What the heck is Sciencism?

"Sciencism" was an idea I first had about 3 years ago. The idea was to create a new religion based on science. Now, I know that it's been done before, but it's never been done quite like this. Whereas other people (atheists) have tried to create so-called "scientific religions", invariably it meant leaving out the religion part. Because the very last people on Earth who are capable of understanding religion and religious people and the religious way of thinking are atheists. The adherents of these "scientific religions" knew that there wasn't a God, and there was always a hint of a joke in the enterprise. If you do a google search, you will find a few people with such ideas. Needless to say, all of them are dead in the water.

In my religion however, Science is God, and is worshipped as a God would be worshipped. This means that while the first generation of "Sciencists" (note the spelling) know that there isn't a God, they actively indoctrinate and even brainwash their children (the second generation) to believe that Science is God. So just as Christians or Muslims grow up within a Christian or Muslim worldview, the child of a Sciencist grows up within a Sciencistic worldview. From that point onwards, successive generations of Sciencists would believe in Science as God, and would teach their children the same.

But is it really possible to raise children in this manner? Of course it is. There are hundreds of past and present religions, and the adherents of every religion indoctrinate their children into believing in that particular religion. In fact, children could easily be raised with the belief that Mickey Mouse was God. If you teach kids to pray to Mickey Mouse, they will. And if there is a sufficient critical mass of Mickey Mouse believers, then these children would have external validation of their beliefs, and could easily spend their entire lives believing that Mickey Mouse is God.

The idea of creating a new religion is not new. It's been done many times before, and I can think of 3 good examples that originated during the 20th century alone: various cargo cults, Scientology, and Mormonism. To non-believers, it is hard to imagine how Joseph Smith (the founder of Mormonism) and L. Ron Hubbard (the founder of Scientology) could not have been lying. In this sense, they were the "first generation". They knew they were lying. Once they died, subsequent generations had internalized these religious beliefs, and from then on, these beliefs could be transmitted without any further deception. Obviously current believers in these religions are neither lying to themselves nor to others, regardless of whether their beliefs are true or false.

My intention was that Sciencism should follow the same path. I know I'm lying, and the few brave souls who I hope to attract to this cause would also know that I'm lying. They would knowingly lie as well. But we could ease our conscience with the knowledge that it's all done for a good cause. But once these beliefs had been safely transmitted to the next generation, it would perpetuate itself.

So what's the status of this project? It's stalled. I simply don't have the charisma nor the leadership qualities to cold-start this new religion. All my previous efforts have been focused on trying to convince other people. But such a task is nigh impossible, especially for one such as myself who lacks the character traits to be able to pull this off.

But all is not lost. My project may yet come to fruition. I do have a captive audience. My own (future) children.

Abortion: why it's bad for you... but mostly good for everyone else

I'm a firm believer in letting everyone live the way they want to live. As long as they don't interfere in the lives of other people of course. If people want to have abortions, then I believe that they should be able to have them. Human life isn't sacred. Evolution will sort everyone out in the end.

The real question is "who will inherit the earth"? The answer is of course those who don't practice abortion and contraception. If the ultimate goal of all life is reproduction, and if success can be measured in terms of how many children and grandchildren one has, then those who have more children are more successful than those who have fewer or no children. Those who have children when young are also more successful than those who have children when old. Those who use contraception will tend to be less successful than those who don't.

However, if you live in a society you will always have some indirect effect on everyone else in that society. It is not really truly possible to "live as one wishes without interfering in others lives". There is always atleast an indirect effect. There are some problems with abortion and contraception that we need to be aware of.

• You need to ensure that your sons don't marry those who use abortion and contraception. A woman on hormonal contraception may fall in love with your son who may not be a good match for her. If this happens, your son may be in for a rocky marriage.
• You need to ensure that your daughters don't marry men who (through their sexual experience) expect women to be on hormonal contraception. They are likely to treat sex casually, be irresponsible, and have STDs.
• Those on hormonal contraception and who practice abortion are likely to be promiscuous. You need to ensure that your sons don't get involved with promiscuous women because of the risk of STDs. There is some evidence that using hormonal birth control actually increases the risk of contracting HIV due to changes in the user's immune system.
• Those who don't have nor want children will eventually depend on welfare to support them in their old age. Your sons and daughters may be the ones indirectly supporting the elderly through taxes.
• Those who practice abortion and contraception will raise their children in a likewise manner. And it may be that your children will learn these things from their children at school.

When looking for potential matches for your sons and daughters, you must find other families that share your values. Sexual selection is an entire half of evolution (the other half being natural selection). If you disapprove of the way someone is living, then the correct way is to ignore them and ensure that your sons and daughters do not marry them. Trying to force them to live the right way might work on the surface, but the genes responsible for that behaviour will just crop up in succeeding generations.

Life is also a competition for resources. The more of my family there are, the better; the fewer of everyone else there are, the better. So if people think that their genes aren't worth passing on to the next generation, then I heartily agree, and so be it. This is how evolution works.

Why you should homeschool your daughters

These days, schools don't teach girls what they need to know to lead a successful life. Whereas previously the assumption was that girls would get married and raise a couple of children, the new track for women is: girls go to school, then on to college/university, get a degree, a job, spend several years in the workforce, and then and only then can they get married (if they can find a man) and have children (if they aren't too old to bear children by then).

The entire education system is built around this assumption. Most parents aren't really aware of what their children are being taught at school. Today I was talking to a single mother with 2 children, and the older of them, a daughter who is not yet 16 was given a book at school to read, which contained some rather adult themes. On the back cover I read something to the effect of "a single man (the protagonist) finds the best places to score with single women". The mum also told me that the book also contained some suicide, etc. This is not appropriate reading material for a 15 year old. Also, if the mum had not offered to read the book to help with her daughter's book report, she would never have known what her daughter was reading.

The track that today's education system pushes kids onto assumes that marriage and children will only enter a woman's radar when she's in her 30s. Until then, she's meant to experiment with various types of relationships and freely engage in contracepted sex while finding fulfillment at the office. Apparently, when she is experienced enough, she will be good marriage material.

All of this is a recipe for life-long unhappiness, as countless social-science studies have repeatedly shown. "Experienced" women are cynical and jaded women. Cynicism towards the opposite sex is a relationship killer. Studies have shown that pre-marital sex is a significant risk factor for divorce. So is cohabitation. So why not just be celibate until her 30s? Because lack of sex makes women unhappy.

It turns out that this single (and unhappy) lifestyle is enabled by independence. That is, a woman cannot have such a lifestyle if she is dependent. She is more likely to be happy if she transitions from a state of dependence on her father to dependence on her husband. Of course, this assumes that the man she marries is good marriage material.

So how can you ensure that your daughter does not become overly independent? For starters, university shouldn't even be on her radar until her children are fully grown. Unfortunately, schools are in the business of brainwashing children into thinking that career is the only option. Schools also teach young girls a whole heap of things that will not be of any use to them in a marriage. Kids in school also face tremendous pressure to have sex, both from their peers as well as from the curriculum itself.

She will be better off learning skills that will be of use to her in a marriage. The only way to ensure the marriageability of your daughters is to homeschool them. This way, you also have more control of their upbringing.

Rules for 7-couple sets, generalized

I have been thinking for sometime that there shouldn't be any reason to not use the 7-couple rules for 10 or 13 couple sets in scottish country dancing. Generally, the formula is 4+3N, where N is a whole number > 0. This means that the rules can be used for 10, 13, 16, 19, 22, etc. couple sets.

In a 10 couple set, suppose the couples are numbered from 1 to 10.

1. In the first time through, couples 1, 4, 7 are dancing. couple 10 is idle.
2. Second time through, couples 2, 5, 8 are dancing. couple 1 is idle. Couple 2 borrows couple 4 for their dance (who would normally be idle in a 4 couple set). Couple 5 borrows couple 7 for their dance (who would also normally be idle).
3. At the end of the second time through, couple who end up in 9th place slip to the end. Couples who end up in 3rd and 6th place stay where they are.
4. Couples 1,2,3 stay in their little set and bollow couple 4 when needed. Couples 4,5,6 also stay in their own little set and borrow couple 7 when needed. Couples 7,8,9,10 dance according to normal 4 couple set rules, except with borrowing of the 7th couple by the previous set.

If there are 10 couples available, it may be better for one 10 couple set with above rules rather than 2 five-couple sets:

1. If playing music 5 times, the dance takes extra time especially for strathspeys.
2. If only playing music 4 times, the last 2 couples may get to dance only once through.
3. There will be lots of standing around in a 5 couple set, with attendant problems like cooling down muscles.
4. 2 couples are idle at any time in a 5 couple set (40% idle). In a 10 couple set, only 1 couple is idle (10% idle). In a 13 couple set also, only 1 couple is idle (7.7% idle). As the length of the set increases, the percentage of idle couples decreases.
5. Extra dancing within each  3 couple "little set" in a 10 couple set. Of course the flipside is that people get less rest.

