When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.
— Frederic Bastiat
(via William K. Black)
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Plunder
(via William K. Black)
Saturday, September 10, 2011
A hierarchy of thought
It's useful, I think, to label various categories of thought according to their
"truth-aptness", i.e. whether or not a statement in some sense can be either true or false, and if it can be, what is it true or false about, and how we decide whether it's true or false.
We can start with a loose interpretation of Popper's demarcation problem*. As best I can tell, Popper in The Logic of Scientific Discovery breaks with the Positivists. The Positivists'** project was to separate statements into "meaningful" and "meaningless": only statements that were (somehow, directly or indirectly) about perceptual events were meaningful; any statement that was not about perception was meaningless, in the same sense that "goo goo ga ga" is meaningless. An initially promising line of thought, Positivism ran into two severe problems. First, Positivism doesn't appear to be very useful: there are all sorts of things that we want to say, things that seem meaningful, but that we can't easily say using a Positivist definition of meaning. Perhaps more damningly, the Positivists couldn't seem to talk about Positivism itself using Positivist meaning. While the rest of the world might welcome a theory of meaning that renders philosophy impossible, philosophers found this exclusion intolerable. And since we really do need philosophy (even if we might be displeased with how professional philosophers might do philosophy), we ourselves have to reject Positivism.
What Popper does instead is talk about two different kinds of meaning: metaphysical and scientific*. Scientific statements are about the real world, and they can be true or false. Metaphysical statements are not about the real world; they are about how we look at the world. As such, a metaphysical statement is not "truth-apt": it is neither true nor false; it just "is what it is." Metaphysical statements are still meaningful: we do indeed have to look at the world, and it's meaningful to talk carefully, precisely and rigorously about how we look at the world, but there's no objectively "right" way to look at the world. (There are, of course, more or less interesting and useful ways of looking at the world.) Popper's definition of the demarcation is, of course, itself metaphysical: it's neither true nor false that statements "really are" divided into metaphysical and scientific.
We need only a few statements describe the metaphysical basis of the scientific method. First, all statements about perception as statements about perception are authoritative, true by definition. Note that authoritative does not mean veridical: if I see a pencil bent when it's halfway in a bowl of water, it is true by definition that I see that it's bent; it is not, however, true by definition that the pencil really is bent. Second, a set of statements about the world that are themselves not specifically and directly statement of perceptions are about the world if and only if they are the "simplest" way of deducing the validity of some relevant authoritative statements of perception. We add a few statements about what constitutes relevance and "simplicity", and we have the complete metaphysical basis of the scientific method.
We can express scientific metaphysics in a few other ways. We can say that science is about discovering things about the world, and "the world" is, by definition, that which causes our perceptual experiences. We could also just dispense with "the world" and just say that science is about coming up with the simplest way to describe all of our experiences. As Popper noted, empirical science does not eliminate metaphysics, as the Positivists hoped to do. Instead, Popper's view renders metaphysics more tractable. We don't eliminate statements about the noumena or God just because they're "metaphysical"; we simply note that these kinds of metaphysical statements are incompatible with scientific metaphysics.
Because metaphysical statements are not truth-apt, because they are not the sort of statements we can say are either true or false, then we can't really "objectively" judge them*. We can't really say that scientific metaphysics are somehow "objectively" better than some religious or New Age woo-woo metaphysics. Using a particular metaphysical framework to understand the world becomes to a large extent a matter of taste and preference. But even though metaphysical statements are not truth-apt, they can be definite and particular. We can't say that scientific metaphysics is "objectively" better than religion, but we can "objectively" determine that they're different.
For example, a religious metaphysical system might add the metaphysical statement that by definition all statements in the Bible* are true. They might be literally true: if some statement that is true within scientific metaphysics contradicts the literal truth of a statement in the Bible, then within biblical-literal metaphysics the scientific statement is just false. A more "sophisticated" metaphysical system might hold that all statements in the Bible are true in some sense in addition to scientific truth, that the Bible gives us extra information that we are obliged to reconcile with scientific truth. But even biblical-literal metaphysics is not truth apt, neither true nor false: it's incoherent to say that even biblical literalism is false.
But we can say that biblical literalism or metaphoricalism is different from scientific metaphysics. Science simply does not define the Bible to be veridical: if the best scientific explanation for our perception contradicts a statement in the Bible, then the statement is just false. We are not obliged even to search for some alternative meaning that renders both science and the Bible true in some sense. We might do so, of course; when we read "Your breasts are like two fawns" (Song of Solomon 4:5) we apply a metaphorical meaning rather than determine the statement is simply false. We are not, however, obliged to preserve the truth of any statement in the same sense that the authority of perceptual statements "obliges" us to preserve their truth.
