Astral Codex Ten

sexism

4 min read

sexism

Article

sexism is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between May 10, 2021 and June 03, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as “other gender-related terms (eg “sexism”) show mostly the same pattern as feminism”; “new forms of our current -isms (nationalism, racism, sexism, etc.)“. It most often appears alongside racism, “How do you do, fellow kids?”, NotAllMen.

Metadata

  • Category: Concepts
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: May 10, 2021
  • Last seen: June 03, 2022

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

The Rise And Fall Of Online Culture Wars
May 10, 2021 · Original source
They tell a familiar story: America is becoming increasingly obsessed with racism and sexism. Identity issues are dominating our politics more and more with no end in sight.
I chose these as especially obvious terms. But other gender-related terms (eg “sexism”) show mostly the same pattern as feminism, and other race-related terms (eg “white privilege”) show mostly the same pattern as racism.
Starting around 2014, Internet feminism went mainstream. This graph doesn't really prove that. Maybe the New York Times just dectupled the amount of space it devoted to sexism for non-Internet-related reasons. But as somebody who lived through this period and watched it closely - no, it was the Internet. The blogs and forums of the early 2010s were a memetic breeding ground that produced new and more compelling versions of old ideas, and one of them took over liberal culture.
Your Book Review: The Castrato
June 03, 2022 · Original source
A return to feudalism may or may not be necessary for the return of some new castrati-like practice, but either way it likely won’t be sufficient. For the castrati, the Catholic church supplied much of the legal, social, and financial resources that developed and sustained the practice, however it also provided the emotional and conceptual resources (e.g. the Catholic notion of sacrifice) through which families and the castrati themselves understood and justified the practice. What new religion or ideology might come to play the same role in the future? Maybe radical new forms of our current -isms (nationalism, racism, sexism, etc.) will provide the requisite physical and psychological resources, or perhaps it will be an almost entirely new ideology, one that is only dimly hinted at in our own times (or maybe it will be Catholicism that once again supports the production of specialized class of transhumans). Here’s a wild speculation: future ecological collapse will propel the rise of militant eco-cults that use elaborate schemes of genetic modification, plastic surgery, and hormone therapy (and whatever else is needed) to create animal-human hybrids (think Thundercats or Stalking Cat) as a part of some master plan to bring about radical environmental restoration (steal this premise). Of course this specific scenario is probably a little far-fetched (or is it?!?), but the general picture—an ideology that currently exists in benign form turning virulent and co-opting powerful biological or psychological modifications for its ends—might not be.
Inline links: Thundercats, Stalking Cat