13 couple sets could also be advantageous, because the alternatives to a 13 couple set are as follows:

1. 2x 4 couple sets, and 1x 5 couple set. Again, there are various combinations of the above problems.
2. 3x 4 couple sets, and 1 couple don't dance.

Why a lower life expectancy and a higher birth rate is better

Thanks to modern medicine, life expectancy has increased substantially. More children survive childhood, and people live longer. But perhaps it's too good to be true? What if the status quo of higher life expectancy and lower birth rate requires a large expenditure of energy that's ultimately based on petroleum that may not be available in the future?

Childbirth

When more children survive childhood through external factors like caesarean birth, there is less "evolutionary pressure" to be able to survive natural childbirth.

An analogy: suppose some birds somehow get isolated on an island where there are no predators. Eventually, some of them will lose the ability to fly, beause on this island there is no evolutionary pressure to be able to fly. There are no predators to eat the birds that don't fly. Soon the flightless birds will multiply. But this isn't necessarily to say that the flightless birds are somehow inferior. Because nature tends to be economical, it will often (within an ecological niche) get rid of unnecessary features because those features are expensive to maintain. Within an ecological niche such as the ground, a flightless bird is more efficient than a flying bird. So on this island, the ability of flight has been trimmed from some of the birds because it is unnecessary and wasteful. Still there will be flying birds as well, because they occupy a different ecological niche (the air). In the air, obviously the flightless birds don't do well at all but the flying birds do quite well.

In human populations, lack of evolutionary pressure leads to similar outcomes. When childbirth becomes safer through external factors (caesarians, etc), there is less evolutionary pressure for babies to present properly or grow to a safe size within the mother, and there is also less evolutionary pressure for mothers to be able to give birth naturally. Over time, this lack of evolutionary pressure leads to small but significant increase in the average size of babies, and small but significant decreases in the size of the female pelvis. Eventually, a situation may result wherein women cannot give birth naturally any longer and require medical assistance. Whereas now childbirth is a normal function of the human body, eventually it will become a medical emergency.

There are at least two problems that I can see with this situation:

1. It requires the presence of a medical industry that is often parasitic. Parasitic because it is more profitable for those in the medical profession to recommend that women get c-sections even if they are capable of giving birth naturally. Eventually when women lose the ability to surive a normal childbirth, it is the medical profession that will profit the most.
2. If for some reason medical care on a large scale isn't available, then it's possible that unimaginable numbers of women and children will die in childbirth. Returning to the example of the birds on the island, suppose predators such as dogs are introduced to the island. The flightless birds will most likely be wiped out. Similarly, when the childbirth environment changes (lack of medical care), the large proportion of women with pelvises too small or who are giving birth to too-large babies will not survive childbirth.

Just as in the breast-cancer industry that profits from donations to fight breast cancer, the medical industry similarly plays on our emotions when it comes to the safety of women and children in childbirth.

Childhood

Another factor that increases life expectancy is that more children these days survive into adulthood, thanks to antibiotics, vaccines, better hygiene, safety practices, etc. Same as in childbirth,  children who survive to adulthood with the help of external factors no longer face evolutionary pressure to survive to adulthood unassisted. This will lead to weaker immune systems on average, antibiotic overuse and resistance, reliance on vaccines, allergies becoming more common, etc. Soon children will come to rely on external factors to keep them alive because there is no pressure to be self-reliant. Again, the medical industry profits from this state of affairs.

Old age

Still another factor that increases life expectancy is that people live longer. Again, people rely on various (and usually expensive) medical interventions to help them survive to an old age. In fact, the cost of keeping a person alive for a year increases as that person ages. This is because as they get older they require more expensive interventions to keep them alive. It is not unreasonable to suggest that it costs more for one person to live to 100 than for two people to live to 50 each. Again, the big winner here is the medical industry. In order to justify the spending required, they play on our emotions, just as they do when it comes to women and children.

There are several disadvantages to having a large elderly population, apart from the required amount of medical intervention. The elderly are also less productive and a lot of welfare spending goes to them. And of course someone has to pick up the bill for this, and that is the taxpayer.

Higher birth rate

Thus far we've considered the factors that raise life-expectancy. If we were to overhaul this system, it would result in a lower life expectancy. But if more people are dying, then there will need to be some way to sustain population levels. Thus a higher birth rate is justified. However, it has to be done the right way. It makes little sense to encourage single mothers to have lots of children, because those children will ultimately wind up costing society far more than having a higher life expectancy. I believe that, done the right way, a higher birth rate will make people happier. People will be more productive (because younger people are more productive on average), and people will be more health conscious. It is well known that the more you take care of someone, the less care they take of themselves. It shifts the responsibility of survival to the individual, where it belongs.

With a lower life expectancy and a higher birth rate, government could go back to the ideal of "defending and protecting the right of an individual to life, liberty, and property", as explained by Frederic Bastiat. Such a setup requires less taxes, less government interference, less welfare, less medicine, less energy expenditure, more robust children and therefore people, etc. People will also have children earlier, which also leads to positive outcomes for children (better genes and parenting).

Establishing colonies beyond Earth

We have let a great opportunity go by.

When petroleum was discovered, it was a huge boon to mankind. It was a concentrated from of energy and raw material that had thousands of different uses. It was soon used to make and run pretty much everything.

Before petroleum, we could only use renewable energy. Nearly all of the renewable energy comes from the sun at a constant rate. Human populations were limited by the amount of renewable energy the earth received. Populations grew until food production maxed out, and food production was limited by the sun's energy.

When petroleum was discovered, it meant a several-hundred-fold increase in the amount of available energy. Food production no longer depended on purely renewable energy. Food production could now be accelerated by using artificial fertilizers. It also made automobiles feasible. It enabled travel by aeroplane. And it fueled the space industry.

Some of the greatest accomplishments of mankind was in space. Sending astronauts to the moon (and returning them to earth), launching satellites to distant planets, landing rovers that performed scientific experiments and measurements, etc. All of these were greatly facilitated by energy from petroleum. In fact the space industry may not ever have existed if petroleum had never been discovered.

Now the petroleum is starting to run out. Or more accurately, it's becoming more and more expensive to extract. It is likely that without petroleum, space research will not be feasible anymore. And without the space industry and space research, we may all be in danger.

What is the nature of this threat? Well it is well known that meteorites often strike the earth. Most of these are tiny and burn up in the earth's atmosphere. But rarely some are big enough to survive the violent entry into the earth's atmosphere to impact the earth. Very rarely, they may be big enough to pose a threat. The damage they could do is immense. Meteorites often travel through space at 40 kilometers per second.

Throughout our planet's 4 billion year history, it has been bombarded by meteorites, asteroids, and even other planets. After life formed 3.6 billlion years ago, each impact caused massive extinction events. Life always came back, but it was generally the more complex life-forms that suffered most. It is not unreasonable to suggest that humanity may suffer serious losses if not downright extinction if a sufficiently large sized body were to impact the earth.

The only real way to ensure that humanity doesn't go extinct is to form colonies on other planets or in space. Unfortunately these ventures require massive amounts of energy, which we very soon may not have any longer. The petroleum is instead being wasted on maintaining an excessively high standard of living. When the petroleum runs out, we will have to go back to using renewable energy from the sun. That level of energy will not be able to sustain the current food industry, and it is likely that large numbers of people will starve. And it will be difficult for any government to justify spending in space research when people are starving.

Common interests

I used to think that the kind of woman I'd like as a wife was someone who had interests in common with me. I think this is what most people are looking for.

Other people think that it's better to not have common interests. These people feel that it's better to do different things because that way they will have more to talk about. But I don't see how you could have a meaningful conversation with your significant other about something that they are not particularly interested in. I have also met a few people whose marriages failed because of different interests. Face it, when you both are off doing different things, then you two are more likely to come into contact with other people who will threaten your marriage.

But while I think that having common interests is a good thing, I now believe that it's not quite as simple as that. I think it's a better idea to have a combination of: the same "social interests" but different "skill interests".

What do I mean by social interests? Anything social that both of you enjoy doing, and which enables you to spend time together. For me, it's dancing. I would like to meet a woman who enjoys dancing as much as I do. For other people it might be sports, or bike-riding, etc. I think that for the majority of people, those who do things together stay together. I know of several real-life examples.

On the other hand, you are better off with someone who has different "skill interests". These are activities that you have a talent in and enjoy doing by yourself. Some examples: cooking, working with cars, gardening, computers, etc. While these things can sometimes have a social aspect (you might attend a computer convention or a gardening expo or whatever), exercising these skills gives pleasure even when done as a solitary activity. If you feel that you need the presence of other people in order to enjoy some activity, then it's probably not a skill interest. For example, I don't consider cooking to be a skill interest, because I only gain pleasure from it when there are other people in the kitchen as well. If I'm cooking by myself, then it's a chore.