Which brings us back around to religion. We Gnu Atheists don't really care just that religion privileges a different kind of metaphysical system. We care, rather, that all too many religious people try to usurp scientific metaphysics, that they say that their God — and the moral prejudice they invoke their God to support — is scientifically provable. It's one thing to disagree with science; it's quite another to pretend that science agrees when it really disagrees. Similarly, in 1859 I would have disagreed with the laws permitting slavery and say that slavery ought to be illegal, but it would be dishonest for me to claim that slavery was actually illegal. We don't object to religion being different; we object to religious people trying to obscure or erase the difference.
The next post will cover paradigms.
"truth-aptness", i.e. whether or not a statement in some sense can be either true or false, and if it can be, what is it true or false about, and how we decide whether it's true or false.
We can start with a loose interpretation of Popper's demarcation problem*. As best I can tell, Popper in The Logic of Scientific Discovery breaks with the Positivists. The Positivists'** project was to separate statements into "meaningful" and "meaningless": only statements that were (somehow, directly or indirectly) about perceptual events were meaningful; any statement that was not about perception was meaningless, in the same sense that "goo goo ga ga" is meaningless. An initially promising line of thought, Positivism ran into two severe problems. First, Positivism doesn't appear to be very useful: there are all sorts of things that we want to say, things that seem meaningful, but that we can't easily say using a Positivist definition of meaning. Perhaps more damningly, the Positivists couldn't seem to talk about Positivism itself using Positivist meaning. While the rest of the world might welcome a theory of meaning that renders philosophy impossible, philosophers found this exclusion intolerable. And since we really do need philosophy (even if we might be displeased with how professional philosophers might do philosophy), we ourselves have to reject Positivism.
*I'm not a philosophologer, so I'm not particularly interested in what Popper "really" meant; I am, rather, giving credit to Popper for at least inspiring my thinking on this subject.
**Same with Positivism
**Same with Positivism
What Popper does instead is talk about two different kinds of meaning: metaphysical and scientific*. Scientific statements are about the real world, and they can be true or false. Metaphysical statements are not about the real world; they are about how we look at the world. As such, a metaphysical statement is not "truth-apt": it is neither true nor false; it just "is what it is." Metaphysical statements are still meaningful: we do indeed have to look at the world, and it's meaningful to talk carefully, precisely and rigorously about how we look at the world, but there's no objectively "right" way to look at the world. (There are, of course, more or less interesting and useful ways of looking at the world.) Popper's definition of the demarcation is, of course, itself metaphysical: it's neither true nor false that statements "really are" divided into metaphysical and scientific.
*There can be, of course, more kinds of statements.
We need only a few statements describe the metaphysical basis of the scientific method. First, all statements about perception as statements about perception are authoritative, true by definition. Note that authoritative does not mean veridical: if I see a pencil bent when it's halfway in a bowl of water, it is true by definition that I see that it's bent; it is not, however, true by definition that the pencil really is bent. Second, a set of statements about the world that are themselves not specifically and directly statement of perceptions are about the world if and only if they are the "simplest" way of deducing the validity of some relevant authoritative statements of perception. We add a few statements about what constitutes relevance and "simplicity", and we have the complete metaphysical basis of the scientific method.
We can express scientific metaphysics in a few other ways. We can say that science is about discovering things about the world, and "the world" is, by definition, that which causes our perceptual experiences. We could also just dispense with "the world" and just say that science is about coming up with the simplest way to describe all of our experiences. As Popper noted, empirical science does not eliminate metaphysics, as the Positivists hoped to do. Instead, Popper's view renders metaphysics more tractable. We don't eliminate statements about the noumena or God just because they're "metaphysical"; we simply note that these kinds of metaphysical statements are incompatible with scientific metaphysics.
Because metaphysical statements are not truth-apt, because they are not the sort of statements we can say are either true or false, then we can't really "objectively" judge them*. We can't really say that scientific metaphysics are somehow "objectively" better than some religious or New Age woo-woo metaphysics. Using a particular metaphysical framework to understand the world becomes to a large extent a matter of taste and preference. But even though metaphysical statements are not truth-apt, they can be definite and particular. We can't say that scientific metaphysics is "objectively" better than religion, but we can "objectively" determine that they're different.
