously don't want to know if they haven't learned it for themselves already.

If the last 2,000 years of history of men in power talking about their dominance over the world, and the inferiority of women hasn't been enough to convince people, they are simply not worth the effort.

And it doesn't really matter if they do or not. The ones who want to do something about it are the only ones who need to understand what it is and how it came about. That is how the first wave of the modern mainstream feminist movement, the Women's Suffrage Movement, got started. Not by convincing the ignorant, but by understanding it themselves and doing something about it.

So when someone says there is no such thing as patriarchy, the proper feminist response to that is the same as someone telling you they believe in God: No one cares what you believe.

With that out of the way, some said mostly the right stuff in their response to demonize feminism. I can't blame them wholeheartedly, because some of the women that claim themselves as feminists don't really understand what true feminism is. Though I wish they had gotten "faulty generalization" right. But I'm a nitpicker.

The problem with third-wave feminists, who are usually young, ignorant, and emotionally unstable (like most millennials), is that unlike the generations previous (first and second-wave feminists) they have never been introduced to the philosophical and socio-political underpinnings of the movements. They've just been introduced to the ideological considerations, most of which they got from the internet. As a pro second-wave feminist myself, I truly despise the third wave for their efforts in destabilizing the movement with their bad behavior and even worse reasoning skills.

Though, they would likely say I am just mansplaining feminism to them now. I gave up on hope a long time ago, actually. Not just for the new feminists, but for all of humanity.

Not every man benefits from the patriarchy. This is a lie the patriarchy tells in order to keep other weaker men on their side. It's like when they used to tell poor white people that they needed to side with the white masters because they were the only ones protecting them from the revenge of the blacks.

And violence is not the main tool of the patriarchy. Government, money, and religion are the main tools of the patriarchy. The same tools are used to keep minorities and the poor in line. Many men like to think they benefit from the patriarchy—which is just basically the male-dominated power structure of the world. But many of those men are in no way a part of that power structure.

It is similar to how many white people believe they benefit from white privilege. And they are led to believe that by the fact that they don't face as many disadvantages as minorities do in certain cultures and societies. But what they fail to realize is that the only privileges they are allowed as "first-class citizens from birth" are privileges that the establishment allows them to have. That benefit is entirely about being acceptable to the power structure. It is a benefit that can be taken away at any time. Just like it is taken away from minorities. Step out of the acceptable white citizen parameters, and see what happens. See how quickly that label of "white trash" gets applied.

All of that being said, there are certain things that are afforded to people on one side of a social divide that is not afforded to others. For example, men can go out at night alone without having to worry about the constant threat of being raped by a violent male.

Now, some "meninists" would argue things like men face rape in prison and the military. Well, yes, they do. But so do women. From male guards and fellow soldiers at way higher rates than men. And men in these situations face rape from other men, not women. Things are not all equal.

These arguments are supposed to be that the threat of rape for men is just a bad as it is for women. However, look at what had to happen to that man before he was placed in a similar situation that a woman faces just jogging down the street in many places, every day of her life. The average chance of sexual assault for a woman is around 17% during her lifetime. 90% of sexual assault victims are female. And that doesn't even include other forms of violence. For men, the threat is around 3% I believe (will have to double-check that) and mostly involves prison life and molestation as a child.

Things are certainly not equal. Though, this is typically the means by which misogynists and just the willfully ignorant, both of the male and female variety, obscure the information and issues. By attempting to play the numbers game with a level of intelligence which is obviously inadequate for the task. They think 17% and 3%, or 90% and 10% are equal quantities by their reckoning.

Feminists in the other generations were pretty smart, informed, politically active individuals. Now, we have fucking Twittter and YouTube feminists who don't know the first thing about the movement. But people take them seriously because no one reads or takes classes on this stuff anymore. They are informed about feminism the same way they are informed about everything else. Mainstream media and the jungle of the World Wide Web.

We used to call this the "dumbing down" of the world, but let's be honest. People were always this stupid in terms of the majority. The only thing that has changed is how much we are willing to tolerate the stupid these days. They have therefore formed guilds and collectives of their own. And now, stupid is the norm. That is what you faced in that other group. The normalization of stupid.

Feminism isn't the problem. Even the patriarchy isn't really the problem anymore. The problem is stupidity. It's free-range and organic now. Welcome to the new world in which the stupid on both sides of the social divide are just pecking at the same birdseed of ignorance in their ever-widening enclosures.

So, just to be clear on the issue here without the faulty generalization fallacies: Do all men benefit from violent male behavior? No. Is violent male behavior the detriment of all women, even those who manage to avoid facing it directly in their lives? Yes.

