[Dewie]

> So, why did you feel the need to respond as you did?

Yes, I know you set up that preemptive shield against dissent. Or preemptive shield against dissent that seems reactionary, or angry, or something of a similarly negative emotive kind. I felt the need to respond because I found it objectionable.

> If that's your response, it seems to me like you should really grapple with the challenges they present before jumping in here to comment.

Challenges. Let's see..

As for the first article, as I've already said, I already knew (in an intellectual sense) that being poor is a disadvantage. So yeah, not as if my worldview was shattered there, or that I shake my fist against the skies over not having a harder lot so that I could brag about having overcome it later or something else that might make want to not be from the middle class for some reason. What challenge? I already agreed...

As for the other one, well it didn't really challenge any of my beliefs about gender (in)equality since it actually doesn't give any arguments, anecdotes or data. It's an assertion. With an analogy. If anything I'm mad because of how thoroughly unchallenged I was, and how I don't know anything more about how it might be a woman (which I am not, surprise). If I want to know how it might be to be a woman (or not be a man with my specific attributes), I want to read about other peoples experiences, not a fucking video game metaphor. How is that going to enlighten me in any way? But I've found that men in particular are just supposed to sit down and be handed the immutable facts about gender and society (and from a man no less).

> As someone who grew up very poor, it makes me chuckle that you can't see the connection.

I'm in dire need of enlightenment it seems.

> If you find this comment grating, well, let me translate it into geek-speak: before jumping in to comment, please Read The Fine Manual. :)

Honestly not sure what that last reference is. mmm, something-something console game/board game, I think. -1 geek point to me.

[Crito]

> > If you find this comment grating, well, let me translate it into geek-speak: before jumping in to comment, please Read The Fine Manual. :)

> Honestly not sure what that last reference is. mmm, something-something console game/board game, I think. -1 geek point to me.

http://www.jargon.net/jargonfile/r/RTFM.html

[jfarmer]

> As for the first article, as I've already said, I already knew (in an intellectual sense) that being poor is a disadvantage.

This is not the point of the essay.

> I'm in dire need of enlightenment it seems.

Heh. Ok, I'm out! :)

[Dewie]

> Heh. Ok, I'm out! :)

Well I've said what I wanted to say about my impressions. If you found my tone too hostile, which I'm guessing why you're saying 'bye', it might be because I found you to be too patronizing, which is just my impression. And from how you've engaged some other people in this thread it seems that you don't simply "bow out" because you're a gentleman that don't want to get tangled up in a messy argument, but because you don't find them to be willing subjects to be educated without protest. So gg I guess.

[jfarmer]

I don't find your tone too hostile. I think you're being insincere and aren't actually interested in having a conversation about any of this.

I wrote what I wrote in my original comment not as a preemptive "defense" — as if I was gearing up for a fight — but as a way to get whoever read those essay to hold back from replying reflexively and actually spend time trying to understand them as the author intended them to be understood.

Likewise, I'd ask you to do the same for my comments. Can you imagine a world in which what I am saying makes sense or would even be the "obvious" thing to believe? Can you imagine several? Are some of them more plausible than others? Why or why not?

I bow out when the conversation starts to feel like the Monty Python "Argument Clinic" sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y&t=1m18s