Hey, Blue-Pillers. Sorry if this seems sort of self-indulgent, but I encountered one of those artificial wombs/Ethan-of-Athos wanna-bes on Tumblr, and I spent a few hours having some fun with him. It's a very long exchange, but if you can sit through the tl;dr I think you'll have a few laughs, along with some nifty info in fact. The whole thing is here:

http://mensquad.tumblr.com/post/152609822634/gunlord500-mensquad-gunlord500

But since it's tough reading exchanges on Tumblr (one thing I hate about that site, despite its usefulness), I'll repost it here. My "debating partner's" responses are in italics.

Mensquad (aka iamretrograde) the Brave Manospambot:

• although it’s not quite possible to adapt a fully developed male body to successfully go through pregnancy, we’re working on liberating women from childbearing burden. [x][x] Good luck finding another market niche you can monopolize when we succeed.*

My response: "Hate to break it to ya, but it seems likely you’ll be waiting a long while.

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-major-problems-with-artificial-wombs-2015-5

“With Liu directing her attention elsewhere and no record of other scientists picking up where she left off, progress on achieving complete external gestation is stalled until further notice. Even Liu, when she stopped her project, was already moving toward partial gestation inside of an animal, rather than a fully external “pregnancy.”

Those anticipating the artificial womb also cite advances in treating extremely premature babies. In a few cases, children born at only 22 weeks have survived without many health problems, when treated aggressively. Premature babies are effectively kept in artificial wombs until they’re really ready to enter the outside world, but it would be a major leap in medical technology to move gestation outside the human womb completely from conception to birth — especially since no one right now is even trying to figure out how to do so.”

tl;dr: That artificial placenta thing is quite impressive and certainly a positive development, but there are a huge number of other problems to solve before ectogenesis as a whole becomes viable. And since not many people are working on, say, artificial embryo implantation, replacing the role of the mother’s body in the growth of the fetus, or even making any of this affordable (it took the placenta dude 2.7 million dollars to bring preemie SHEEP to term! How much do you think fully lab-grown human babies will cost?), I kinda doubt you’ll be enjoying Brave New World anytime soon."

Mr. Manospambot:

I don’t need to. In fact, I’ll become father in estimated 6 days or so. Helen Liu is not the only person who worked on the problem. Yoshinori Kuwabara reported on his first experiments with goats back in 1997, and as far as I know, his work today is still continued after his death.

From your article: “All the attention from medical ethicists, activists, and the media put her off of the whole project”. I.e. women and their loyal minions fight hard to keep the status quo. Speaking of the prices, imagine how much would cellphones cost if they were produced without any industrial automation, with every component being customly built and manually installed. Considering how much of a burden on society women are currently, 2.7 million per baby sounds like a fair game, especially considering how many workplaces “baby industry” would create (inb4 “Muh Unpaid Labrrr!”).

You probably are aware that average New Zealand woman consumes unreturned 100k USD (150k NZD) in her lifetime from federal budget. I.e. this number does not include the amount of money a woman gets from her male relatives, husband in marriage, alimony and child support from ex-husband, and from her sons when she reaches older age. New Zealand is the state with the lowest gender earnings gap in the Anglosphere. We are two steps away from the point when injecting a couple million into every born baby may be cheaper than pandering to women’s consumer instincts.

Me:

"Under most circumstances, I would say congratulations, but you don’t strike me as the sort to greatly benefit society by reproducing. Ironically enough, if I remember your posts from Iamretrograde correctly, with the help of an evidently self-loathing female companion rather than a surrogate. In any case, though, I certainly wish your kid luck. They will indubitably need it. But back to the topic, As far as you know, Yoshinori Kuwabara research has been continued after his death. Really? By who? Surely someone as well-informed as you should be able to tell us.

The idea that “women” are stopping research into artificial wombs is amusing, but sufficiently silly as to be unworthy of further comment.

Lastly, in terms of price, you do seem to have a rather peculiar grasp of mathematics. A hundred thousand dollars is quite a bit less than 2.7 million, which is itself far less than what would be required to bring a human baby to term. Even if “useless worthless parasitic women” drained a million dollars away from society (a massive, massive overstatement) they would still be much cheaper than human ectogenesis for the foreseeable future.

And how would these tanks be paid for in iamretrograde’s hatcheries, anyways? Would the 2.7 at minimum million come from the government, or would single fathers and/or gay couples pay out of pocket? It’s a problem you’ll want to address sooner rather than later in order to propitiate the Libertarians among the ranks of the misogynists. You’ll also want to address the question of gay couples too, now that I think if it, considering how many men who feel the same way about women as you do tend to dislike gays much more than you do.

Mr. Manospambot:

Elaborate. Society squeezes men beyond their productive potential. Men suffer. Women benefit. I understand it. Therefore, I should not reproduce. The level of logic is zero. I mean, even Hilter thought that an artist should be sterilized only if and when they draw sky green and grass blue.

an evidently self-loathing female companion

What’s the evidence that my companion is “self-loathing”? Aside from the fact that she’s a non-feminist. Is this supposed to be bait? Sorry it took a little bit long to respond, I was making her dinner.