By the way, women didn't always stay home and cook. For pretty much all of prehistoric modern human existence, women did in fact go out and work like men. Actually, better than men in ways. They hunted small game and gathered resources in larger groups than the men, and carried their children along with them in some cases.

This all started to change slowly about 10,000 years ago, and by 6,000 years ago, became some sort of norm in many of the larger settlements of humans. So we can't point to some kind of biological or genetic reason for what is essentially a new norm of the human species—a different standard of social equality for women.

Something happened in that 4,000-year interval between the establishment of the first agrarian societies and the first large scale kingdoms that made women the second class citizens of the human race. Something social, cultural, and systemically implemented. Social equality between men and women isn't a new thing, but something old and original that was taken away at some point.

Women are not socially, economically, and religiously unequal today because of their biology. They are unequal because of a plan that was put in place by society as a whole very long time ago, but not nearly as long as we have been around as a species. You may even argue, as both misogynist and feminist scholars have argued, that the inequality of women in society has been an essential property of human civilization itself. Like war, technology, medicine, and education, the inequality of women is an institution. All a part of the ongoing plan, but no one knows how it actually started. We just understand it now for what it is. Bigotry and oppression.

And who maintained that plan throughout the millennia? Men did. Still do. It's a proven fact in recorded history. Not even one that most men in power deny. And that is what they call the patriarchy.

Actually, back when this all started, the physiology of men and women in terms of muscle mass was a lot closer. Only in the last few thousand years has the gap widened between the size of men and women with bigger men and smaller women. And that was probably by social design, even if not consciously done. But that would have been secondary to the initial rise of patriarchal society.

We know early on, bigger men were more useful in agrarian societies for farming and animal husbandry. And we know that around 3-4000 years ago, the smaller, thinner woman started showing up in the archeological evidence. Probably precisely because their skillset and domestic duties had changed in a world with more humans and more conflict.

What people don't typically think about is that even if we could say there is no active patriarchy anymore, that past patriarchy designed our societies. And both conditionally and functionally, our societies pretty much still works exactly the same way they did three thousand years ago, and probably the same in the most important ways as 6,000 years ago. Even without patriarchy, patriarchal society still reigns supreme.

The greatest degree of stupidity on this issue comes people from claiming that patriarchy is a myth, but then those people are the same people who turn around and say the only reason men rule the world is because women are weaker and less intelligent. But oh yeah, there is no patriarchy. Their misogyny is entirely just a coincidence. Even though men have been using that same excuse literally since time immemorial.

People sometimes confusing the falsehood of a collective male dominance with the reality of a collective male delusion. SOME men are in charge of society. Not all men. Some men are benefiting greatly by the divide between men and women. Not all men. 

Men do rule society simply by making sure that the most powerful seats are always in the hands of a majority of men. But if you think you are one of those men, you are greatly mistaken. You are the minion of those men.

It's a male-dominated society, and you are (a male) and I am (a male) part of those who are dominated.

Women aren't kept in their place though much violence anymore, though it is certainly still an ongoing issue in our world. Political and economic marginalization is far more the cause. Because if women were political and economically protected as they should be, would we have politicians closing down their health clinics to avoid abortions? Would we have men getting away with that violence against women in the courts?

The male-dominated establishment does use violence for other things. Keeping smaller countries in life. Keeping minority males in line through ongoing police brutality. But that doesn't really apply directly to the problem of misogyny. You have to make distinctions. They are very important in understanding the etiology of these problems.

Feminism is not wishful thinking. Do you think the women's suffrage movement succeeded in hope? For decades, women at the time held out hope that one day men would come to their senses and grant them the same privileges as all male citizens. Never happened. So they took the streets and marched on Congress, and took the rights that have been denied them. Not through hope, but action.

Whenever someone says that something entirely conceptual and non-substantial is essential to the human condition—hope, love, happiness, faith, passion, dreams—what they are really saying is that their emotional dependence on such immaterial platitudes is what is really essential to the human condition. Like a drug is to a drug addict. Essential to their ability to rise and cope with an unforgiving reality.

What I am advocating are a release from that dependency on mind-altering, dopamine-producing fantasies of wishful thinking, and idealistic self-delusion. Hope is nothing but a crutch used to convince people that they cannot stand independently on their own two legs.

A person without hope is not a machine. A person without hope is a person who has overcome their emotional and intellectual weakness. A person who is not a wisher, but a doer.

In the choice between two closed doors, one with a randy lady behind it and the other with a hungry tiger, you can simply close to your eyes, pick a door, and hope for the best; or you can see the reason in pressing your ear to the doors and knocking to see if you hear giggling or purring.

