The patriarchy

Patriarchy is a concept that I am having problems with, but I'm not only having problems expressing the problems, I have a problem conceptualizing the patriarchy in the first place. I haven't wanted to record my thoughts because I didn't want them to be misconstrued before they were fully formed, but I don't think I'm going to be able to avoid that possibility, because I'm never going to get this if it's just in my head.

I googled it yesterday and came across some web pages with lots of discussion. One of them was this one, from Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog. Lots of discussion here, some of which was helpful, but I think it was helpful in eliminating some things from consideration. The main gist of the arguments was that the patriarchy was a theory, and that people were either trying to find evidences that lend credence to the theory, or trying to disprove the theory.

But the inequity clearly exists. Maybe that's the problem. I have no problem with someone saying that they want to rid the world of the inequity between men and women.  But when they say they want to rid the world of the Patriarchy, that just feels like something different. Maybe it has to do with the way I see words, maybe I can't help seeing it literally.

But no, it's larger than that. Because the Patriarchy is more than just inequity. And it really seems like the Patriarchy is basically everything that's wrong with the world. And that just seems like a never ending battle. Like the Patriarchy is too big. Because in my mind, the inequities between men and women is something we can eradicate, but the Patriarchy to me seems undefeatable.

I'm jumping to a different thought because I was just looking at another part of the blog that talks about essentialism. So men and women are different, full stop. The problem comes in when people think, because women and men are different that certain inequities must exist. But then, because women and men are different, what does equality mean?

Snap thoughts

I was reading in the Houston Chronicle about Maria Butina. Spy stories are always super juicy. But this story involves the NRA, which is a landmine in my opinion. People seem to see the NRA as a villain, a scapegoat. And I'm reminded of something that my counselor shared mentioned, that some people are in it for their own selfish interests, to control other people. She was speaking of Christianity, but I'm realizing now that it applies to pretty much every institution. The NRA is a political organization, so that should be a given, but I often overlook such things.

The problem that see is that when it comes to gun control, the problem is bigger than the NRA. It's the second amendment, and what it means to a significant part of the population. The one side doesn't seem to understand what it means to the other. That this veers into strongly held beliefs territory.

I keep thinking that the left is going about things the wrong way. They need to reach out to the other side, not vilify it. I googled "you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar" and I found an interesting eecard here:

I don't have an answer.

Undocumented vs. Illegal

I have never been comfortable with the term undocumented in terms of immigration. To me it sounds like it's just a paperwork error. I have come to understand that the term illegal immigrant has fallen out of favor, with opponents saying that is dehumanizing. As near as I can tell, that doesn't apply if one uses the phrase illegal immigration or that a person entered the country illegally.

I did a quick Google search, and an article came up from the Washington Post. It helped educate me on some of the terms. Senator Kamala Harris said that undocumented immigrants are not criminals. And in a certain sense, she's right. The act of being in the country without permission is not a criminal matter, it is a civil one. But it's still a violation of law. And crossing the border illegally is a criminal offense. But technically, a person isn't a criminal until they've been convicted. So she can still say they aren't criminals if they haven't been caught. But that's pretty disingenuous in my opinion.

I came across another article from PolitiFact that further explains that the reason why immigration is a civil matter is because that makes it easier for the government to deal with. Because it isn't a criminal matter, there is no due process. The government doesn't have to provide a lawyer if the person cannot afford one. The burden is on the person to prove that they belong here, not the other way around.

But these articles are bringing up yet another term--criminality. Apparently criminal immigration is now a phrase. But these articles are basically saying that something can be illegal without being criminal, so they basically support the illegal label.

AI and Machine Learning

So how does one break into the Machine Learning field. This article provides some insight. Previously I looked at a Quora answer that I was thinking to link here, but now I think it's probably more worthwhile to link the question, How do I start learning artificial intelligence? There's lots of answers with lots of good stuff. Coursera courses are recommended, and Udacity, among others.

Dan Crenshaw

I honestly can't remember if I voted for Dan Crenshaw or not. But what I'm hearing about him so far sounds good. I read this article in the Washington Post, and I was impressed. I hope to hear more good things from him, and about him, in the future.

Sex Recession

As I was reading another article, the title Why Are Young People Having So Little Sex caught my eye. Yes, I am part of the statistic that only needs to see the word sex to have my attention drawn. It is an Atlantic article, so I knew it would be long. I didn't read the whole thing, I skimmed here and there. It is just as troubling as I thought it would be.

The slide towards deconversion

I got an email about an article getting a lot of attention on Twitter, and I decided to take a look.  The article getting everyone worked up was from the Gospel Coalition, authored by Alisa Childers, entitled 3 Beliefs Some Progressive Christians and Atheists Share. I made the mistake of reading lots of angry tweets about it before reading the article itself. Generally speaking, I agree with Childers. I don't think I can say that I spent any time with Progressive Christianity itself. I flirted with it for a bit, but my ultimate problem with it was the same thing that Childers said, I could already see where it led. It was basically just a slow boat out of the faith.

In my opinion, that's the reason why progressive churches are stagnant, while evangelicalism still have some life in it--Progressive Christianity isn't really Christianity. I know many would take exception to that, but I think the evidence stands for itself.

To recap, the three beliefs are:

1. They May Adopt a Belief That the Bible Is Unreliable
2. They May Have an Unresolved Answer to the Problem of Evil
3. They May Affirm a Culture-Adapting Morality

For the record, my issues with leaving the faith are almost totally wrapped up in 1. I have no issues at all with 2. I agree with Childers that 1. leads to 3. I had no issues holding fast to a morality wholly grounded in the Bible until I lost my faith in it.

I should also add that I do not consider myself an atheist. I also note that most of the people commenting on twitter didn't consider themselves atheists either. I don't see myself ever becoming an atheist. I'm somewhere between deism and agnosticism, and I see myself being here for a long time.