*Well, we can't judge them much. A metaphysical system might be vacuous (all statements are true) or internally contradictory, but
For example, a religious metaphysical system might add the metaphysical statement that by definition all statements in the Bible* are true. They might be literally true: if some statement that is true within scientific metaphysics contradicts the literal truth of a statement in the Bible, then within biblical-literal metaphysics the scientific statement is just false. A more "sophisticated" metaphysical system might hold that all statements in the Bible are true in some sense in addition to scientific truth, that the Bible gives us extra information that we are obliged to reconcile with scientific truth. But even biblical-literal metaphysics is not truth apt, neither true nor false: it's incoherent to say that even biblical literalism is false.
But we can say that biblical literalism or metaphoricalism is different from scientific metaphysics. Science simply does not define the Bible to be veridical: if the best scientific explanation for our perception contradicts a statement in the Bible, then the statement is just false. We are not obliged even to search for some alternative meaning that renders both science and the Bible true in some sense. We might do so, of course; when we read "Your breasts are like two fawns" (Song of Solomon 4:5) we apply a metaphorical meaning rather than determine the statement is simply false. We are not, however, obliged to preserve the truth of any statement in the same sense that the authority of perceptual statements "obliges" us to preserve their truth.
*Or the Koran, or the works of L. Ron Hubbard, or scripture du jour.
Which brings us back around to religion. We Gnu Atheists don't really care just that religion privileges a different kind of metaphysical system. We care, rather, that all too many religious people try to usurp scientific metaphysics, that they say that their God — and the moral prejudice they invoke their God to support — is scientifically provable. It's one thing to disagree with science; it's quite another to pretend that science agrees when it really disagrees. Similarly, in 1859 I would have disagreed with the laws permitting slavery and say that slavery ought to be illegal, but it would be dishonest for me to claim that slavery was actually illegal. We don't object to religion being different; we object to religious people trying to obscure or erase the difference.
The next post will cover paradigms.
Sunday, September 04, 2011
The fifth stage of grief
The Fifth Stage of Grief for the Middle Class Way of Life
I'll be checking out Brad's recommended book, Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor.
The winners, the right wing Democrats and the Republicans, New Labor and the Tories, have said it out loud, and repeatedly: they consider the "middle class" to be people between the 85th and 95th percentile of income, and everybody below that to be poor. And as several of them have said lately, they deeply resent the generosity with which they allow poor people, in America and elsewhere, to cling to unnecessary luxuries ... like air conditioning. And a telephone. And a refrigerator. They resent that they let you keep those luxuries, which means if you're not in the 85th percentile of income for your country, you better take it for granted: those luxuries are going away. Period.
I'll be checking out Brad's recommended book, Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor.
Saturday, September 03, 2011
An efficent economy
It's a matter of controversy not only how to measure macroeconomic efficiency, but also if the notion of macroeconomic efficiency is even meaningful.
Consider the game of chess as an extended metaphor. From any individual player's perspective (i.e. the "micro" perspective), efficiency seems rather obvious*: efficiency is the number of games won divided by the total number of games. There might be some subtleties, but basically each player wants to win as many games as she can. But what happens when we take an aggregate ("macro") perspective and look at all the players in all the games? No matter what happens to any individual player or sub-group of players, our "aggregate efficiency" is always exactly 50%. For every winner, there's a loser. Considering efficiency as the proportion of games won to games played, there's nothing at all we can do at all to change the aggregate efficiency of chess.
Not only does this measure of individual efficiency fail to be interesting at the aggregate level, there is no interesting or meaningful aggregate measure of chess efficiency at all. The smallest aggregate we can look at is both players of a single game. For an individual, there are more or less efficient moves—an efficient move is one that makes winning more probable. But the aggregate efficiency of each move, considered from the perspective of both players simultaneously, is exactly 50%. The purpose of a game of chess is to determine which player is, at least at the moment, the better chess player. The best way to determine the better chess player is to let each player make whatever legal move she decides to make. Any interference, prohibition or compulsion beyond the legal moves actually detracts from the purpose of the game. An "efficient" chess game is one with no outside interference.
Alternatively, consider the art world as another metaphor*. To preserve the analogy with macroeconomics, assume we cannot change the total amount of resources devoted to art. (In macroeconomics, we cannot add any outside resources to the whole economy.) Given a fixed amount of resources, how can we produce art "efficiently"? If we differentiate it from superficially popular entertainment, art is just "for itself"; a work of art serves no purpose other than to just exist. Again, any external interference by definition takes away from the "itselfness"; there can be no useful measure of efficiency.
