My theory of the day: Feminism is not about men vs. women, but popular people vs. unpopular men

“The problem with the war between the sexes is there’s too much fraternizing with the enemy.” — attributed to Kissinger.

You may wish to refer back to my post about dorkiness and assholes, and how popular movements get overtaken by popular people who may have very little interest in whatever the movement was originally supposed to be about. Instead, the movement becomes yet another way of reinforcing the status quo of popular people, which is why, of course, virtually everyone babbling on about other peoples’ “privilege” is insanely privileged. To be perfectly frank, I don’t hear any of the homeless people I talk to complaining about privilege.

So if you’re trying to avoid people who talk about privilege, try volunteering with the homeless. Besides, they actually need the help.

Anyway, back on track. As I was thinking about all of these things, I had another of those little moments of clarity. Feminism is framed as a females vs. males thing. It is very literally about raising up women, as a group, and fighting the “patriarchy”, symbolic of the all-male power structure.

Perhaps at some point it was that.

But this runs into an obvious problem that Kissinger himself articulated: men and women live together. You can’t tear down men without tearing down the women who live with them (and you can’t build up women without building up the men who live with them.) My [male relative]’s bad divorce outcome will have a direct and measurable effect on my material well-being; money going to his ex-wife is money that will not go to me. Since both of us are female, there is no net gain in female well-being. (Technically, it’s a net loss due to legal fees.) This is only an anecdote, of course. Let’s not overthink it.

If feminists were really serious about tearing down the patriarchy, we’d see different behavior. They’d block-vote for female political candidates, not vote for male candidates, set up all female communities and businesses, etc. In reality, feminists spend a lot of time arguing about whether some character in a popular movie or video game is sexist or posting on Twitter about how much they hate creeps. This doesn’t make any sense, until you realize that the whole notion of Males vs. Females is bunk and not even what feminists are trying to achieve.

We do not live in a society where females exist physically separate from men and desire to act as a single block in opposition to a single block of men. That is not how we live and act. Rather, we live in a society where males and females are intricately linked–as are their social statuses. Popular politicking, then, is about asserting the popular people’s dominance over the non-popular.

Popular men and women unite behind a common moral facade in order to assert dominance over unpopular men.

To the extent that this raises up women generally, it only raises them up relative to already unpopular men, not so much relative to men generally, and not so much relative to men who are actually the prime movers of the “patriarchy” (though earlier or more genuine forms of feminism may have had such effects, and there may be un-intended “trickle up” effects.)

Overall, feminism doesn’t seem to have many direct effects on unpopular or low-power women, except inasmuch as these women are generally connected to low-status males. Unfortunately, our society’s notions of popularity and status are pretty darn worthless, leading to the denigration of sincerity, hard work, and intelligence.

This suggests a big difference between the dynamics of feminism and the critical race theories it is so closely associated with these days: most members of different races actually don’t live with each other. So arguments about one set of group dynamics probably aren’t valid when applied to the other set of dynamics.

This theory doesn’t seem great for easily quantified predictive value, but someone else may be able to think one up.

Assholes Gonna Asshole

You know when you have a moment of revelation, and at that moment, everything snaps together and seems so remarkably crystal clear, but later, you’re like, well duh, of course it’s like that, that’s the only way it makes sense!

Like gravity or evolution. Or little things that aren’t really a big deal.

I realized today that a lot of stuff that had formerly been confusing about internet interactions between groups of people (mostly, the whole “why do feminists hate ‘nice guys”?” thing) actually boils down to: all of the assholes back in elementary school who hated the dorks are still assholes and they still hate the dorks.

Now that we’re all grown up, of course, we’ve advanced to grown-up language. It’s been a while since anyone called me a “fatty retard”. But plenty of adults see nothing wrong with, “LoL short men should kill themselves #creeps.” Not to mention the internet’s vehement hatred of “nice guys”. Or guys in certain hats.

Dorkiness is a combination of physical non-domiance and sincere interest in just about anything. Intelligence is inherently dorky, because intelligence leads to knowing more things than other people. Morality is dorky, because moral people are sincere. Dedicating yourself to developing actual skill at playing a musical instrument or an intellectual pursuit like writing a book is dorky. (Dedicating yourself to sports is not dorky, because sports lead to physical dominance.) Being actually religious is dorky, too, because it entails sincere belief.

As someone I almost considered a friend once said, “No one likes a Jesus Freak.”

Really?