So the idea is that when a man and a woman come together, each having a different set of 5 skill interests, then they are bringing a total of 10 different skill interests to the table. If on the other hand they both had the same set of 5 skill interests, then they are only bringing 5 skill interests into the marriage. The more skill interests brought into the mariage, the less the need for expensive outsourcing.

When looking for a potential wife or husband, I don't think it's a good idea to go to those places where people usually go with the aim of meeting single people, such as bars. Chances are, you won't meet many with similar social interests. In fact you might meet people who are wont to lie about their interests, just as job interviewees do. The best way to meet people is to just do the things you normally enjoy doing, and eventually you will meet someone you like. If they're there it probably means that they like being there and are enjoying the activity, ie. they are not faking. It will also give you an opportunity to observe them and their interactions with others, which can be useful clues in determining their marriageability.

However this doesn't always work, and my own case is a good example. I enjoy folk dancing, but it's something that only old people do. The average age of the folk dancing community is probably 60. I'm an anomaly there because I'm considerably younger (34) than most people there. There is more I could say, but I won't right now because it's not the right time.

So if you're not having success in your current social activity, you might have to try a different social activity to see if you can expand your list of social interests. Thus I tried african drumming and newer forms of dancing. But even though I enjoyed these activities immensely, I still felt a bit alone in these communities, so for me they weren't really "social activities". So I gave them up and went back to folk dancing.

Marriageable age

Before feminism, a man would be considered to be marriageable in his late teens or early 20s. He would have done some schooling and then perhaps apprenticeship in some trade and would be earning a family wage. He knew what was in store for him and what was expected of him. Of course not everyone followed this format, but most men were ready for marriage by their mid 20s at the latest.

Nowadays, a lot of men aren't ready for marriage until their early 30s. The average age at first marriage is now around 29 for men.

While the average age at first marriage is 29 for men, this is not to be confused with "age of marriageability". Since a large percentage of first marriages end in divorce, and since most divorces are initiated by women, it is likely that a lot of men are unmarriageable when they marry. So the average age of marriageability is probably a couple of years beyond 29. In any case, many men "grow up" by their mid-30s, and by that time are reasonably successful in their careers. Experience in the workforce adds up and their earning potential and wealth increases.

On the other hand, the average age of marriageability for women has gone in the opposite direction. Before feminism, a 25 year old single woman would have been considered to be quite marriageable. In Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Charlotte marries at the age of 27. True, she was considered by some of her contemporaries to be an "old maid", but still, her marriageability would not have been in any doubt.

What did "marriageability" of a woman mean in Jane Austen's day?

• She had domestic skills and could look after a home.
• She wanted children.
• She was a virgin and she had not had any ex-boyfriends or husbands
• She didn't have children from previous relationships.
• She had not cohabited with anyone.
• She didn't have any emotional baggage.
• She didn't have a career.
• She didn't have student debts.

By these standards, a woman living today, of the same age as Charlotte (27) when she married Collins, would be woefully unmarriageable - and the passage of time would only make her more so.

Send your sons to boys schools

After doing a lot of reading up on social issues, I've learned a great deal about the state of schools in western countries. Schools have been very feminized to make it more conducive to learning for girls. Unfortunately what's also become apparent is that boys are very different from girls. Boys learn differently from girls. Boys and girls also learn at different speeds. Favouring one will disfavour the other. You might as well try to train cats and dogs together. The feminization of schools has resulted in entire generations of males being let down by the school system.

In the US, the feminization of schools has extended to physical activity and not just learning. Many schools abolished recess and cut down on physical activity. This has resulted in large numbers of boys diagnosed with ADHD and similar disorders because they have no way to burn off their energy.

Many extreme feminists are more than happy with this situation they created. But unless they're lesbians, they will soon find that - in Warren Farrell's words - "when one sex wins, both sexes lose."

As I've pointed out in a previous post, men need a proper education in order to fulfill their reproductive role. That is, to succeed in their ultimate goal of reproduction. But women also need men who have the capacity to provide for a family. A woman can't succeed in her ultimate goal of reproduction without a man's help. What the current school system is doing is creating generations of men who will grow up to be useless to women. This is already a problem and women are taking notice.

What should you do about your sons? Because boys learn differently from girls, they need to be taught separately from girls. In boys schools, they are also more likely to be exposed to male teachers, and that's a good thing because boys need plenty of male role models. Boys schools are also better equipped for sports and other physical activity. They are also able to study without being distracted by the girls.

Should you send your daughters to university?

What is life? If you're like most people, it's not what you think it is. The answer is reproduction.

"Life – and everything in it – is a means to the ultimate goal of reproduction. Life is important, and we have to live, only because we can’t reproduce if we are dead. There is no other ultimate purpose to life. Reproduction is the goal, and life and health are but means to it..."(1)

This becomes obvious when we consider all life on earth. Plants, animals, fungi, bacteria, etc. Since us humans are animals too, it follows that this goal applies to us as well. Of course, this assumes that the theory of evolution is true. I am not going to try and prove the theory here, because the topic has been adequately dealt with by other people.

Life is not about any of these things: fun, happiness, education, money, power, love, charity, entertainment, travel, God, etc. They are only important insofar as they assist in the achievement of the primary goal. People may disagree with this statement, but that's ok. Just as chess pieces are oblivious to the rules of chess, most people are oblivious to the game of life being played and the rules of the game. It doesn't matter, because just as chess can be won or lost in spite of the chess pieces being oblivious to the game, the game of life can be won or lost in spite of the living organisms (animals, plants, fungi, bacteria, etc) being oblivious to the game of life.

Feminists have always been envious of the male role. This envy is understandable, because it does seem like men really get to have more fun in life. They get more and better education. This education allows them to have careers which allows them to use their full intellectual potential. They have more money. They have more status and power. Everything they do seems more important.

But what feminists don't choose to realize, is that all of these things are necessary for a man's reproduction. None of these things are required for a woman's reproduction.

"...daughters’ future reproductive success is largely determined by their youth and physical attractiveness. Once they are conceived with particular genes that influence their physical attractiveness, there is very little that parents can do to increase their daughters’ future reproductive success, beyond keeping them alive and healthy.  There is absolutely nothing that parents can do to affect the progression of time that determines the daughters’ age [and thus fertility], nor is there anything they can do after the conception to influence the daughters’ physical appearance (once again, beyond keeping them healthy)."(2)

Demands have always been greater on men to perform for women. If they failed in this task, they still had a trump card: they could use force because they had nothing to lose and everything to gain (which is why more criminals are men - it is written in their DNA). If they failed in that as well, they died childless. None of us are descended from losers who could neither be famous nor infamous.

Men display, women choose. This can even be seen in nearly all animal species. A man without an education cannot get a high-paying job. A man without status, power, wealth, etc. will not be able to attract a mate. This is especially true today, with widespread polygamy. Incidentally, while women envy all the good things about men, they don't envy all the bad things.

The increase in the numbers of women seeking jobs has resulted in far more men without jobs. Without jobs, these men are unmarriageable. With jobs, the women are also unmarriageable because they have very little reproductive potential. So this is a lose-lose situation.

But what has all this got to do with educating your daughters? If you have both sons and daughters, then you are better off investing in your sons' education instead of spreading the money thinly and giving everyone a mediocre education. Education will enhance your sons' reproductive chances, whereas it will not improve your daughters' chances and instead reduce them.

This is especially important today, when virtually no one can directly afford a university education. Nearly everyone has to borrow money to pay for it. By educating your daughters, you will be saddling her future husband with crippling student debt that will in most cases not be used to its full potential. Keep in mind that if she chooses to work, it will usually be some years before the debt is paid off and she breaks even. By that point, she will want to have children but cannot do it wholeheartedly because so much has been invested in her career ("what was it all for?"). And since there is no one taking care of the domestic side of things, an unhappy marriage will result. The only winners are the education industry and the banking industry.

Even if you had the ability to pay for university education with hard cash, it is far better for your daughter to get married to a marriageable man and then give the couple that money to pay off their mortgage.

