I would disagree pretty strongly that men are more into self-optimization than women. Instead, I’d wager men are more into “Self Optimization,” which is more a unique subculture than a goal or activity, and societal ideas of masculinity get a lot of play in that space. I find it pretty understandable that people interested in gender would have something to say about the way gender interacts with that space as well.
Honestly I don’t think that people are always being deeply normative when they talk about these things, they can just see features of the culture around them they find interesting and may dislike, and say so.
For example, for the bro culture comment - I think most people would agree bro culture exists, that it’s male dominated, and that concepts of masculinity have a lot to do with it. I’ve had lots of discussions with people, men and women, who feel excluded by that culture. It feels counterproductive to take “masculinity” and what comes with it off the table for that discussion in the name of the ideal of equality, especially if that discussion might win you some real equality. An example I’ve encountered in real life was my universities chemical engineering program being know for a “bro” culture, and they had some real conversations about it and the reality that it might exclude some people, and they made changes because of it.
To be fair, I’m not sure what role the gender discussion played in this piece, and I’d probably say it detracted from the point overall, so I can understand your response to it. But I don’t think that makes the practice wrong, and perhaps both a couple of bros not aware of who it is we’re excluding?
> I would disagree pretty strongly that men are more into self-optimization than women.
Sure, it very much depends on how you define "self-optimization". Let's just say there is a group of people interested in certain (selected?) topics related to self-optimization that predominantly attracts men.
> I find it pretty understandable that people interested in gender would have something to say about the way gender interacts with that space as well.
I have no issue if someone says "This and that subculture attracts mostly men [with certain character traits] and here's why this is problematic" and then goes on to explore this topic in detail. But carelessly throwing around stereotypes of masculinity and feminity doesn't help anyone.
> I’d probably say it detracted from the point overall
Yes, I would say so as well.
> It feels counterproductive to take “masculinity” and what comes with it off the table for that discussion in the name of the ideal of equality, especially if that discussion might win you some real equality.
I'm not really sure I subscribe to this idea/desire of "real equality" (which I interpret as "equality of outcome", i.e. in this case a 50-50 representation of genders), at least not on a general basis. Different people have different interests and propensities, and it seems these are controlled by biological factors (e.g. sex) to some degree[0], though it is not clear how much exactly. In any case, not only does achieving a 50-50 gender distribution across all groups seem unrealistic, it would also go against freedom of will of the individual.
Now this is not to say that making a given group (e.g. a university's chemical engineering program) more inclusive and welcoming to all kinds of people (and all genders) doesn't have benefits. It does. But if, at the end of the day, we don't reach a 50-50 gender distribution everywhere, I don't think this is an issue, either.
[0]: See the debates about "systemizing vs. empathizing" and "people vs. things".
Women are normally considered more egalitarian. I believe there’s studies on this. I run an online coworking community and keeping people who present as men is harder than people presenting as women. It’s been an issue with people noticing and commenting on the patterns of the community wrt genders. I try not to care about gender personally.
> always have to put a label on everything
> Ergo, women must be gentle but not aggressive.
> “X is clearly male”
This isn’t what people like the author who complain about “bro-ey” are normally trying to say. I don’t think they meant any extreme stuff like the above. I agree their tone could be better.
You avowed as much when you can't elucidate on any of his political views but label him right wing. Presumably because he went on the Joe rogan podcast or something.
IMO it's a bit laughable to try to pin him down. I've never heard a hint of a lean any political direction.
I didn’t know Huberman was white by the way. I don’t use the internet with JS or images on sometimes. I may have skimmed the article too much.
You don't need to respond, as I can already determine the answer based on your proud announcement of avoiding modern things.
Ditch the superiority 'i think differently than everyone else' complex. You'll be happier and overall better for it.
I was giving a reason for why I didn’t know Huberman’s race to account for possibly why it’s obvious to other people like you. The white thing was brought up by you. Not for you to use my reasoning as some fodder while we are both on a hyper-capitalist VC forum.
Now this discussion isn’t about any of the original comments. Why not discuss things instead of shutting down any convo?
> Ditch the superiority 'i think differently than everyone else' complex.
When could that statement not be used against someone like me defending my position even with ridicule happening? Or not used against your comment?
Edit: your comment is dead now. I didn’t downvote/flag it.
My last question was not rhetorical.
I’m speaking of what right wing means to the world, not just America (I’m American).
What do you call the Liberal Party of Australia? They aren’t left leaning at all.
