Sexual liberation, free speech, and Alzheimer's
Three things worth reading
What Sexual Liberation Really Looks Like
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“So, the evidence doesn’t suggest that today’s young women are reveling in sexual liberation. Instead, it suggests that a lot of women are having unpleasant, crappy sex out of a sense of obligation. And to add insult to injury, this doesn’t actually increase women’s value in the eyes of men.”
Engaging in no-strings-attached sex has long been presented as the more intellectual choice, and certainly the right choice if you were a forward-thinking woman. What those pushing this type of relationship have failed to notice is that most women don’t value this type of relationship (if you can even call it that), while most men do. The result is a culture where women cannot win. They are either labeled backwards for wanting a relationship, or they’re having empty sex they don’t enjoy — which, despite our promotion of hookup culture, tends to downgrade them socially in the end.
In my opinion, this situation stems from our trying to expand women’s freedoms by making them more like men rather than engaging in a discussion of what is valuable, why it is valuable, to whom it is valuable, and the tradeoffs associated. Louise speaks quite frankly about the situation, and I found it gave words to a phenomenon I’ve noticed for a while.
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Answers to 12 Bad Anti-Free Speech Arguments
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“Freedom of speech includes small-l liberal values that were once expressed in common American idioms like 'to each his own, everyone’s entitled to their opinion' and ‘it’s a free country.’”
Phrases like these were common in my home growing up, yet I find they can be contentious today depending on the topic. That shouldn’t be the case.
Free speech is essential to a thriving economy and society. But as Greg notes, free speech is also a radical idea that requires our perpetual commitment, a commitment we can serve better with the right grounding.
To that end, Greg’s article responds to common anti-free speech positions, some of which may surprise you like, “But you can’t shout fire! in a crowded theatre.”
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A review of Charles Piller’s Doctored
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“The sorry state of Alzheimer’s research, though, is a reminder that good epistemic practice in science matters much more than just a bunch of psychology professors publishing counterintuitive results that can win them lucrative after-dinner speaking gigs. Getting the stats and incentives wrong can very literally kill people, by pushing research away from useful areas towards useless ones, and derail efforts to solve one of humanity’s biggest and most horrifying killers.”
This piece unwinds the state of Alzheimer’s research. Decades of work have built on the 'amyloid hypothesis' — that certain misfolded proteins build up in the brain and cause dementia — and yet little progress has been made in treating this disease by following this path.
While the situation is distressing given how many people suffer from this disease, the more important takeaway is to be mindful of what we reward because what we reward often warps our behavior and our understanding. In this case, not publishing negative results meant we didn’t question the fabricated positive results, and thus didn’t move on to more promising avenues sooner.
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