Not sending daughters to university also has large-scale society-wide impacts. For example:

1. Large numbers of women going to university has driven up university fees for everyone due to the greater demand for higher education.
2. When women are financially independent, they have less need for men's financial power or potential. Thus they give sex away cheaply. (If a shop owner suddenly wins a billion dollars in a lottery, he will be more than happy to let you have anything in his shop for free.) This soon leads to a state where men no longer have much incentive to work for sex. This is one of the causes of delayed adolescence seen in men in their 20s and sometimes 30s.
3. Educated women marry late, and thus spend a large portion of their lives single. This lifestyle is wasteful and drives up demand for housing which in turn drives up house prices. And for every single woman out there, there is also a single man having the same effect on the economy.
4. Married women vote for social-conservative political parties. This is because social conservatives prefer a small government and lower taxes: "Married women preferred Bush; unmarried women overwhelmingly preferred Gore. Why? Voting motivations are complex, but Gore promised more government protection, and unmarried women often seek the government as a substitute husband - or substitute protector. In contrast, forty percent of married women do not work outside the home when their children are young. So the married woman is more likely to care about her husband's paycheck not being taxed thus encouraging a vote for Bush (Bush's mode of being a married woman's protector is to protect her husband's ability to protect). In different ways, both Gore and Bush sought to be women's protector, each receiving the greater support from the type of woman who felt most protected by him."(3) On the other hand, social-liberal governments tend to raise taxes and use that money to spend on welfare. That is, they will take money from your daughter and her husband and use that money to raise other people's children. That doesn't sound like a good reproductive plan does it?
5. By far the biggest reason you should not send your daughters to university is because universities are breeding grounds of feminism.

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1. Why Is Health Care a Right?
2. Why Are Older Parents More Likely to Have Daughters?
3. The Myth Of Male Power by Dr. Warren Farrell

How feminism widened the rich-poor gap

When women entered the workforce en masse starting from the 60s and 70s, the women took up many jobs that would have otherwise gone to men. Feminists claim that women don't take jobs from men. They say that the economy just expands to create more jobs. But this is not true - as the recent recession in the US showed. While Obama's policies created many jobs, feminists demanded that most of them go to women, even though it was mostly men who lost their jobs during the recession. Why would feminists demand that most of the jobs go to women? Wasn't it they who claimed that the economy would just expand to accommodate everyone?

"Assortative mating"  and hypergamy are important parts of female reproductive behaviour. It is commonly known that women are more likely to marry those with more or equal status to themselves. For most people, status means economic class.

Lets take a trivial example. Suppose in the economy there are 2 jobs, each paying $100. There are also 2 men and 2 women. If the men get the jobs, then female hypergamy ensures that each woman chooses one of the men. But more importantly, both women are happy, and both men are also happy. Each person effectively has $50, assuming that each family is taken as one economic unit (so if each economic unit makes $100, then that money is split evenly among everyone in that economic unit).

Suppose instead that one man gets one of the jobs and one woman gets the other job. Now this situation actually causes problems:

1. If the woman without a job marries the guy with a job, both are happy. The other woman is unhappy because she's stuck with a man who doesn't have a job, and the man's unhappy because he's unable to perform his role as breadwinner. The man is also in poverty because he doesn't have a job. It is a given that the single woman will not marry him. In this situation, the married man and woman each have $50. The single woman has $100 and the single man has $0. Now we are starting to see gaps and economic classes start to form.
2. If the woman with a job marries the guy with a job, both are happy. But the other two have nothing; they are living in povery. The single woman is also very unlikely to marry the single man. Here, the married man and married woman each have $100, and both singles have $0.

What if both women get the jobs and the men don't? In addition to economic inequality, everyone is also unhappy (money doesn't make women happy). This society will also eventually implode because when women are focussed on career, they can't perform the essential "mother" role. When a woman tries to be a man and a woman at the same time, she will most likely fail at both.

Feminists made a big mistake by not understanding the nature of production and reproduction. Production is only the means to an end. Reproduction is the ultimate goal of all life on earth. Women have reproductive power which can only bear fruit when combined with a man's productive power. But why do women need men's productive power? Because they can't exercise both productive and reproductive power at the same time. A woman's reproductive power is incomplete without a man's productive power (as a single mother with small children knows all too well).

Pregnancy: the new "disability"

Just read an article "Pregnant, and Pushed Out of a Job". The author seems to take a lot of things for granted and thinks that women should be entitled to a host of different things:

1. She can be less productive, and still get paid the same as everyone else. When a worker in a company does less work, everyone else has to pick up the slack. So while she's doing less work, everyone else is doing more, and yet everyone apparently should be paid the same.
2. She can keep her job despite there being many other unemployed women out there who are more reliable, who do more work, and who may need the money even more than she does.
3. She can avoid many of the job responsibilities (like heavy lifting and climbing ladders) and thereby shift the burden onto her co-workers, with no reduction in pay, and her employer is also not allowed to fire her.
4. She deserves special treatment because she's a single mother. Even if she deliberately chose to become a single mother. Her employer is to pay the price for the decisions that she has made. Her employer is responsible even if it was beyond her and her employer's control (her husband died or had an injury, for instance).

The author also wishes to blackmail us by saying that if they are not granted all of the above, they will inflict their dysfunctional children upon society by not breastfeeding them. Never mind that breastfeeding should be ideally done for about 2 years.

Then there is the plea for charity: "Pregnancy-related accommodations also promote economic security for families." Why this is should be an employer's problem is never explained.

There also seems to be a bias against hiring women with small children. You don't say!

Apparently, pregnancy is a disability. And this is the only "disability" that the victim deliberately inflicted upon herself.

Depends on the industry, but employing pregnant workers is generally worse for a company's bottom line. Contrary to the author's claims, there is more turnover, not less. There is less loyalty because more-productive workers are being paid the same as those who are less productive, and because they have to pick up the slack for no extra pay. And for obvious reasons, productivity is reduced. Morale is reduced. There are also more overhead costs associated with hiring and firing more workers.

But the problems associated with employing pregnant women aren't limited to the workplace. Employed women don't get married (to men; they get married to the government instead). They choose to become single mothers. Their children don't get breastfed adequately, and get put into daycare. And so on.

There is also the claim that making workplace accommodations for pregnancy results in healthier pregnant women. Ohkay, but making workplace accommodations for dolphins results in healthier dolphins. And making workplace accommodations for non-pregnant workers results in healthier non-pregnant workers. But given a choice between pregnant women, dolphins, and non-pregnant women, why should the employer prefer the pregnant woman?

There are some important voices that are not being heard.

1. What do her co-workers think? Are they inclined to take on additional work (like heavy lifting and climbing ladders) for no extra pay?
2. What does the employer think of the increased costs involved?
3. What do the customers think of  having to pay more because of higher costs associated with employing pregnant women?

There are some things that are impossible to articulate thanks to the climate of political correctness.

1. In a normal family, the man is responsible for earning the money. The woman is never under any obligation to earn money, unless he is disabled and can't work (in which case the family could be eligible for welfare). This idea is not so far-fetched. It was the norm in the stable nuclear family structure of the 1950s and previous.
2. The majority of single mothers today deliberately made choices that resulted in their single mother status. Either they chose to become single mothers, or they chose unreliable men. Only a minority of women are single mothers for reasons truly beyond their control.

The confusion over pedophilia

When people say "pedophilia", they often don't understand what they're saying. I've seen people refer to sex with 16 year olds as pedophilia.

Pedophilia is defined as sex with children (from neonate to pre-pubescence). Pedophilia doesn't make a great deal of sense from a biological perspective, because pre-pubescent humans are incapable of causing pregnancy or becoming pregnant, so adult humans exclusively seeking sexual relations with pre-pubescent humans are probably doing something wrong. "Evolution gone wrong" you could say, although it's not as simple as that.

In fact, it's just another example of "Fisherian Runaway" sexual selection. Where youth in women was found to be an indicator of fertility, youth soon came to be attractive for its own sake. Just like the peacock's tail became attractive for its own sake. Adult women well understand this subconsciously, and they play along when they shave their body hair. In fact there is a name for it: neoteny.

Ephebophilia is defined as sex with adolescents (stage between puberty and adulthood). From a biological perspective, there is nothing wrong with ephebophilia, because adolescents are able to cause pregnancy or become pregnant. In fact the difference between adolescence and adulthood is pretty much arbitrary and meaningless and academic from a biological perspective.

Biologically we have not changed a great deal from those who lived even 1000 years ago, so to say that people are abnormal for reproducing when young when in the past it was pretty much the standard thing to do shows a distinct lack of awareness of history. In ages past, life expectancy at birth was probably no higher than 30 years, and life-expectancy at adolescence was probably around 40 or so (most women would have had a very large number of children). It is then straightforward that if our ancestors weren't ephebophiles and instead waited until their 30s to have children as they do today, homo sapiens would have had the same fate as the mammoths.

Another thing to keep in mind is that even the use of the word "ephebophilia" is a Fisherian Runaway in the making. Suppose there are a large number of people being struck by thrown apples. Even then, it makes no sense to outlaw the simple act of having apples. Similarly, it is only relevant to criminalize ephebophilia in the case of those people who seek only sexual relations with adolescents with the exclusion of attendant normal reproductive behaviour. It is meaningless to criminalize a person for marrying an adolescent, having several children, and living happily married until death. Otherwise every man throughout history who ever lived is technically a "criminal".

On the other hand, if the person wants nothing more than to have sex with one 15-year old after another with no intention of having any meaningful relationship with any of them, then it makes more sense to criminalize that behaviour because it is dysfunctional and any society allowing such a thing will soon be overwhelmed by other more functional societies.