I’d be eager to get an answer to this because I keep getting called elitist and I don’t get it. I thought Americans like myself aren’t supposed to think the world revolves around America.
“The Liberal Party of Australia is a centre-right political party in Australia,[21] one of the three[22] major parties in Australian politics” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Party_of_Australia
You can also check how Wikipedia defines liberalism.
You don't even understand the terms you're flinging around. Ring-wing explicitly, unambiguously, means Conservative.
> What do you call the Liberal Party of Australia? They aren’t left leaning at all.
And the Liberal party of Canada is.
All of the Western world is Liberal. It can either be left-leaning or right-leaning.
It does not make a lick of sense to suggest that the only thing that anywhere near leans left is Socialism (this is the only possible conclusion that can be inferred from your rhetoric), while you lump everything else that functionally uses Capitalism as "the right". This is not the colloquial understanding.
The modern overton window is moving to the right as I’m sure you’re aware and you’re trying to say it has moved enough that being capitalist now means left wing. What year do you think this change finally happened? It wasn’t this way during the 50s. The Overton window was much more to the left back then.
Free market economies are a right wing ideal, no? Like China isn’t a free market economy.
Someone who replied to me pointed to what others have seen. There’s overlap between other right leaning people and Huberman. Their comment is deleted now though.
Brought it up again because didn’t want to leave you hanging in there, but other than a comment either about YT algo or audience overlap, I didn’t want to make the whole thing too much about USA politics.
I think I could look around and list 100 people on the left and right. Various small or big time streamer sort of people. The overlap is minimal.
Bill Maher for example appears on leaning right stuff nowadays not left leaning things since politics and socialism have become clearer and more mainstream since Bill Maher was incorrectly seen as a Huberman type character. Some one in the middle. Not leaning right.
Tldr: People who don't believe in the virtues of capitalism are not interacting much with Huberman and vice versa. Same with the leaning right people listed.
Also how about any other part of my post? Besides doing what someone else did and bringing up how I’m a bully or conceited while being far more dismissive than myself.
> Huberman usually does not interact with people who don't at least lean right.
> I didn’t say most were right wing.
You contradict yourself. Pick one.
> Besides doing what someone else did and bringing up how I’m a bully or conceited while being far more dismissive than myself.
That’s confusing. Let me use another word: Huberman and Joe Rogan are liberals. So are a lot of the researchers and other people he brings on. If we agree then we are discussing semantics. Any conceit was a misunderstanding of me using words that you disagree with because of your world perspective vs mine.
I try to see politics from an economic perspective first. That usually isn’t appreciated on HN.
I didn’t realize we are talking US politics. I try to be understanding and talk about things from an international perspective. I see the world unfairly revolves around the US and I’m American myself.
Yeah, but it's a bell curve pair - distance from the mean only increases the discrepancy.
This blog author may be someone prominent. If you feel their speech has outsized influence and is using it to push stereotypes that harm vulnerable people, that’s a fair criticism.
There is no PC police that’s going to arrest you, seize your property and beat you with batons. People make money convincing people there is.
> Even though his podcast is firmly rooted in the masculine space of “body optimization”
While there's no doubt that self-optimization topics seem to attract more men than women, why is it that people who are into gender, equality and "toxic masculinity" topics – and, for the sake of this argument, let's assume the author is one of them – always have to put a label on everything, such as "This is male, this is female." They seem to be falling into exactly the trap they are criticizing.
The author goes on to say:
> Huberman is a lot less “bro-ey” than his fellow influencers. There’s a real gentleness and care to his delivery. The packaging is less aggressive, but the content does not stray far from Silicon Valley’s love affair with the tweaking of healthy human biology.
Ah, so gentleness is not associated with masculinity, but aggressiveness is, got it. Ergo, women must be gentle but not aggressive. Oh and "body optimization" is clearly not for females.
Why are they reinforcing the same stereotypes[0] they are fighting? Why can't we simply say
> While body optimization influencers often come across as aggressive and demonstrate little care for their delivery, Huberman's podcast…
? There, gender stereotypes and labels avoided.
[0]: I am aware that studies indicate that there is some truth to this specific stereotype in that – on average – men are more non-agreeable, women a bit less so (i.e. more agreeable). But this is a statistical average – an individual's personality traits can be far away from the average, and so I think stereotypes like "X is clearly male, and Y is clearly female" are doing us a disservice. Can't we all just be individuals?