Thanks a fucking lot, you asshole.

Most of the anti-dork sentiment on the internet is aimed at men. This may just be a side effect of men being subject to harsher behavioral control than women–they’re more likely to end up in prison, too. Perhaps dorky female behavior just isn’t as annoying to other people as dorky male behavior. Maybe adult female dorks have learned not to stick out. I’m not sure. Either way, I probably escape a lot of hate at this point simply because I’m female.

But if I were male, I would be one of these people I have often confusedly wondered why everyone but me seems to hate.

Truth is, the assholes I went to school with never disappeared and never stopped being assholes. They’re still here, just using slightly different language.

Society Constantly Lies: A Theory

Let’s suppose there’s a group that society thinks is totally awesome and deserves social resources to protect, honor, and generally help them succeed.

For example, let’s suppose society really loves old people. They are given places of honor at family and cultural events, politicians make speeches about the importance of old people to society’s success, etc.

Any mistreatment or abuse of old people would be seen as a very serious problem, and any stories on the subject–the more sensational the better–would prompt total outrage.

By contrast, stories about an actually despised and persecuted outgroup would excite nary a yawn from people who don’t give a crap about them.

As a result, news outlets, blogs, etc., benefit from running sensationalist stories about mistreatment of society’s most favored people, and avoid yawn-worthy stories about the outgroup. As a result of that, the average person will be constantly inundated with stories about how this group they love is being horribly abused, leading to a completely false, out of proportion perception that the beloved group is actually one of the most persecuted in society.

Anyone who questions whether the beloved group is actually the most persecuted in society will of course be seen as a delusional hate-monger attempting to further the beloved group’s persecution. This makes reality very difficult to perceive/determine/discuss, while further cementing the dominant position of the beloved group.

Things could be further complicated if some parts of society actually value different groups. So some folks who do not particularly value old people could provide endless fodder for the group that does value old people.

It is pretty easy, especially in retrospect, to think of scenarios in which society has gone totally nuts trying to protect an already protected group against a basically imaginary predator. The conviction of Germans in 1935 that Jews were out to destroy their country and had to be stopped at all costs comes immediately to mind. Pol Pot’s genocide of 1/3 of Cambodia was probably motivated by similar concerns.

Closer to home, children are a highly cared for and protected group, and society demands they be protected from all dangers–including occasionally totally fictional dangers like Satanic Daycares.
Prediction: If the theory is true, then there should be at least one (perhaps multiple) group in society that is incorrectly believed to be oppressed while actually in a position of great power. You might even find that the group/s most popularly believed to be oppressed is actually one of the most popular/powerful.
Someone who doesn’t mind being hated by everyone could put together data on whether or not some of society’s favorite groups are actually being oppressed or not.

Twilight Effects?

So, has anyone documented any negative social effects due to the Twilight books?

It has now been several (or more) years since Twilight was a massively super-popular book (and movie) phenomenon beloved by millions of teen (and older) girls. It has also been a while since I heard anyone vociferously extolling the evils of Twilight and how the books are going to lead teen (and older) girls astray, resulting in abusive, fucked-up relationships.

Of course, in the meanwhile, 50 Shades of Grey came out. It sold well, though doesn’t seem to have been quite so actually popular as Twilight. Perhaps because it’s not as good; perhaps because people don’t want to talk publicly about having read it.

Disclaimer: I have read neither Twilight nor 50 SoG, but I did read the first page of 50 SoG. I thought it was remarkably bad. So bad, in fact, that it makes me despair deep down in my soul.

Anyway. My opinions on the books are irrelevant.

At their heights, people predicted that these books would result in a lot of Bad Stuff, especially bad relationship stuff.

Now that the relevant cohort of women has had several years to date other people, have we actually observed any upswing of Bad Relationship Stuff?

Seems like a great opportunity for someone to really test their theories.

Why Do Good? For others or one’s Self?

Returning to the theme of the previous post on morality, I’d like to note that it was inspired by a few different people recently thanking me for my kindness. Since I am a cranky person who disagrees with everyone, this inspired the thought, “How do you know I’m being kind? What if I’m just being self-interested?” Which of course inspired the thought, “This dichotomy between self-interest and kindness is part of Christian morality. I am not a Christian. Therefore, I don’t have to accept this dichotomy.”

Which got me thinking. Which is better, to believe that someone is being kind to you out of a pure desire to do good, or because they’re benefiting in some way?