Contraception and bipedalism: the parallel

When humans started to walk upright, the female pelvis became smaller as a result of bipedalism. As a result, human babies spent less time developing inside its mother and more time developing outside. No other animal species takes so long to mature into adults. In a way the quality of childbirth can be said to have decreased, in order to take advantage of the gains from bipedalism.

... the complexity, pain, and danger of human birth and the long and dangerous dependency of the human infant are the "price" we pay for hips that facilitate bipedal locomotion. (source)

Here's the modern parallel: when humans gained control over their reproductive systems (the birth control pill, condoms, etc), the institution of marriage was fairly quickly eroded away. As a result, children faced several developmental difficulties due to the lack of the family framework. In a way, the quality of children can be said to have decreased in order to take advantage of the gains (whatever they may be, whether real or perceived) resulting from the control over reproduction.

Now it is no doubt that bipedalism was a good thing. And yet, I can almost imagine a scene during that time (when bipedalism was on the rise) in which the "conservatives" (those against bipedalism) were railing against the "liberals" (who were for bipedalism) because of the harm being caused to the babies.

Contraception was a turning point, on the same scale as bipedalism. Are the conservatives of today needlessly worrying? Will humanity adapt to the new environment? What are the benefits that contraception brings us that is on the same scale as the benefits that bipedalism brought us?

What is a human being?

When we think of a human being, we think of a man or a woman. In biology, a living organism is something that can reproduce itself, among other things.

Suppose you want to send a human being to a distant planet, in order to colonize that new world. Do you send a man? Or a woman? Or two men? Or five women? Obviously you have to send a man and a woman at the very least. So in a sense, a man-woman pair make up a single unit of homo sapiens.

Just as a heart isn't a human being by itself, and a brain isn't a human being by itself, so too a man by himself or a woman by herself are only half a human being. Is an unfertilized egg a human being? Of course not. Is a sperm cell a human being? No. Only when they come together do they form a person, and even that person is only half a human being until he or she grows up and forms a relationship with a person of the opposite gender.

People speak jokingly of "my other half" when referring to a spouse, and yet it's more true than anyone realizes.

What women want

Women complain about men a lot these days, as well they should. Men are untidy, insensitive, sex-crazed. They rape, they murder, most criminals are male. They make women pregnant and then run off with other (much younger) women. They don't pay child support for kids they've fathered. Et cetera.

Ironically, all the qualities that men have, both good and bad, are those which have been selected by women. In fact it's more than just a "selection", it's an "election", because by having a child by a man, the woman is casting a vote that says "this is the kind of man I want future generations of men to be like". And of course the men are voting as well, but to a lesser extent, what they want women of the future to be like. Note that none of this is being done consciously. Consider the peacock's tail. It confers no survival advantage. In fact a peacock with the best and biggest tail is the easiest for predators to catch. But it has a reproductive advantage because it's what the peahens want. Why do the peahens want it? They have no idea.

So it's futile for a woman who has given birth to a man's child to then complain about his qualities. She is only repeating the "mistake" his mother made!

Contraception in the light of evolution

People these days often say that they want few children or even no children. The reasons - or more accurately justifications and rationalizations - are many, but the most popular one is overpopulation.

Unfortunately, they have a serious lack of knowledge and/or understanding about evolution and how it works.

Every man has a fatherhood instinct, and every woman has a motherhood instinct. But the thing about the motherhood and fatherhood instincts is that they are not "all or nothing". Instead there is a continuum going from no motherhood instinct to strong motherhood instinct, and all women fall somewhere along this continuum. It is the same with the fatherhood instinct - there is a continuum going from no fatherhood instinct to strong fatherhood instinct, and all men fall somewhere along this continuum.

The motherhood and fatherhood instincts are controlled by genes, so they fall under "nature". They are not to be confused with "parenting skills" which fall under "nurture". It is the same instinct that causes the feeling of the "biological clock" in older women approaching the end of their reproductive career. They are physiological needs.

It is the people who have a weaker motherhood or fatherhood instinct who are more likely to have fewer children. And those who have stronger instincts will have more children. So if this state of affairs continues, the genes responsible for weaker instincts will slowly be bred out of the human gene pool, and the genes responsible for stronger instincts will slowly predominate.

In fact, the pill and safe contraception are accelerating this process. In the past, people often had children against their will. Women had no choice but to reproduce, because they gave sex in exchange for security, and sex meant babies. Men also had no choice because sex is a physiological need for them. But now, contraception allows men to take care of this physiological need without the usual consequences. And women can give sex in exchange for security (or they don't need security from a man because they are economically independent) without the usual consequences. But no contraception can dampen or eliminate the motherhood and fatherhood instincts. A woman will feel the biological clock ticking when she hits her mid to late 30s, regardless of which form of contraception she's using. And the stronger these instincts become, the less effective contraception will be. Consider that many single teenage mothers choose to have babies regardless of the availability of contraception, and regardless of the risks. That is the motherhood instinct in action.

So future generations of people will have stronger parenting instincts, which will drive them to have more children. What delicious irony!

The parable of the cats

A man had recently moved into a new neighbourhood. As he was walking towards the market one day, he noticed that there were a few cats about and they looked very scrawny and hungry. Being a kind-hearted person, he took pity on them and while in the market buying what he needed, he also bought some cat food.
He gave some food to the cats who were very happy indeed. They made cute little noises and rubbed up against him. This warmed his heart. He decided to feed the cats about once a day or so. Very soon, the cats started looking quite healthy and not at all like their former feral and scrawny selves.

Time went by and a few of the cats started to have babies. The number of cats just about doubled. The man at first didn't take much notice; he fed them the same amount as usual. As there were more cats, there was less food per cat. Sometimes fights would break out and the most aggressive and strongest cat would get the lion's share. Some cats started to look scrawny and hungry again. The man, noticing this, decided to give them more food "otherwise some of them might die of hunger", he said to himself.

More time passed and there were double again the number of cats. Again, some cats ate more (because they were stronger and more aggressive) and some ate less, and as a result quite a lot of the cats were hungry and close to death. The man again decided to give them even more food. Again the cats started to look well-fed and healthy again.

Even more time passed and now the number of cats had doubled yet again! And now a very large number of cats were starving. The man was quite distressed because he really didn't want the cats to die. But he couldn't afford to buy the cats any more food. As he stood there not knowing what to do, a wise old man (who's regular habit it was to spend some time relaxing on a nearby bench) watching the scene, stood up and walked over to the man who had been feeding the cats.

He said, "My friend, I've been watching you for quite a long time now while I sit here every evening. Long ago, when you first saw that those few cats were starving, you should have just left them alone. Yes, perhaps even to die. You thought you were doing good by feeding those cats, but now you see what has happened? Now there are 10 times the number of cats starving and near death. And not only that - do you dear something strange?"

"No, I can't hear anything."

"Exactly. There aren't as many birds here as there used to be. The cats have eaten most of them. You see, your mistake is in thinking that death is something bad and to be feared and avoided. But the truth is, life and death go hand in hand. They are 2 faces of the same coin. They must always be in balance. Too much life is as bad as too much death. Now go your way and don't worry about the cats anymore. Let Death come and take, with interest, what has been kept from him for so long."

Heeding the wise man's advice, he went home and didn't come again to feed the cats. Soon he forgot about the whole thing. He eventually moved to a different neighbourhood. A year or so later, he happened to be passing through the neighbourhood he used to live in, and noticed a few cats about and they looked very scrawny and hungry. With some sadness in his heart, he forced himself to look away and went about his business.

What's wrong with "teen marriage" and "teen pregnancy"?

Why was teen marriage and teen pregnancy never a problem until recently?

The current debate about these actually refers to three different types of situations:

• The man and woman are both teens
• The man is a teen and the woman isn't
• The woman is a teen and the man isn't

It's obvious that the first two situations are bad. The third one? Not so much - it should be obvious.

So when social scientists point to statistics that show that teen pregnancy leads to bad outcomes, it's a generalization, but whereas most generalizations are empirically true, this particular generalization obscures some very important details.

The first (and currently the most prevalent type) was very prevalent throughout human history, if you consider that "middle-age" in the middle ages probably meant 20 or 25. One reason is the lower life expectancy (however...). However it's important that when we talk about the first type, we distinguish between then and now. Males were ready for fatherhood much earlier in the past. Still, even in their teens, the man was almost always older than the women. Nowadays male "adolescence" often extends into the 20's and 30s.

The second type of pairing was never anything more than a rare anomaly at any time in human history. The reasons can be found in evolutionary psychology. Women's fertility has always depended on age (fertility decreases with age). On the other hand, men's fertility has also mostly depended on age but in the opposite direction (male fertility, as in status, increases with age). This meant that women were drawn to older men, and men were drawn to younger women.

