No, Pele

Huh. Never knew that was his full name.

Except there absolutely is an absolute right and absolute wrong to gender equality (and more importantly, equity)

There is not. Equality is arbitrary. Equity is arbitrary. They are ideals / values that we each hold individually, and rank individually. Clearly, equality is an important value for you. Good. But your value of equality is shaped by you, not anyone else.

If you take your value set and say this should be the value set which everyone else has - you won’t change them. That’s my point. Equality is a value. It is ranked amongst other values. Do you value equality more than security? Financial independence? Safety? Control? Family? Social status? Faith? Children? Education? Career? Mastery of skill? Respect? Knowledge? Influence? Conservatism? Freedom? The environment?

For a given person you engage with, whether it be online, in person, in a relationship, over the phone, randomly in a street - their value set is intrinsic to them. Equality might not rank in their top five, or ten values. When you speak up on equality and say “you should”, people who don’t share your value set hear something different. What they hear is “You are wrong”. Speaking of which:

And you clearly don’t

you’re just another wilfully ignorant self serving misogynist who is wrong

sigh

That’s a shame. I’m sorry that you feel that way. Have to say it’s the first time I’ve been called a misogynist. I think if you met me you wouldn’t think that at all.

Your opinion of me doesn’t really matter - it doesn’t change anything. What did change things for me was reading The Mental Load by Emma. It crystallised what I already knew, and helped me to better understand the difference between contribution, effort and load.

Do you want to know why?

Then as those roles are indeed slowly being broken down it stands to reason that each successive generation is less willing to put up with them - but if you still see them as normal it will come as a surprise.

Except…entrenched gender roles are normal. This is expected human behaviour for 90% of the world. Equality, be it gender, age, ethnic or religious, is…just not how things work. It may be distasteful for you personally, but the rest of humanity doesn’t give a toss - Western civilisation is a thin smear of civility which only popped up in the past couple of hundred years, and what’s worked quite well for millennia is what’s still working pretty effectively for several billion people.

There is no absolute right and absolute wrong to gender equality, and that there is a regression or progression over time, merely opinions shaped by culture, background and opportunities. The events of the past 10 years have convinced me that the “good” parts of liberalism are unsustainable because people at their core are just…selfish. The only way to convince them to change something is if it is in their self interest. Regrettably, equality rarely aligns with self interest because it requires relinquishing something. Equality and equity of opportunity only exist when the opportunity exist. Otherwise it’s back to the dumb old shit we used to do.

Edited to add:

I didn’t phrase it well above,

The ground state for humanity is inequality. Whether we wish it or not.

The pursuit of equality and equity means these things need to be prioritised above other things.

It is hard to convince people to prioritise something they are not invested in, especially if they don’t benefit from it or value it.

The qualifier base is exactly right. Like we use base as a pejorative, but it is what we are. That is our base state.

You know what itd take to drop us back to this level? I would say about a week without electricity. If you said to any given group of what, 50 people. Pick numbers out of a hat. The person with the dot dies, but the electricity comes back on. That would be enough.

It’s supposed to make you feel very weird because it is innate tribal behaviour that is not very far from the surface. Individual vs group, traditions, rituals, sacrifice, and the perverse gratitude that you are the survivor etc.

Read it then go read Facebook for a bit…you start to see people for what they are. Panicky, social, tribal animals.

I remember that. Either Ray Bradbury or Isaac Asimov.

Hunting party goes back in time to hunt dinosaurs right.

Anything that you can think of has already been thought of, modelled, and done by international actors who have more resources, technical capability and time than you, and have far fewer morals.

You want a specific outcome to this election? So do Russia and China. They’re a lot better at this than you are and are orders of magnitude more invested in it.

It’s easy to get hung up on words, eh.

We do “submit”, daily, to a higher power or thing beyond our control.

It’s pouring with rain, I need to be three blocks away for a coffee catchup, I don’t have an umbrella and I have to walk. I don’t have control over time, my coffee date or the weather, so I’m going to suffer. I can’t argue with the weather or time, and while I can negotiate with my coffee date, this impacts them.

Somewhere in that I have to accept I’m either going to be late or going to be wet. I can worry about it, beat myself up about not bringing an umbrella or checking the forecast - or I can submit to the factors beyond my control and accept I’m going to be late or be wet.

That is one end of the “give your free will over” stick. The other end of it is a shorthand to saying the above, which is that God or Allah or fate willed it that way therefore there’s no point getting hung up upon being wet or being late. It was always going to happen, chill, someone else has this under control.

There is a peace to that thought. Nothing I do matters, it’s all pre ordained, therefore I don’t need to care. When I read the linked quote I think - oh, you’re worried about the kid thinking they can change everything just by fighting back. It doesn’t happen kid, best you accept the things you can’t control, and get on with a happier life.

My 2c etc etc

Insomnia in my ass

you’re not missing anything, you paid attention in chemistry.

Sigh

Farm feedstock.contain all the nutrients an adult cow needs, including a wide range of vitamins (including A, B, D, E, K), essential fatty acids and taurine, without the need for grass. Although obligate herbivores in the wild, domestic cows still need nutrients they would normally source from vegetation. Thankfully farm feedstock contains all those nutrients in a bioavailable grain.

grain is a professional cow food, created by grain manufacturers in 50,000BC, formulated and checked by independent animal nutritionists to meet the AAFCO(USA) and FEDIAF(Europe) guidelines for animal nutrition.

We’ve had safe and healthy variants of cow food for 52,000 years. Trying to elevate the question to animal abuse speaks entirely to personal ignorance.

Eta - modifying the diet of a domesticated animal for your convenience seems to run contrary to the premise of minimising animal cruelty.

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Fwiw I think that the people you’re discussing this with haven’t had the same experience in the workforce that you have had.

“Words mean things” - inspired. I think I’ll have a t-shirt made.

Have an awesome day, you’re a top bloke with a lot going for you.

Man the projection is wild here. Have a good one mate. You’re welcome to visit Australia any time, you’ll fit right in.

Sure mate. Have a good one.

I think he got a bad read and people aren’t aware of context.

It was a finance meeting. think about how you’d justify why you’re spending money on creches doctors and nurses when you’re a mining company. It doesnt make sense right surely you’d want explosives and dump truck drivers . So you go to explain it.

• OK so what were trying to do is make work attractive to be here in our offices because we believe that people on-site are more productive

• we have parents who want to work with us but they have commitments outside of work so we realised that we could maybe take away some of the need to service those commitments

• parents have kids and need childcare, so we solved that problem for them by providing a creche

• our staff need to go see doctors or nurses, so we solved that problem for them by providing a clinic

• our staff like to socialise over food and coffee, so we set up restaurants and cafes in the building

• all these things cost money but you know what, it balances out because they’re on-site and being productive as a group

• why do we need them on-site - because we believe people to be more productive when they work together. We’ve said we want you in all day every day, we’re trying to make it possible for this to happen.

I know it’s about as human as a thrown axe but people are resources. Companies exist because of their people. I actually respect that he’s open about this and I can tell you, this approach would appeal to a lot of young families in Perth. It’s hard to get childcare and hard to see doctors.

To be honest this isn’t a massive departure from the various other non remuneration incentives offered by companies wanting you to be there in person. Silicon Valley has offered this forever. Gyms, cafes, holiday programs for kids etc.

People have different motivators. I don’t mind being in the office frequently. I work my hours then clock off. I find it easier to switch off from work when I leave work.

Some people will value it. If you’re not one of those people, don’t worry, you don’t have to work there. It’s pretty simple.