"...how do you get unfavored producers not just to go along with the scam and keep producing unearned benefits for the racketeers and redistributees, but to pretend they like it?"

You've nailed the essence of the collectivist's dilemma Bob. They have been trying to implement Marx's "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" since 1875. The only problem with that pronouncement is that able people do not wear yokes well and there is no objective way to assess and satisfy a person's needs. Undissuaded by dismal failure, they wearily plod on providing grist for your intellectual mill. You deserve a wider audience.

"One suspects that much of the antipathy stems from the eternal rejections and betrayals they’ve encountered with the opposite sex."

Exactly my thoughts in this whole charade and said as much back in 72 to a gorgeous gay chick that later hooked up with me...she never went back, later got married and last I heard, has had a happy life accepting her evolutionary role in nature, the quantum and existence itself.

Excellent. Just keep saying what must be said, Robert.

Just another gem!
Your essay's are filled with your talent to reason and explain.
Thanks.

Great analysis Robert. When a company has reached stellar heights because of its early standards the descent may be long and gentle. This slow descent will continue to convince the helpless politically correct but reality challenged that everything is okay and when they reach the dust bin of failure they will still be pointing outwards to discover the blame. The young man who pointed out their foibles did an incredible job of stating that if you want to be good at something you must learn and practice no matter who you are and pretending that reality does not exist is not a good idea.

Saw James Damore on the news this morning. It occurred to me he has something in common with Rosa Parks in as much he didn't want to give up his seat on the proverbial bus because he happened to be born in the unfavorable race and gender for the times. The old Jim Crow would throw Parks off the bus, the new Jim Crow throws Damore out of work. Nothing has changed in America in all these years except the favored race/gender. This a betrayal of the Civil Rights Movement of the '60s. Dr. King argued for content of character, not "diversity".

Excellent Robert. Sometimes I think those of us that see most vividly, the absurdity of the attempts and results of the equity movement (post-modernism/neo-Marxism/progressivism/Statism), whether in academia, gov't, public institutions, employment rules, even family interactions fail, in our responses based on objective observations and scientific findings and evidence, to emphasize strongly enough that the majority of the attack is essentially on plain old common sense.

When I see such instances as the Google foo-fa-rah, I can't help but have the image of the snake oil salesman, the suffrage and prohibition marches, the atrocities throughout the last couple of thousand of years of religion, and reflect on the average human responses of accepting without reason, the mouthings of those that have spent most of their lives developing the appearances of intellectualism and expertise, often in invented areas of alleged problems. In today's world; AGW, environmentalism, PETA, Save The Whale (all representative of anti-human ludditism), and relevant to the Google incident--inclusion, diversity, racism, sexism, genderism, unconscious bias, safe spaces, professional Trump-shock Cuddlers*, etc., etc.. This listing could go on ad-infinitum but fails to really address the primary consideration best illustrated by the Country Comic's 'You can't fix stupid' and 'Here's your sign'--descriptions of the failures to develop plain old common sense.

So much of your writing strikes me as essentially reflections of just that premise--the lack of just plain old common sense. Keep up the good work. Maybe it'll get through to a few.

Good Post SSL!

Interesting essay, Robert. There are a number of men and women on both sides that believe there is no such thing as evolution. It's sad that the millennial's have lost their way and evidence of how the human race came to be. Why is it that Scientific world can't just come out a say that evolution is a real scenario genetically. Once there is definitive proof, everything else would be a mental and physical aberration. Then treatment centers could be set up to deal with them.

Well, it's true enough. I remember the days of
segregation, and when blacks were kept down, (and
not even present in my school). I was against all
that. But, as Ayn Rand said, (memory quote) "Their
case rested on the principle of individual rights."

It's not what you say, it's what you can get away saying. In order to do that, you can be racist, homophobic, anti-semitec or an out-and-out Nazi depending how far left you are. If, on the other hand, you lean right by a fraction you'll be roundly condemned.

This modern day Democrat/Progressive phenomenon/plan is also an excellent demonstration of Antonio Gramsci's overall design for the defeat and ultimate destruction of our Western Democracies. It places Communism/Socialism (one and the same actually) on the way to world domination by the Internationalist Cabal!

It is also the mantle picked up by the Gramsci acolytes including; Saul Allinsky and his liberal/progressive followers (most famously, Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton).

Diversity was/is our greatest strength and Gramsci knew that. Therefore, he was able to cleverly design the use of diversity for the destruction of our society by creating division based upon; class, gender, social status, race, religion, work ethic, etc.

His use of these tools became the hallmark of Allinsky's final assault using race (civil rights) as the first of many subsequent wedge issues thus creating cannon fodder by the implementation of his Communism as facilitated by Johnson's "Great Society" (I.e., destruction of the black family) and the implementation welfare state and its sense of entitlement! It was little more than just another design to destroy the greatest strength that got African Americans though the years of hatred and bigotry, namely their strong family ties.

Allinsky's approach carried over to the use of gender, sexual orientation, wealth, on various other "wedge" issues all contributing to the dissolution of our once strong (but imperfect) society! The assault has been successful beyond all expectations and only took from the 1950's on in order to get us to this sorry state (Brave New World! We are here!).

We were duly warned by the likes of even the X-Fabian, George Orwell in his book "1984". So! The question is where are going from this sorry state we now find ourselves in? More Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren "Democratic Socialism" ( at term coined by Joe Stalin himself) leading to more of this "brain dead" diversity claptrap, or will we again embrace intellectual integrity, common sense and justice as afforded by our ever weakening Constitution and the goal of reaching "E-pluribus Unum" (of many one)?...

"point out that... women’s evolutionary role is to bear and rear children, that men’s role is to protect and provide for the family... and you will earn for yourself a fusillade of criticism "
Damore does not claim people's roles are dictated by sex or other group identity. He actually includes a graph of non-overlapping distributions as an example of what he is not saying. He includes another graph of the distribution function for an unnamed trait, as an example, with the distributions for women and men being both Gaussian in shape and mostly overlapping but with different averages, perhaps due to the selective pressures in our evolution. He says it's wrong to take groups and expect them to have the same outcomes if the distribution of relevant traits in both groups does not overlap exactly.

He makes a powerful argument against dividing people into groups expected to have roles based on their group identity. I agree with Damore. I am part of the fusillade of criticism against the claim that our roles should be set by our sex or other group identity.