The third type of pairing was the rule rather than the exception throughout all of human history. What actually happened over the last 100 years, is that the third type of pairing became less prevalent. One of the reasons probably has to do with the recent taboo of older men marrying younger women which is compounded by delayed male maturity. So now this is an almost nonexistent demographic. Which is unfortunate because this is actually better than the other two. The high divorce rates of today probably can be traced to women marrying relatively younger men as one of its causes.

If we look at actual numbers, we can see why the claim that "teen pregnancies" is bad is misleading. Suppose that:

• there are 100 of the first type, and the child outcomes of these pairings on a scale of 1 to 10 is 4.
• there are 10 of the second type, and the child outcomes of these pairings on the same scale is 6
• there are 10 of the third type, and the child outcomes of these pairings on the same scale is 8.
• there are 1000 of the "normal" type (neither man nor woman are teenagers), and the child outcomes of these pairings is 8.

So on average, the "teen pregnancies" have an average outcome of (400+60+80)/120 = 4.5. While the average outcome of the "normal" type is 8. From this, our intrepid social scientists proclaim that when a teenage girl marries a non-teenaged man and has a baby, the outcome is worse for their child (because it's a "teenage pregnancy") than for a child born to parents neither of whom are teens. Sorry but I'm not buying that.

It's obvious from the above that the stability of the family has always depended on the quality of fatherhood. So "teen pregnancy" isn't the problem. "Teen marriage" is also not the problem. "Teens marrying teens" is the problem. More precisely, "teen fatherhood" is the problem, or even more accurately, "adolescent fatherhood" is the problem. A man in his 20s without a job who plays video games all day and lives with his parents doesn't magically have fatherhood potential just because he isn't a teenager any more. A child of an adolescent male, no matter the age of the mother, is almost always at risk.

Consider that that before a couple of hundred years ago, a person's age wasn't even an issue. Most people didn't even know how old they were. Most people couldn't even count past 10. They got married when they were ready. The only reason a woman waited at all for marriage was to wait for a man with high status. She didn't wait just because she was a teenager. Men too married when they were ready (able to support a family). They didn't wait until they were 18 or any other age.

The problem with subsidizing contraception

There has been some talk in the US about subsidizing the cost of the birth control pill. After reading all about it, I've come to the conclusion that it's a bad idea. Here are some of the reasons, taken from comments on articles relating to the issue (comments are not mine unless in square brackets):