My point here is not to argue that economics really is a zero-sum game like chess, or that it's "for itself" like art. I want instead to understand as charitably as possible how modern economists and modern realist political scientists see the world. With this understanding, I think it's easier to explain the fundamental differences between on the one hand laissez faire economics/political realism and on the other hand communism as an economic and political theory.
Consider the game of chess as an extended metaphor. From any individual player's perspective (i.e. the "micro" perspective), efficiency seems rather obvious*: efficiency is the number of games won divided by the total number of games. There might be some subtleties, but basically each player wants to win as many games as she can. But what happens when we take an aggregate ("macro") perspective and look at all the players in all the games? No matter what happens to any individual player or sub-group of players, our "aggregate efficiency" is always exactly 50%. For every winner, there's a loser. Considering efficiency as the proportion of games won to games played, there's nothing at all we can do at all to change the aggregate efficiency of chess.
You should, of course, treat my use of "obvious" as a red flag. When I say "obvious", I'm begging you, gentle reader, to carefully examine my assumptions.
Not only does this measure of individual efficiency fail to be interesting at the aggregate level, there is no interesting or meaningful aggregate measure of chess efficiency at all. The smallest aggregate we can look at is both players of a single game. For an individual, there are more or less efficient moves—an efficient move is one that makes winning more probable. But the aggregate efficiency of each move, considered from the perspective of both players simultaneously, is exactly 50%. The purpose of a game of chess is to determine which player is, at least at the moment, the better chess player. The best way to determine the better chess player is to let each player make whatever legal move she decides to make. Any interference, prohibition or compulsion beyond the legal moves actually detracts from the purpose of the game. An "efficient" chess game is one with no outside interference.
Alternatively, consider the art world as another metaphor*. To preserve the analogy with macroeconomics, assume we cannot change the total amount of resources devoted to art. (In macroeconomics, we cannot add any outside resources to the whole economy.) Given a fixed amount of resources, how can we produce art "efficiently"? If we differentiate it from superficially popular entertainment, art is just "for itself"; a work of art serves no purpose other than to just exist. Again, any external interference by definition takes away from the "itselfness"; there can be no useful measure of efficiency.
*I'm not committed here to any particular philosophical theory of philosophy; I'm just trying to use a particular theory of art as a metaphor.
My point here is not to argue that economics really is a zero-sum game like chess, or that it's "for itself" like art. I want instead to understand as charitably as possible how modern economists and modern realist political scientists see the world. With this understanding, I think it's easier to explain the fundamental differences between on the one hand laissez faire economics/political realism and on the other hand communism as an economic and political theory.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
The Stupid! It Burns! (pedophile edition)
A Plea to Atheists: Pedophilia Is Next On the Slippery Slope; Let Us Turn Back Before It Is Too Late It is axiomatic that in the world of the atheist there is neither morality nor immorality, only amorality.
The lack of morality is not axiomatic among atheists unless one accepts the premise that morality somehow necessarily entails a God. Only then would the lack of morality be axiomatically denied by atheism. But Averick's argument implicitly assumes that even someone who does not believe in God must somehow believe that sexually molesting children really is wrong. If someone did not already believe that child sexual morality was wrong, Averick's argument would be irrelevant. Suppose, for example, that Averick did not trade on a commonly accepted belief; suppose he said that without God, atheists could "rationalize" the eating of pork. Or suppose he said that without God, atheists could "rationalize" the equality of women. We would of course say that yes, that's kind of the point. Fundamentally, therefore, Averick is implicitly contradicting himself: we should believe in a god if we don't need a god to come to moral conclusions.
There is nothing that atheistic societies are incapable of rationalizing and accepting – including the sexual molestation of children.
Let's assume by "atheism", Rabbi Averick means "a rational and evidence-based approach to morality." In this case, it's true but meaningless that an "atheist" society is capable of "rationalizing" and accepting any moral premise. In other words, an atheist society does not have any a priori morality; we have to determine what is moral on the basis of evidence and observation.
Singer went on to explain that he is a “consequentialist.” For the benefit of the philosophically challenged let me explain “consequentialism” in a nutshell: If you like the consequences it’s ethical, if you don’t like the consequences it’s unethical.
