From: lynch@ils.nwu.edu (Richard Lynch)
Subject: Re: Pornography imbalance, right or wrong?
Organization: The Institute for the Learning Sciences
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 22:37:12 GMT

Lots of stuff cut.  If you can't follow the arguments, just kill it...we're
going nowhere fast.

In article <1992Nov10.034631.13339@netcom.com> payner@netcom.com (Rich Payne) writes:
>In article <1992Nov6.205223.15626@ils.nwu.edu> lynch@ils.nwu.edu (Richard Lynch) writes:
>>In article <1992Nov6.051629.21275@netcom.com> payner@netcom.com (Rich Payne) writes:
>[2 attributes deleted]
>>>>[description of the cycle by auer]
>>>[claim that that's just a system with positive feedback by payne]
>>
>>I hate to tell you this Rich, but a system with positive feedback is often
>>cyclic.
>
>For a short while. But it is never stable.

Never?  *No* cyclic system with positive feedback is stable?  Not even an
extremely complex one with *other* sorts of feedback?


>>>>                                        When one treats people as icons
>>>>rather than as individuals, one acts towards individuals based upon their
>>>>group affiliation which smacks of bigotry.
>>>
>>>When one puts people in bins (bigot, feminist. anti-feminist, republican,
>>>democrat, mother, father, zillions more, -all- significant) one does the
>>>same. You have just done it, I suggest you take the appropriate action for
>>>this, whatever that might be.
>>
>>Maybe it was in the part I clipped out that you saw him putting people in bins,
>>but I didn't see it there.  Sounds to me like you generalized his statement,
>>then accused him of doing more general action, but I didn't see him do it.
>
>There seems to be text missing, but no indication that text was omitted.
>Perhaps you should be more careful deleting text?

Gee, and I thought saying "in the part I clipped out" *was* an indication of
text omission.  Too bad.  I wish now I hadn't so I could re-read it again to
find that he didn't do that.  Oh well.


>You have invented a non-existant problem. I only point out well understood
>human characteristics. And it seems that you have no evidence that there
>is a problem, no evidence of any sort.

Does it have to be a problem to be worth considering?  I'd be happy to say that
the porno imbalance is not a problem, merely interesting enough to warrant
considering several theories.
The human characteristics you point out aren't all that well-understood, and
you haven't shown them to be a causal factor anyway.


>No, just one ssingle shred of evidence. All I get is unsupported and
>unsupportable speculation.

That's all you've offered so far, so that's ok.


>>>>A fever is also an effect.  This does not mean that lowering a fever 
>>>>simply to lower a fever is a bad thing.  
>>>
>>>The causal nature of fevers is well understood, as is what to do and why.
>>
>>[nitpick:  Actually, the understanding is not all that deep, even in medicine.]
>>While the causal nature of the porn imbalance is not so well understood, it's
>>still a win-win situation, in theory:
>>
>>If it's biology that causes the difference, you can hardly claim that altering
>>the porn balance will harm people biologically.
>
>No, you cannot alter the balance, all you can do is make some OTHER social
>change and see what happens. This may well harm people's livelyhoods.

Well, actually, we could alter the balance a la Dworkin and McKinnon, but we've
already agreed *that's* not a good idea.  As far as making a social change and
seeing what happens, NOT making a social change may well harm people's
livelihoods also.  Choosing the best change or non-change is probably a better
idea.

>>OTOH, if it's discrimination, altering the symptom won't harm the cause.
> 
>The only way to "alter the symptoms" would be to force women to buy more
>porn, and/or force men to buy less. Either way, you would be overstepping
>the bounds of constitutional freedoms. Therefore, you cannot alter the
>symptoms.
> 
>[...]

So, there's *no* way to alter the symptoms short of force?  Enlighten us as to
how you have reached this conclusion, please.
btw, has not the women's movement altered some of these symptoms, sometimes
without force already.  Sure, sometimes force was used [inappropriately, IMHO],
but not always.  Some people have been convinced just by argument, have they
not?


>>>>By changing awareness of the problem, one can heighten sensitivity to the
>>>>issues involved.  I know I sound like something out of the sixties, but the
>>>>sixties were good as far as I am concerned.
>>>
>>>Then why are the problems of the sixties still here today. What were they good
>>>for?
>>
>>Not *all* of the problems of the 60s are still with us.  And, of course, we
>>have even better new ones.  :-(
> 
>Which are not?

The Flower Children.  :-)

Seriously, I think the 60s did manage a few changes, but in no case can I claim
the problem has gone entirely away.  But I think various forms of repression
have decreased, eg racism and sexism, homophobia, cencorship, violations of
civil liberties.

>>>There is nothing cyclic about positive feedback. The system will eventually
>>>destroy itself. 
>>
>>I think it's time we talked to an engineer about cycles and positive feedback.
>
>You are, want to discuss stability criteria?

Yes, why not?  [Course, you're hardly impartial at this point, but what the
hell.]  How about you start with the question I posed at the top.

>>I'm hardly an expert, but it was my impression that cycles were one
>>manifestation of positive feedback, or at least that some cycles involved
>>positive feedback.
>
>The details are not really proper for alt.feminism. But none of these
>cases are stable. (At least one of the roots of the transfer function must
>lie in the right complex part of the s plane, not on either axis.

You're right.  The details don't belong here, and I'm not even sure what you've
said when it's missing all the details of definition [which I'm *not* asking
for] which would make it even worse.  It's also entirely possible that I am
using cycle in a looser sense than you.
-- 
"TANSTAAFL"     lynch@aristotle.ils.nwu.edu
Newsgroups: alt.feminism