• After spending $1000/yr for 10-15 years for birth control for these gals, how much are we going to be asked to spend on fertility treatments for them when they realize that their best reproductive years are behind them? Most IVF pregnancies are considered high-risk, so obstetrical care would be more than "normal". Many IVF babies are fragile at birth, so you're looking at NICU costs.
• It DOESN'T reduce the abortion rate, and it DOESN'T reduce the number of unwed mothers. Statistics pertaining to abortion and unwed and teen mothers show that those numbers have increased lockstep with the availability of low-no cost contraceptives (available at your neighborhood county health/PP clinic). [See the reviews of this book Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage]
• So studies say free birth control pills are actually a cost savings. What does that have to do with the federal government mandating that every insurance policy (a private product) must include them? No one is outlawing birth control. The issue is whether the federal government should force private companies to provide a particular coverage at a particular cost.
• Why should I pay my money to buy protection for someone's else's sex life?
• Of course insurance companies overwhelmingly choose to provide BC coverage. But they don't for the most part choose to offer it without copays, and certainly not for the range of contraceptives that ACA is going to require them to offer. If every woman who currently has a $10 copay didn't buy her birth control and got pregnant, it might very well be more expensive for private insurance companies than if they'd just offered her the bc for free. But that's not what happens because women with insurance and some income will happily pay some small amount of money in order to not get pregnant. What this article and the research it refers to show is that for women who are in groups that are high-risk for unintended pregnancies, it is probably cheaper for the state to provide contraceptives because when the state provides them, contraceptive usage is actually getting shifted: by providing birth control to women with low-incomes, a lot more of them take birth control. But that's not what this particular policy debate is about: it's about women with non-public insurance, who are overwhelmingly not poor. They're not looking at their copays, deciding not to take birth control, and getting pregnant. (Or, like I said, if this is happening and there's anything approaching research showing that it's happening, we'd be hearing about it.) If the contraceptive provision of ACA were "simple math," we wouldn't have to legislate it because insurance providers would already be providing no-copay bc for a range of contraceptives. They don't, so it probably isn't simple math, and I'm suggesting this is because it's a rare women with non-public health insurance who looks at a $10 copay and decides to not get on birth control. (She may, however, be spurred by zero-copay contraceptives to switch contraceptive type to something with higher costs and only marginally better efficacy.)
• If WE keep them "healthy" after an entirely predictable outcome of having sex--what does that have to do with being healthy? Sounds pretty enabling to me. Note, of course, I'm not saying it should be illegal to make these decisions for yourself, just that I should not have to pay for it.
• It might help if you understood the purpose of insurance. There's a reason why BlueCross doesn't cover my Advil.
• Do you know what's a lot less expensive to ME than paying for other people's birth control? Not paying for it. Even when you start rationalizing my suffering from societal ills--color me skeptical.
• Plenty of societies have expected that if women aren't abstinent, then they should risk getting pregnant - heck, you probably don't have to look back more than 100 years.
• In what way is not covering birth control "punishing" women? My employer subsidizes medical and vision insurance but not dental insurance, and my daughter just got a cavity. I had to pay out of pocket for a dentist to fill it. Is my employer "punishing" me?
• The government is allowing the Amish to opt out of the contraception mandate but won't let Catholic dioceses and institutions, which are morally opposed to it, do the same. That's a bit more like "punishment."
• Insurance doesn't pay for your skiing, it pays if you have a health injury as a result of skiing. [And premiums for skiiers are higher, I imagine.] So it reasons that insurance doesn't have to cover your birth control, but it does cover your health costs if you become pregnant. To use a cruder analogy: Insurance should not cover condoms and lube, but if you contract HIV it does cover your health expenses. Do those who want free birth control pills also want to mandate free lube and condoms?
• By this argument everyone's medicine should be "free" at no out of pocket cost, no co-payment. This sounds great, everyone gets all the health care and medicine they want or need and at no cost to themselves. How wonderful. Unfortunately, its unlikely that this wonderful format would last long in the real world. 
• No health insurance coverage is "free," even when there is no copay for a particular service. And, copays and amount of coverage vary by policy. But, conservatives haven't been arguing FOR copays for contraceptive medications. They have been arguing AGAINST employers and insurers being required to provide ANY coverage for contraception, period, whether that coverage includes copays or not.
• If people know what something is really costing them, they are more likley to be responsible.  When everything is "free" not so much.
• As for theories about the cost savings of prevention -- many disagree with your assessment, including insurers. 
• The proposed regulations when they go in effect in 2013 will require the insurance company to offer contraceptives free and without a copay.
• If you are really paying for contraception with your premiums, then you should just be able to pay for it without the insurance plan at all.  The only reason for this policy is to shift the cost away from the person directly using the product.  Support this mandate or not, I wouldn't think this would be a point of contention.
• It is part of a compensation package that is part of an employment contract.  And only a part.  Religious and affiliated institutions are not requiring that as a term of employment an employee refuse to use contraception.  Religious institutions are stating that they would like to retain the freedom to offer a  compensation package to employees that does not include insurance coverage for contraceptives. The employee is not required to accept the terms of the contract -- they are free to reject the contract (i.e., not work for that employer).  The employee can also purchase their own insurance or supplement their employer-offered insurance that does offer contraception.  They also can purchase their own contraception. Of course on the flip side -- assuming that the provision of free contraception reduces medical costs -- which the insurer has a vested interest in doing -- insurance companies could also refuse as a vendor to offer packages that don't include free contraception. 
• Having a "greater tendency" towards an unexpected disease or covering an accident in a more dangerous profession clearly is not the same as a routine, fully foreseeable expense, that every person will have.   It is not a difficult concept:  You cannot "insure" against a certainty; the argument for paid contraception is simply an argument for expanding welfare benefits to a group that generally does not get them.  (Traditional cash welfare payments can of course already be used to purchase contraception.)  And there is a reason insurance costs more for firefighters, miners, smokers, etc -- because the relative risk of incurring large expenses is higher. 
• Whether or not "sexuality is an essential part of being human" or not is completely irrelevant.  Food is also essential for Ms. Fluke, but she would have been laughed out of Congress had she made a plea for food stamps for students at an elite law school.  Yet this is no different: She would like a normal expense of life paid for by someone else -- often, I note, by people with far less lifetime earning potential than she has.  This is neither progressive nor fair, and it does not make one a sexist to point it out.  I would add that the argument made by Mr. Fisher only holds if one considers people as a drain on the system and not as future resources.  You can't make the argument honestly without considering the lifetime earnings and contributions of the people being born, not just their expenses in childhood.  And if the argument is that we should be only discouraging reproduction in poor people because they are not likely to be net contributors to society, well, that's fairly odious in my book.  I don't think Fisher is saying that, of course, but it does mean his argument is half baked and not very persuasive.
• There is something faintly unsettling here, the underlying idea seems to be that children are a disease that women need to be protected from.  Children prevent women from gaining an education or a good job and they're so expensive!  While its true that poor, unmarried, young women will do a lot better if they don't have children while they're poor, unmarried and under educated, generalizing this idea out to the rest of the population because "half of pregnancies are unplanned" begins to seem like we wish to commit demographic suicide in the name of access to free birth control. 
• The argument appears to be that women have very little agency, indeed, the belief must be that they have so little agency--even in preventing their own unwanted pregnancies--that they won't take any such action unless its at no cost at all to themselves, no matter what socio-economic bracket or race they are.
• Thats an argument for government subsidy of birth control for poor women which already exists and which I support.  When you extend the argument for a subsidy of birth control for ALL women the argument you are making is that women have little agency and that children are such a terrible burden on society that no cost is too great in order to prevent pregnancies, this is a dangerous argument for any society to embrace.
•  There is a good  argument for subsidizing birth control for poor women, but it doesn't, in my opinion extend out to subsidizing birth control for all women.
• It makes a difference if there is a co-pay because the further you put the patient from the real cost of health care the more problems you will have controlling it.  Its the same reason why I  think even poor peole should pay some nominal taxs, even $15, so everyone feels they have some skin in the game.  No one who has insurance has any idea what the alleged "cost" is of any of the services because who looks at the bill?  I know I never did because I wasn't getting charged for anything. But, in terms of contraceptives, I don't see why they should be singled out for special treatment and be "free" when other drugs are not.
• Many girls grow up wanting to have their own live baby dolls so they can feel complete.  Government programs pay for young mothers to have their dream, to fit in with other girls who are also moms.  A young mom can have a child for free, get no child support from the father and let the government (our tax dollars) pay for her dream of motherhood.  Hospitals and unwed mom agencies send the bill for birth, diapers, formula and anything else a mom needs for her child.  Dad and mom never pay a dime back into the system and in fact become system reliant.  THE FIX = the bills follow the mother and named father for life until they are paid.  BIRTH CONTROL = young parents beware as you are going to pay your debt, no exception.
• I wish all employers chose to provide it. If they don't choose to provide it, I don't think it's right to force them to. Ends don't justify means. Society should find another way to help people get birth control if employers aren't cooperative. Also, the Catholic church is against vasectomies and other forms of sterilization. I expect if you look into it, you'll see that these are also excluded from many church based plans.  
• This is a good argument for Medicaid subsidizing birth control, but the contraception mandate won't be covering poor women, it will be covering middle-class women who get insurance through their employer.
• This debate has been framed wrongly by both sides. The left puts it in terms of health and the right puts it in terms of morality. Let me put it in terms of economics. The function of insurance is to spread risk among voluntarily participating parties.  "Insurance" that the law says you must buy, and that consists of mandatory types of coverage is not insurance at all, it's welfare. The opponents of Ms. Fluke seem to roughly understand this but are unable to express it. The real question is, why does a 30-year-old Cornell grad and Georgetown law student need or deserve welfare? If that is the threshold for welfare, 95% of the country would be on welfare. Only the most doctrinaire leftist would fail to see why this cannot be sustained.
• IMHO it is crazy to provide free birth control to middle and upper class employed women.  It is not crazy to provide low income women free birth control.  And it is appallingly easy to figure out  who they are.  Healthy insurers pay for not healthy insurers. 
• Strange how the number of unplanned pregnancies and out-of-wedlock children has soared *after* birth control came along. I agree that too many children are being born to unprepared parents, but that's a socio-cultural issue. Tell you what -- you can hand out birth control pills in the classroom if we get to address the family breakdown in a serious way.
• This only goes back to 1980, not prior to the advent of the pill but it is true that the number of live births to unmarried women per 1000 has increased dramatically over the last roughly 30 years -- from 29.4 to 50.6. What is worth noting -- for all the talk of the need of increased sex education the problem is not now principally one of teen moms which peaked in the early nineties and is now almost exactly where it was in 1980. It is for women age 18 to 39 at the time of birth -- thus for example the rate has nealry tripled for women age 30-34  from 21.1 to 59.0 (source).
• The government should simply issue individual plastic bubbles to every one of us to exist in throughout our entire lives.
• How many women with employer-based health insurance are getting pregnant because they're choosing no contraceptives or less effective contraceptives due to costs? If there were a strong case to be made for "many", we'd be hearing about it.
• Unintended pregnancies are caused not by people who are 'too poor to practice safe sex' as you put it, but by people who have sex when they are not ready to have children.  Basically, they are caused by irresponsible behavior. No amount of contraceptive coverage, forced or voluntary, will change this, because contraception reinforces, rather than prevents, sexually irresponsible behavior by offering people a false sense of security.  This same sexually irresponsible behavior also spreads sexually-transmitted infections, which are also a tremendous expense for us as a society. If we want to decrease the amount of money we spend as a society on these 'unplanned pregnancies', the solution is not to increase funding for contraception, or encourage its use. This has been exactly the policy of our government for the past forty years!  It hasn't worked very well, has it? Instead, the solution would seem to be to change the public attitude towards sex, encouraging responsible sexual  behavior.  This is very difficult, of course, because it involves pushing a cultural change, so it does not appeal to many. Nevertheless, it seems to be the only possible long-term solution.
• This isn't just about dollars and cents. The rhetoric used borders on the obscene. During the fascist reign in Germany the way that they prepared their population to accept the holocaust was to originally frame the argument in economic terms. Posters were hung that explained that it took 5.5 Reichmarks to care for a disabled person a day, and for that you could feed a healthy family of five for a day. Another proclaimed the disabled cost 60,000 RM over their lifetime. "Germans! This is YOUR money!" (See the Eugenics article on Wikipedia.) See! Killing is so cost effective! The web site of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museom reminds us that it was the intelligentsia and the medical profession that were the most easily co-opted by the siren song of totalitarianism. Unfortunately, very little has changed since 1945. What was condemned as a war crime at Nuremberg is now embraced as "enlightened policy" in most of the Western World. The future belongs to those that bother to show up. The West is aborting hers.
• Does Sandra Fluke own a smart phone ? She and her fellow students have money enough for all the trappings of modern life, yet we taxpayers are expected to pony-up to support her "life-style choices". I would like to know why we are obligated to her and her fellow "students". What is the origin of our debt to her?
• its not about being over educated or lacking comprehension or common sense. IT IS ABOUT AN AGENDA. An agenda devoted to destroying the fabric of society: The Family. An agenda devoted to destroying the first ammendment's guarentee of freedom of religion. An agenda about turning a once proud nation of freedom loving into a nation of Marxism and Communism. And above all else it is an Agenda to derail any GOP candidates and to turn the eye away from how poorly Obama has been as a president. There are ulterior motives in every thing a liberal progressive does and they need to be removed from power from this country.
• Some people are born with medical conditions which they must invariably treat but being born with a medical condition by no means obligates taxpayers to pay those bills. This attitude that society owes someone for their misfortune(s) completely ignores the misfortune to which the taxpayers are subjected when they are required to pay someone else's bills.
• Look up the term "red herring". Its irrelevent, the topic is not what one person wants or needs. The problem is that people who expect things for free are seeing the Government, and using deceit.
• Fluke still doesn't have her story right for it was reported elsewhere that Georgetown Law does cover contraceptives that are used to treat certain medical conditions, but they do not cover contraceptives used just as a birth control. Fluke's testimony was a nicely fabricated story completely to fit the agenda.
• why would she care what it costs, all she wants is a free ride.
• Hypocrisy is saying "Stay out of my bedroom and my womb but pay for my birth control." Sorry, but this naive youngster allowed herself to be victimized by the Owebama war against women.
• Sandra Fluck, how was your vacation in Spain with your wealthy boyfriend....I see you make it back to the States and your need for expensive contraceptives that I/We must pay for was no Fluke!!!! Way to Girl....Got laid by a wealthy guy who can't/won't pay for your "Birth"/Side effect control ... So I suppose we must do it for y'all!!!!
• Look, if the pill was THAT expensive, someone would be pimping them on the street corner. Never heard of a black market for BC pills.
• Bet she didn't know how much her plane ticket to Pompeii with her boyfriend was either. Can you say "plant".
• People who want to have sex every day with as many people as they wish is a privalege one can award themselves. I say have fun, be careful and by all means get protection. Cheaper than Target is any Planned Parenthood - who will freely give the condoms away at taxdollar expense.
• It's impossible to educate someone about something they are being paid not to understand. Ms. Fluke is the epitope of this statement. She is willfully ignorant of the many affordable options available because her ideology demands her not to know.
• What an idiot piece of human debris, she wants hand outs but none of the responsibility that is suppose to come with being and adult. I say again, go to any national park, you will see signs "please don't feed the animals, or they won't learn how to take care of themselves". And this turd wants to practice law.
• If she's in no danger of becoming pregnant then the issue is moot. If on the other hand she is conducting herself so that birth control becomes highly desirable, then she needs to take the responsibility to pay for them or curtail the activity. Why is she pointing at YOU and ME asking for free drugs so she can do as she pleases? It's not my job to support her habits, regardless of what they are. And yes her conduct is shameful and wrong in many, many ways.
• "Shaming is the law enforcement of the People. Nothing wrong with it."
• Fluke put herself on the public stage, and she lied and misled in her testimony. She wants free contraceptives for healthy women and she is trying to obtain her goal by using specific examples of unhealthy women. Shame Fluke, not the many people who see through her shameful sham.
• So now she WON'T need all that money for birth control? Just how many abortions per month was she going to need to have, and did anyone tell her that College is for studying, not sex? I don't care WHAT they say on MTV!!
• HAVE YOUR LIBERALS SPAYED OR NEUTERED, it's like adding chlorine to the gene pool!! Perhaps Fluke will be a volunteer since she is so terribly oppressed by her own femininity?
• Maybe she should tattoo 'No Rubber, No Road' on her backside. Then it would be up to her interloper to provide, not me.
• If you can't afford contraception, then you shouldn't be having sex in the first place! It's called responsibility!
• This woman is intentionally misrepresenting the issue. This is not about Contraception. Contraception costs very little. What she is talking about is a medical condition for which the answer is specific forms of the medicine that also works as birth control. Stop confusing contraception with personal medical needs. 
• So now refusing to pay for someone ELSE’S contraception is “impos[ing] [one's] anti-contraception views on the general public”???  
• If she gives up her morning $5.00 Starbucks Latte just ONE DAY a month, the money saved readily covers a months supply of birth control pills.
• If you’re 30 and can’t afford to buy your own birth control pills (though it appears she can buy clothes and jewelry), then you are a l-o-s-e-r.
• self control is free. Waiting until you are married and ready for a baby is free too!
• "I don’t care and neither should you get into the business of deciding what my health insurance covers!" But she is doing the exact opposite of what you want. She specifically chose a school whose health insurance was not in line with her beliefs with the express purpose of “getting into the business of deciding what my health insurance covers!”
• My health care insurance is already going up with ObamaCare (Affordable [NOT!] Health Care Act) and crap like this that should not be included in a pool of health care billings where ALL end up paying for it. So, the leftists don’t mind making me pay for a bunch of rabbits who can’t control themselves and want something for nothing as part of half of the country who doesn’t pay any taxes. So, yes, I damn well should care when someone is stealing my hard-earned money from me against my will.
• In the same way abortion activists try to hang their entire argument on the 1-3% (at most) of abortions that are done for “rape, incest, or life of the mother,” so this activist is trying to hang her entire argument on TWO cases, one of which clearly would be covered since it is not “contraception for the reason of preventing pregnancy” (her own words for the reason the 2nd woman’s insurance would not cover her birth control pills). Furthermore, although Catholic leadership and some other Christians frown on such contraceptives, these aren’t even the abortifacient pills that are the most egregious problems. In any case, there’s a world of difference (in my opinion) between these two women whose medical conditions require “hormones,” and Ms. Fluke, who merely wants free contraceptives to make her free and frequent sex with her myriad amorous (and hardly chivalrous) suitors free of responsibility or consequences.
• I already got kids to support, I’m not interested in supporting someone else’s 30 year old child with a spoiled brat attitude and an extreme narcissist complex.
• And to try to cover Birth Control as a medical need/treatment is to diminish the real medical needs. . vitamins and nutrition are more important than Birth Control. .shouldn’t everyone get FREE vitamins as part of nutritional health? And what about exercise?. .how about free gym memberships and free home treadmills as part of metabolic health? And how about free cholesterol lowering drugs. . .free for cardiovascular health?
• We lived in a town where not a soul in twenty years had the elite access to a school like Georgetown, and I’m supposed to feel SORRY for a 30 year old WOMAN in the elite stratosphere who is WHINING about “needing” people to pay for BIRTH CONTROL? SHe’s tracking to make ten times what we make and she wants subsidized pills? How CHEAP is she? Mummy and Daddy buy her everything her little heart desired and taught her to look down on anyone who wasn’t as smartl as she??
• Non of us should be concerned with what’s going on in anyone’s bedroom…and neither should we be required to pay for it. Any insurance is based on a pool of resources that the consumer agrees to join by choice! Obama and the Democrats have limited the choosing to none of those in the pool, only to some appointed government official. This is one of the first proofs of how bad the “Obama Care” legislation is, and is going to be.
• ADULTS pay their own bills.
• So are the college females we surveyed who’ve read this and also think Rush is correct that she’s an opportunitst political lying hack … are “male chauvinist pigs” also? I mean, they instantly understood his point and totally agreed. They not “female” enough? I mean, they want a guy to marry, how cavewoman of them, and they want “kids.” So, their voices aren’t GOOD enough for the feminist LEFT?
  