You need to stand up and fight, women. And know exactly what kind of feminism actions you are doing. Maybe read up on it a bit.

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Darkness is not the absence or lack of light. The reason why we can see darkness is because of the ambient light around it. Darkness is just a biological reaction to lower visible light levels and doesn't exist outside of the brain. Only the physical conditions that our brain uses to create darkness exist outside ourselves.

"But what if I am in a room where there is absolutely no light. And by light, I mean photons that wavelengths in the visible spectrum of electromagnetic radiation."

Well, that's not possible. Because wherever you go, there is light. Your own body actually gives off a minute level of visible light that you don't notice because it's so small or not in the right spectrum, as do other random objects. You literally glow.

But for the sake of argument, let's say you were in a completely light-free room. You aren't technically seeing darkness, but nothingness. And it just happens that nothingness looks a lot like darkness but they are not the same thing.

Your retinas aren't being activated because you aren't perceiving anything at all without photon data input. If you aren't seeing anything, that includes not seeing darkness. In fact, if you focus really hard in a completely dark room, what you will actually see is a gray called "eigengrau," which is a type of false light that your brain produces in the absence of light-sense data. Even blind people report seeing it. So in complete darkness, your brain will still produce a form of light for you to see.

There is also the problem of determining exactly where light ends and dark begins.

Darkness doesn't ever go anywhere because it never comes from anywhere. What we perceive as darkness is just the default state of our visual experience when we aren't seeing enough light. Light doesn't actually disperse darkness, it simply washes out our perception of it which is always mixed right in with the light we see. If we were to ever actually see absolute light without darkness, we'd go blind as it damaged our retinas.

If you're in a room with no light at all, you'd be the only source of light. You'd be the biggest source of light. But still, not very big in terms of visible light unless something can see you in the infrared spectrum. The amount of visible light we give off is about a thousand times less than what we typically pick up. But to certain animals, we probably glow a deep yellow in the dark.

371

Men and women think differently. But speaking from experience, it is not impossible for them to understand the ways in which each one thinks. If I can do it as a sociopath with little empathic sense, why can't others who are suppose to be better at empathy than I am?

I suspect it is because they spend way too much time wrapped up in their own emotional bullshit to understand anyone else. And not just the opposite sex, but literally anyone else. The fogginess of emotional bullshit has never been one of my few flaws.

I listen to people when they talk. They don't always think I do because if they say something stupid, I am quicker to tell them it is stupid than to make them feel warm and safe by telling them everything is going to be alright. It won't be alright if they keep saying stupid stuff. It will just get worse.

So it is not that I don't understand the ignorant stuff people say. I just refuse to excuse them for saying it. No one ever excused my ignorance. I had to learn the hard way. And in harder ways than a lot of people have to learn nowadays. Back when I was a kid, ignorance was something that could get you killed, not just mocked on social media.

I genuinely can't speak for women. But the feminist movement is not just made up of women. That's the perception. That they are all man-hating females. Nope. Some of us are man-hating males, and males and females who hate no one. The feminist movement has never been about getting people to understand feminists or to accept women as equals, even if you believe it or not. It has been about forcing those in power to treat women with equal respect and privilege afforded to men. All the rest is philosophical.

Women really don't need men to accept them as equal so long as the government and labor treats them as equals. They can make their own way from there. They are not beholden to men for any acceptance. But when those in power are aligned against your freedoms and civil liberties, that is something that any woman and/or feminist needs to rage against. As a matter of rebellion against the society that serves to oppress them.

So while I can only be so much informed about what it is like to be a woman, it doesn't take much to understand what it is like to be oppressed culturally, economically, and politically. And that is what feminism is actually about.

Stupid people abound of any gender, race, age, nationality, religion, lifestyle. Feminism is (or is suppose to be) just one more way of getting those stupid people out of their way. Sun Tzu once said: Know your enemy and know yourself, and you will be victorious in countless battles. It is not enough to just be smart. You also have to know how the stupid people think.

Mostly, the only reason why they say that strength and aggression are male attributes is because they don't want women having any. Nothing is scarier to a man than a women who doesn't fit into the mold and refuses to "stay in her place."

It is truly the failing of man to not to try to think like a woman. We can't really say the same for women not trying to think like a man, precisely because of the feminist movement and the fact that they had to know their enemy, as Sun Tzu put it. Though, typically, enemy hasn't been how most feminists have referred to men. Though, men have been in charge of the one thing that has historically oppressed them. So it is a hard distinction to make. Personally, I consider stupid men to be my enemy.