I suspect that a single or initial act of kindness is best perceived as motivated out of a pure desire to do good, at least in our society. This allows people to accept a single act of kindness without fear of thereby becoming indebted. This allows the net kindness of society to increase.

For repeated acts of kindness, however, I suspect it is best to believe that the other person is receiving some benefit.

Repeated acts of kindness can create a sense of indebtedness, even if totally unintended by the actor. If the indebtedness leads to some mutually agreeable form of reciprocation, then all is well (and the condition is fulfilled.) But if the debt cannot be repaid (for whatever reasons,) this creates unhappiness and conflict.

To relieve this burden of debt, it is probably best to believe that the actor receives some other benefit, such as really enjoying the activity involved.

For my own motivations: I prefer to live in a world where people are kind to each other. This may be a self-interested motivation, but I reject the idea that self-interest is invalid as a reason to be kind.

Transsexuals are not your enemies

I know this is a sign that I am incredibly dumb, but I am always vaguely surprised by neoreactionaries/Dark Enlightenment types who claim to understand human genetics but are openly hostile to transsexuals, transgender, and otherwise trans- folks.

Look, guys. Every trans person I have met has something medically wrong with them–some sort of genetic or hormonal condition interfering with the production/development of normal sex hormones/characteristics. Don’t get distracted by the “gender is a social construct,” nonsense–it’s totally irrelevant. (More on that later.)

So you now how boys are genetically XY, and girls are XY? I have met trans people who are literally XXY. Like Down’s Syndrome, only your genitalia don’t quite develop right due to your body trying to produce male genitalia with way too many female hormones.

Another condition that appears to affect quite a large % of trans people is exposure to massive levels of artificial sex hormones while still in the womb, due to certain medications pregnant women have taken.

Diethylstilbestrol, (or DES,)  is a synthetic nonsteroidal estrogen, synthesized way back in 1938. Between 1940 and 1971, DES was given in large quantities to pregnant women to prevent miscarriages. Unfortunately, it turns out that pumping babies full of unnaturally high levels of estrogen might be bad for them–DES was discontinued as a medication for pregnant women because it gave their daughters cancer, and the sons appear to have high rates of trans and intersex conditions, which is exactly what you’d expect.

And then there are the people I have met whose health histories I am not privy to, but who quite obviously have something hormonal going on–girls who grow up and sprout beards, for example.

Alas, I don’t have data on what is going on with 100% of trans people, but from everything I’ve seen, it looks like we’re really just talking about a few people with rare medical conditions, prenatal hormonal or toxin exposure, etc., not weirdo degenerates who are trying to destroy civilization.

In fact, every trans person I’ve ever met just wanted to live their life without being harassed and be a contributing member of society, like almost everyone else I know.

 

In a nation with 320 million people, and a world with even more,  and the technology to find people with <1/million conditions and put them on TV or find each other on an online forum, it is easy to overestimate the commonness of extremely rare conditions. (Homosexuality comes immediately to mind–gay folks number around 3% of the country, but IIRC, people estimate that about 30% of people are gay.)

Trans people are an even smaller % of the population–even on LGBTetc forums, they complain about being left out and forgotten–because there are just so few of them. 0.3% of the population to be exact, according to Wikipedia. (This number seems consistent with “caused by a variety of rare medical conditions.”)

There are more prisoners in this country than trans people, but I don’t hear people complaining that a convicted criminal might use a public bathroom while they’re in there, even though criminals are way more likely to rape, assault, or kill you than some “chick with a beard.”

So even if I can’t convince you not to hate them, remember that trans people are such a tiny % of the overall population that worrying about them is a total waste of your time.

 

 

But what about all of this business about gender being a social construct?

Look, people throw around a lot of words without knowing what they really mean. Trans people are really the embodiment of the opposite of this principle. If gender were just a social construct, a woman with a beard could just say, “Well, society is wrong to say that beards are a man-thing; I’m going to declare that beards are a woman thing, too!” instead of feeling like there was something really wrong with her. Trans people would not bother with sex-reassignment-surgery (which is expensive, painful, and a pain in the butt;) they would just declare themselves to be whatever they want.

In fact, experiments have been done in which babies with indeterminate genitalia were just assigned a gender, surgically altered, (usually to female, because it is easier to subtract from working tissue than to add to it,) and then raised as their assigned gender, on the assumption that since gender is just a social construct, you can do this.