Averick's dig at the "philosophically challenged" is ironic: Averick makes an elementary error, confusing consequentialism with a particular brand of subjectivism. Consequentialism just means that we somehow evaluate the consequences of an act, rather than the "intrinsic" morality of an act without regard to the consequences; consequentialism does not entail any particular method of evaluating the consequences.
(We should also note that Peter Singer does not represent all atheists; being an atheist does not entail that one is either a consequentialist or a subjectivist. In a moral context, atheism entails a rejection of only god-predicated morality.)
Thus, if you enjoy child pornography and having sex with children it’s ethical, if you dislike child pornography and having sex with children it’s unethical.
No. To a consequentialist, the ethics of child pornography and sex with children would have to do with the consequences of these actions, whatever they might be. If, for example, one somehow held that harm was a bad consequence, or that the violation of consent was a bad consequence, then sex with children would be bad if it caused children harm or violated their consent. Consequentialism denies only that sex with children could be inherently good or bad, without regard to the consequences of the act.
Averick goes on to (dishonestly) cite some mental health professionals who claim that sex with children might be beneficial to children. I'm extremely skeptical of these claims, but they might be true; science properly has no respect for prejudice, even my own. If so, if childhood sexuality really was beneficial, then Averick must be telling us that we should actually harm children to preserve his superstitions. Who is really the monster here?
This conclusion is not a straw man. Averick places his own work in a larger moral context, saying,
In my own lifetime I have witnessed radical societal swings in moral behavior and attitudes regarding marriage and sexuality, homosexuality, the killing of unborn children, euthanasia, and the use of illicit drugs.But all of these moral beliefs are precisely about a conflict between humanistic consequentialism and religion: there is no reason people who are not happy living together should stay married; there is no reason people should not enjoy consensual, mutually enjoyable sex; women should not be coerced into having unwanted children; people should not be coerced into living with incurable and untreatable suffering; and smoking pot or drinking alcohol in moderation is pleasurable and relatively harmless.
Averick notably positions atheism as anti-authoritarian:
It would be absurd then for the atheist to suggest that any particular individual or society has the authority to dictate to all human beings what their values should or should not be; it would be even more absurd to suggest that the pronouncements of any individual or society obligates others to behave accordingly.Since Averick is strongly anti-atheism, we must read him as saying that some particular individual or society does have the authority to dictate values to all human beings and obligate them to behave accordingly. Society does not actually exist separately from individuals, so that leaves individuals to dictate the values for all human beings, and as a self-appointed spokesman for God, who better than Rabbi Averick himself to tell us all what to do.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Experienced only
Sign Spinner / Human Directional (Placentia)
Date: 2011-08-25, 10:56AM PDT
Reply to: [redacted]
Want to get a workout while getting paid? This is the position for you!
$12 Per Hour STARTING PAY!
DO NO TRESPOND TO THIS POSTING WITHOUT LISTING YOUR SIGN SPINNING EXP. YOU WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED IF THIS INFORMATION IS NOT PROVIDED!
- Monday through Saturday (5 of 6 days), Saturday m,ust be one of the 5 days
- 32.5 hours per week 11am to 6pm with 30 minute lunch break
- Must have Sign Spinning experience.
- Must show Sign Spinning demonstration for ability.
- Please include most recent Sign Spinning employment (When and Where.)
Email your resume or experience to [redacted]
$12 Per Hour STARTING PAY!
DO NO TRESPOND TO THIS POSTING WITHOUT LISTING YOUR SIGN SPINNING EXP. YOU WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED IF THIS INFORMATION IS NOT PROVIDED!
- Monday through Saturday (5 of 6 days), Saturday m,ust be one of the 5 days
- 32.5 hours per week 11am to 6pm with 30 minute lunch break
- Must have Sign Spinning experience.
- Must show Sign Spinning demonstration for ability.
- Please include most recent Sign Spinning employment (When and Where.)
Email your resume or experience to [redacted]
Interviews start immediately!
- Location: Placentia
- Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
- Please, no phone calls about this job!
- Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.
Originally here on Orange CO Craigslist; via Work Fails and Job LOLs
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
Sunday, August 14, 2011
What's wrong with catcalling women?
What's Wrong with Catcalling Women?
Read the rest
Let me add this...