• I thought women were self-reliant, strong, and didn’t need help from anybody. Where are the feminists? Looks to me like these gals are unable to care for themselves and need big daddy government to take care of their needs.Perhaps Georgetown should buy every student a handgun too. Because if they don’t – the school obviously would be denying everyone’s constitutional right to bear arms.
• She is doing the same thing that Obama does when promoting his Obamacare. She is taking situations of the few and far between and trying to make people think that this is a valid reason to pass a law. The same thing is also done with abortion by using the excuse of rape, which accounts for less than 1% of the abortions in a year in America. You cannot pass a law based on the exceptions, that is not good law because it does not apply to the mass majority. The truth is that 99.9% of the people that use the contraceptives would be using them to prevent pregnancy. Married or not married, it just doesn’t matter; catholic churches nor anyone else should not be forced to pay for birth control. If they want to have birth control covered then they should seek employment in places that do cover it. Sometimes life just doesn’t give us everything we hold our hands open for, and Americans need to start realizing it no matter what your sob story is.
• In the video she talks about two woman who need birth control, one because hormonal imbalances cause seizures (is the pill the only way to balance hormones?) and the other because of risk factors involved in giving birth too close together. What is doesn’t mention but what is most likely true is that both woman received what they needed in some manner.
• with some very few exceptions, BC is NOT a medical necessity. In cases that it is, I have no problem it being covered.
• we’ve been INFORMED she’s speaking for WOMEN and what they NEED …. and that’s CRAP.
• I don’t care what people do in bed. I care,in this case, about being compelled to pay for non medically necessary things in my insurance contract.
• That was the one aspect of feminism I liked, that women were gonna pull themselves up by their bra straps.  But it's just vanished.  Now all of these things that feminism had as its goals, they're gone.  They really are gone.  They're back to being subservient and dependent and demanding, and demanding dependence.
• Viagra takes something that does not work as designed and makes it work again. Abortions, abortion pills, and even artificial contraception (IUDs, condoms, Norplant, etc.) do the EXACT OPPOSITE. They take something that works EXACTLY AS DESIGNED, and makes it no longer work. Or makes a human at an early stage of development, who has been given the gift of life, F&&KING DIE, in the case of abortions and abortion pills.
• women are doing just fine getting birth control on their own. It's government overstepping. Do no harm - unless it's to the child in the womb. That's okay. Forcing me to pay for it, that's overstepping.
• contraception is readily and freely available today, and there is no effort to control, rescind, or take that away. There is no "women's" issue here. Contraception is a choice (the pro choice crowd should like that), it is not a right. The decision is up to the family, or the woman. No one is prohibiting the use of contraceptives. Nothing diferent there.
• A large part of our health care cost problem is due to everyone wanting “something” and wanting “someone else” to pay for it. The purpose of “insurance” has been distorted(beginning with Teddy boy’s HMO idea in the 70′s). Insurance is intended to protect against catastrophic financial loss. Everyone seems to want it to pay for everything, so guess what, the cost is out of hand. Adding contraceptive coverage to a health “insurance” plan is simply going to raise everyone’s premiums another 100 bucks a month or so. I’m hoping the employers in the group market start passing some of this on to their employees.
• Let the guys in line pay for it. You want thrill pay the bill. Why should the taxpayer foot the bill? Taxpayers did not get the thrill.
• Fluke whines that the rest of us owe her free contraceptives, so she can have as much sex as she likes without consequences – while on scholarship at a very pricy law school. That’s the issue. Fluke spends whatever money she has elsewhere then demands that I (and you) pay for her contraceptives. That makes Fluke greedy, selfish and self-centered.