These experiments went badly. A lot of these kids grew up confused, hit puberty, and realized that they were in fact not the gender they’d been raised as (and that their parents had removed a good chunk of their genitalia.) Gender, in short, has so far resisted our best efforts to make it malleable.

 

In  short, trans people aren’t your enemies. They just want to pee in peace.

 

 

The Inverse Motte and Bailey

The Motte and Bailey technique of argumentation basically involves defining a term or concept in a positive way intended to inspire agreement, and then actually using the term in a much less agreed-upon way. A commonly given example is, “Feminism is the belief that men and women are equal,” a statement that probably most Americans (and Westerners) agree with, while actual feminist argue for a great many things that are not covered in the original supposition, like, “Abortion should be legal and easily available for all women, at all points in pregnancy.” Since the vast majority of men don’t even have wombs, abortion legality isn’t exactly something that can fall under the doctrine of “full equality” (whether you like it or not.)

In the Inverse Motte and Bailey, instead of defining the term as something good that everyone likes, you define it as something bad, and then very carefully note that the thing that you are doing does not technically count as this bad thing. Racism is a good example of the Inverse M & B. No one wants to be called a racist–racism is generally regarded as extremely evil, and therefore anything that is racist is extremely evil. So when someone says, “Hey, you’re being really racist,” the general response is, “No, look, see, racism is clearly defined as XYZ, and this thing I am doing is clearly not XYZ, and therefore not racism.”

In the regular motte, the more-difficult to defend position, (say, abortion,) is effectively shielded from some amount of criticism by the easily defended position (“femism = equality”). In the Inverse Motte, the person has to argue that their position doesn’t fall under the easily defeated position.

An argument along these lines that comes up frequently is, “Is hating Islam (or Muslims) racist?”

One side argues that racism is the irrational hatred of races of people based on belief in inherited, racial characteristics, and that Islam is not a race or an inherited characteristic, but just a bunch of beliefs that people freely choose to believe and act on. There is no biological reason compelling Muslim women to wear headscarves–it’s just something people believe they should do. And things people believe are completely up for criticism, just as we criticize people who believe in UFO abductions or like books we think are dumb.

The other side argues that this is all just rationalization, because obviously most humans on earth do not freely choose their religious beliefs (otherwise religions would be randomly distributed and few people would practice the same religion as their parents,) not to mention that apostasy is illegal in many Muslim countries. Religion is an important part of most peoples’ cultural/ethnic identity, so attacking their religion may have the same effect as any other form of attacking peoples’ ethnic identities.

Ah, says the first side, but many anti-Muslim people are themselves ex-Muslims who love Muslim people but hate the religion.

Yes, says side two, but you are not one of these people. You are a white guy from America, so I think you are racist.

In short, Side Two wants to define racism broadly, in order to cover, “That thing you are saying.” Side One wants wants to define racism narrowly, in order to say, “This thing I am saying is definitely not racism.”

Of course, in reality, people are extremely bad at advocating their own positions, so what you actually get is “You’re racist!” “No i’m not, i hate all religions equally!” “Muslims Americans face all kinds of discrimination and it’s horrible!” “Yeah, well, ISIS kills tons of Muslims, don’t you care about all of the Muslims being murdered by other Muslims? I THOUGHT NOT. Clearly you are just posturing and don’t actually care about the evils being perpetrated against Muslims.” “Israel is a Nazi state committing genocide against Palestine and the UN should nuke it!”

Anyway, I feel like I still need a conclusion, but I’m getting really tired and can’t really think of one.
Supply your own!

Guilt is a Thing inside of You

Guilt does not care whether you deserve to feel guilty or not. It does not care about right and wrong. Guilt is just an evolved mechanism to make you feel like shit if you threaten the stability of your own place in the social order. Guilt forces you to forget everything and grovel on your hands and knees until you are accepted back into your clan, not because your clan is good or right or just, but because outside the clan lies nothing–wilderness, lions, and death.

Memes and Transmission Pathways

From, Why Cultural Evolution Is Real (And What It Is)

(Because watching other people say that thing you were saying and be like ‘omg I was saying that’ and then they give it their own twist and you are like ‘oh yes I see where this is going and it gets back to the morality model’ and then the joy at how much fun it is.)

(Guys guys we are talking about memes, okay. And the big question brought up by the part I quoted is, of course, What are the long-term effects of changing transmission pathways?)