There's a difference between being attracted to a woman and hitting on her, in the sense of "hitting on" that Sunsara uses. I can't help how my brain is wired: I find certain women visually appealing, without knowing anything about their personalities or characters. But I keep this appeal to myself: that I find a woman appealing does not give me the right even to merely intrude upon her attention. I get to know many people, men and women, in the course of my daily life. I have legitimate, socially acceptable reasons for interacting with them as full human beings. I can evaluate their personality and character; more importantly, I give them an opportunity to evaluate my personality or character. I don't "hit on" women; I get to know people; if the whole package works, and works both ways, we can proceed. We can proceed. There are well-established, legitimate and socially acceptable methods of communicating mutual interest, and if the interest is not mutual, these methods allow either party to disengage gracefully, with a minimum of awkwardness and hurt feelings. I don't count myself a red-hot feminist for this attitude; I consider it nothing but obvious common sense.
I used to be in sales. The guiding principle in sales is to always make it socially awkward for the customer to say "no". It doesn't matter at first what you ask; you just ask questions so that it's easier for the customer to say "yes" from social convention (or you ask questions where the customer gets to "choose" between different ways of saying "yes" to preserve the illusion of choice). If you're approaching a woman like you're a salesman approaching a customer, you're doing it wrong; you're being a creep. Before you ask any woman anything, ask yourself: "Would it be even a little bit awkward for her to say 'no'?" If it would be, shut the fuck up.
There are, I suppose, venues where it might be acceptable to take the sales approach towards women. When you walk into a used car dealership, you want to be sold on a car, n'est pas? (And if you don't want to buy a car, why are you wasting the salesperson's time?) But women have to consciously, explicitly and knowingly choose to enter those venues, they have to be able to leave at any time, and participation cannot be a precondition for any other social task or status, especially a task or status available to men without participation. And the sidewalk, the bus stop, the coffee shop, the convention, and especially the workplace are most emphatically not this kind of venue.
Recently a young woman asked me, “How do you explain to guys how frustrating it is to be hit on all day long? Whenever I tell them to imagine what it would be like, not to be hit on just once in a while, but every day everywhere you go, they always say, 'That would be great! I'd have sex with every woman who propositioned me!' They just can't imagine why women would find this oppressive.”
Here is my response.
Men: imagine if every time you opened your mouth no one heard what you had to say. Imagine, instead, you were being humored – or ignored – based primarily on whether the listener thought they could get you to have sex with them. Imagine if half your professors or teachers never solicited your thinking in earnest. Imagine if you knew that despite your talents in any particular field – acting, writing, science, singing, or anything else – you would be evaluated on your looks and your perceived sexual availability. Imagine thinking you met someone who took you seriously and found your ideas and talents compelling, only to discover that really they were just “playing you” to get you in bed.
Read the rest
Let me add this...
There's a difference between being attracted to a woman and hitting on her, in the sense of "hitting on" that Sunsara uses. I can't help how my brain is wired: I find certain women visually appealing, without knowing anything about their personalities or characters. But I keep this appeal to myself: that I find a woman appealing does not give me the right even to merely intrude upon her attention. I get to know many people, men and women, in the course of my daily life. I have legitimate, socially acceptable reasons for interacting with them as full human beings. I can evaluate their personality and character; more importantly, I give them an opportunity to evaluate my personality or character. I don't "hit on" women; I get to know people; if the whole package works, and works both ways, we can proceed. We can proceed. There are well-established, legitimate and socially acceptable methods of communicating mutual interest, and if the interest is not mutual, these methods allow either party to disengage gracefully, with a minimum of awkwardness and hurt feelings. I don't count myself a red-hot feminist for this attitude; I consider it nothing but obvious common sense.
I used to be in sales. The guiding principle in sales is to always make it socially awkward for the customer to say "no". It doesn't matter at first what you ask; you just ask questions so that it's easier for the customer to say "yes" from social convention (or you ask questions where the customer gets to "choose" between different ways of saying "yes" to preserve the illusion of choice). If you're approaching a woman like you're a salesman approaching a customer, you're doing it wrong; you're being a creep. Before you ask any woman anything, ask yourself: "Would it be even a little bit awkward for her to say 'no'?" If it would be, shut the fuck up.
There are, I suppose, venues where it might be acceptable to take the sales approach towards women. When you walk into a used car dealership, you want to be sold on a car, n'est pas? (And if you don't want to buy a car, why are you wasting the salesperson's time?) But women have to consciously, explicitly and knowingly choose to enter those venues, they have to be able to leave at any time, and participation cannot be a precondition for any other social task or status, especially a task or status available to men without participation. And the sidewalk, the bus stop, the coffee shop, the convention, and especially the workplace are most emphatically not this kind of venue.
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