Quote:
“How Transmission Pathways Matter

In my outline, I mentioned that the transmission pathway – vertical or horizontal – matters a great deal for the content and friendliness of transmitted cultural items.

In biology, there is already support for this model. Parasitic entities like bacteria that are limited to vertical transmission – transmission from parent to child only – quickly evolve into benign symbiosis with the host, because their own fitness is dependent on the fitness of the host entity. But parasitic entities that may accomplish horizontal transmission are not so constrained, and may be much more virulent, extracting high fitness costs from the host. (See, e.g., An empirical study of the evolution of virulence under both horizontal and vertical transmission, by Stewart, Logsdon, and Kelley, 2005, for experimental evidence involving corn and a corn pathogen.)

As indicated in an earlier section, ancient cultural data is very tree-like, indicating that the role of horizontal transmission has been minimal. However, the memetic technologies of modernity – from book printing to the internet – increased the role of horizontal transmission. I have previously written that the modern limited fertility pattern was likely transmitted horizontally, through Western-style education and status competition by limiting fertility (in The history of fertility transitions and the new memeplex, Sarah Perry, 2014). The transmission of this new “memeplex” was only sustainable by horizontal transmission; while it increases the individual well-being of “infected carriers,” it certainly decreases their evolutionary fitness. …”

Okay, right. So your meme-mitochondria will most likely protect you from dying, but don’t much give a shit if you end up killing people who are not-you or at least don’t share your genes. And meme-viruses will try to get you to not kill society at large (which is busy propagating them,) but don’t particularly care if they kill you.

Reflections:

1. Will modern mass-media destroy itself by accidentally destroying the people that use it? Can mass-media be a stable, long-term part of the human cultural/technological toolkit?

2. Does modern mass-media create an actually different moral meme-environment from the vast majority of the human past? Is this good/bad/neutral?

3. Will we evolve to be adapted to this meme-environment, say, by people who believe that Western Education is Sin kidnapping girls, selling them as brides, and then massively out-breeding people who “Lean In”?

Society is Constantly Lying

There is a story in which a man makes the gaslights in his house flicker, and every time his wife notices this, tells her he hasn’t seen anything. Over time, she starts thinking she’s going crazy.

Society also does this, albeit (probably) less intentionally.

Humans are notoriously bad at judging a source’s reliability–take about 1,600 years of near absolute faith in the literal truthfulness of the Bible, a book that’s obviously nonsense.

Increasing quantities of easily accessed information in the past century have made people much better at discerning bullshit, but we have a new problem: we’re now getting almost all of our information about the world not from direct experience, (Hey, it’s raining on me! I’m wet!) but from reports from other people–books, newspapers, media, the Wikipedia, your best friends, etc. Our general ability to judge the reliability of sources is therefore up against far more potential sources of misinformation and manufactured consent.

Common ways society lies:

1. Discordant Sum: Since your exact experiences are unlikely to be identical to everyone else’s exact experiences, your reality and society will probably be slightly discordant. This is generally innocuous, innocent, and easy to deal with–you just have to realize that you happen to like handbags more than everyone else, or are poorer than the people on TV, or hate chocolate.

Sometimes it’s a bigger deal, like if you are naturally more or less aggressive than the rest of society, have kids who don’t act like other kids, or you have been made one of the secret Presidents of Earth. Sometime society is wrong. Sometimes you’re wrong. It can be very hard to tell the difference.

2. Active lying to sound “nice”: people say a ton of nice-sounding stuff, like, “Appearances don’t matter,” “be yourself,” “don’t care what other people think about you,” “everyone is beautiful,” “school is fun,” “learning is valuable for its own sake,” “You don’t need other people to be happy,” etc. These lies may be valuable to a subset of people, but they are also harmful to another subset. If you take this advice seriously, say, by wearing sweatpants to job interviews and picking your nose on dates, you will discover, very quickly, that society actually cares A LOT about your appearances and behavior. And at least those are things you *can* change. Fat, short, and ugly people can do very little about the fact that society discriminates constantly against them.

Nerds and aspie people seem particularly likely to believe these lies, perhaps because they lack the natural impulse to imitate others that would normally counteract them. Nerds follow these rules, and then are confused when they are treated badly because of their appearances, and may decide that the rest of the world is “bad” for not following the “rules” and valuing dumb things like appearances.

But if you try to point out that these are lies and actually terrible advice, you will get attacked. How dare you say that fat people are more likely to be poor! You’re just fat-shaming! No, fat people are discriminated against in hiring. (I have had this exact conversation with people on multiple occasions.) It’s bad enough to lie, but attacking people for pointing out that these are lies and harmful is just low.

Also forbidden: the suggestion that dumb people might have trouble managing their money and getting high-paying jobs, which could make them disproportionately poor. The suggestion that you should care what other people think because they have actual power to make your life better or worse. That spending increasingly large amounts of money on education is not always increasingly valuable. That society’s behavior standards might actually be good. That most humans do best when in relationships of various sorts with other humans, the desire for which is instinctual. Etc.

The good thing is that once you do realize that this is all BS, you can actually pick the ways you want to comport yourself, dress, spend your time, etc., within your own natural limits and income, to get the results you desire. If you want to get a job, you can dress and comport yourself like a job applicant; if you’re on a date, you can wear clothes appropriate to a date. In personal life, you can pursue relationships that make you happy without feeling guilty about being weak. in more extreme cases, people should not feel bad about using plastic surgery, hormone therapies, liposuction, or other techniques to alter the ways people treat them, or if those are not options, at least they can understand that society shits upon them for reasons that aren’t their fault.

3. The News Agenda: The media (and now, websites and blogs) pick certain news stories to emphasize, often manufacturing completely a-factual scares, eg:
A. European witch-panics
B. Justification for the Mexican-American War
C. Anti-Semitic propaganda circa 1930-1945
D. Satanic Daycare Scare
E. Monica Lewinski Scandal
F. Numerous non-existent crime waves
G. Benghazi
H. “Internet Predators”
I. “Rape culture”

etc.

Some of these panics have been entirely fictional, like the Satanic Daycare Scare. Many involve manipulating story-selection, eg, by suddenly switching to only covering one sub-set of crime so that it sounds like there’s been a huge jump in that kind of crime.

The average person is unlikely to actually know statistics on these issues–do you know the recidivism rates of different kinds of released criminals off the top of your head? How about a breakdown of crime rates for the past three decades? There’s been a lot of talk lately about police shootings and race, most of which focuses around a few well-publicized cases, but how much do you actually know about the subject?

The dangers of making bad decisions based on manufactured moral panics ought to be obvious: you might literally burn innocent people at the stake, pass restrictive laws to stop non-existent problems, waste valuable resources, or completely miss real problems that actually need work.

And once people get deep into these kids of panics, it can be almost impossible to talk them back to reality. People tend to assume the only reason you would question the factual validity of the panic is to stop them from rooting out and destroying the evil. You must be on the side of evil, otherwise you wouldn’t be claiming it doesn’t exist.

Unfortunately, a discussion about the difficult task of, say, determining optimum levels of immigration and streamlining the system so it is fair and efficient, just isn’t as much fun as either yelling about how the immigrants are destroying America or yelling about how conservatives are mean to nice, beneficial immigrants.

The media also does a lot of lying about subjects that aren’t scares or panics, like the common claim that more school funding and more college will solve all of our problems.

4. Fiction: Obviously fiction is made-up, but most people don’t have Don-Quixote-style problems with books. Problems araise when book authors purposefully and consistently lie, which, by the way, they do.

They lie for two reasons:
A. To be interesting. If books reflected reality exactly, they’d be a lot more boring.
B. To push agendas or “educate” the reader.

I realized this after spending quite a while on writers’ forums, and reading a thread in which authors were explicitly talking about fudging reality. Sure, they said, the vast majority of time, X is like FOO, but why can’t it be like BAR? Why not portray X as BAR?

For example, sure, most math majors might be male, but why not a female one? And the best students in your class are probably disproportionately Asian, but why not black? Most penniless orphans remain penniless orphans, but why not have the child adopted by a rich, loving, childless couple? Most kids don’t really like school, but why not a book about kids who love school?* And I assume that most people in Pakistan are actually pretty happy with their own society, but why not a book about someone who wants to change things?

*(If school were really so much fun, we wouldn’t need so many books to convince kids that it is. We don’t have to read kids books about how awesome ice cream is, after all.)

Combine “the counter-factual is more fun to read about” and “I would like to encourage the world to think this way,” and books (sitcoms, movies, etc.) can give a distorted view of the world.

As a result, if your experience with X is primarily through literature, you may end up massively overestimating the likelihood of BAR. And if someone else points out that FOO is actually far more common, you may end up accusing them of trying to defame or lie about X, or otherwise acting in bad faith.