As far as you know, Yoshinori Kuwabara research has been continued after his death. Really? By who?

I am not fluent in Japanese. Three labs worldwide reported that they work on artificial uterus in the last 20 years. One of them switched their focus. Therefore, according to you, we won’t have artificial uteruses anytime soon. Well, at least even as die-hard people as you admit that the question is “When”, not “If”.

Even if “useless worthless parasitic women” drained a million dollars away from society (a massive, massive overstatement) they would still be much cheaper than human ectogenesis for the foreseeable future.

1) Look at women’s activism 2) Count what percentage of it consists of “More Free Shit Please” (tampons; paid period leave; federally-funded abortions; …) 3) Take into consideration that from the moment women were not “fiscally” privileged on a state level to current year, less than 90 years passed.

And how would these tanks be paid for

No idea, and I don’t care. The point here is simple - men won’t die of breast cancer if they don’t breastfeed. Men won’t die of uterus cancer if they don’t give birth. One thing women successfully pulled out of the picture is the fact that childbirth benefits women of the Global North even by itself, without all of these baby bonuses and child support and tax exemptions (the situation probably was worse 70 years ago, before enormous amount of money started pouring into researches of women’s health, which allowed to shrink maternal mortality 100 times from its “natural” level). The presence of alternative on the market will create competition. Competition will destroy the monopoly. It doesn’t mean that marriages and natural births will vanish from existence. It simply will change power balance.

Would the 2.7 at minimum million

You have deliberately ignored my cellphone analogy. Look up hemodialysis machine prices 20 years ago and now. Look up the price of the world’s first tunneling microscope.

It’s a problem you’ll want to address sooner rather than later in order to propitiate the Libertarians among the ranks of the misogynists.

There is no such thing as “ranks of the misogynists”. But it’s funny that you switch to gay men in the next sentence, since the word “misogyny” originally was used to describe “male homosexuality”. You’ll also want to address the question of gay couples too, now that I think if it, considering how many men who feel the same way about women as you do tend to dislike gays much more than you do. I don’t think about women much in any particular way. We have a problem, on the level of rights and structures, not individuals and chromosomes. I address it. Many people, probably you included, ignore it.

Me:

“ Elaborate. Society squeezes men beyond their productive potential. Men suffer. Women benefit. I understand it. Therefore, I should not reproduce.”

Under most circumstances, I’d apologize for the lack of clarity because I was posting on my cell phone (thus the spelling errors), but in this case it appears the jokes flew right over your head. So don’t worry about it.

“Sorry it took a little bit long to respond, I was making her dinner.“

‘Making HER dinner?’ Good sir, you’re not a self-abasing mangina cuck, are you? Why, she’s draining away your precious, precious time, and I assume your resources. How much time and food have you spent on her over the years? Surely more than 2.7 million dollars’s worth. How can we possibly take you seriously as a Brave Advocate for Men’s Rights if you’re allowing yourself to be exploited like this?

“ Three labs worldwide reported that they work on artificial uterus in the last 20 years. One of them switched their focus. “

Well, no, we have labs working on artificial placentas and premature birth survival, but Kuwabara and Liu’s labs were the only ones working on embryo implantation and artificial gestation. But hey, I’m sure you’ve got more news from Japan on ectogenesis. So where is it? Instead of pointing to piecemeal progress on artificial placentas and premature goat babies surviving for 14 weeks instead of 13, why don’t you show us one of those super-cheap, efficient artificial human wombs decanting perfectly healthy babies that’ll be ready for automated mass consumption within the next week or so?

“ 1) Look at women’s activism 2) Count what percentage of it consists of “More Free Shit Please” (tampons; paid period leave; federally-funded abortions; …) 3) Take into consideration that from the moment women were not “fiscally” privileged on a state level to current year, less than 90 years passed. “

Really, now? Let’s get some hard numbers on that. Leaving aside the idea that some of this “free shit” might pay for itself (according to the book Freakonomics, abortion reduces crime, meaning federal funding for abortion reduces the expense spent on prisons, for instance), just how much do you think individual women spend on tampons and, uh, “paid period leave?” Is it 5 million? 10 million? A billion dollars?

“ The point here is simple - men won’t die of breast cancer if they don’t breastfeed. Men won’t die of uterus cancer if they don’t give birth.”

Men never died of uterus cancer in the first place. Did you mean ‘women’ here?

“ One thing women successfully pulled out of the picture is the fact that childbirth benefits women of the Global North even by itself, without all of these baby bonuses and child support and tax exemptions “

The funniest thing is, all the stuff you describe was implemented to get women having more babies. Fertility rates have been dropping in the “Global North” for a while, something the right-wingers among your fellows harp on incessantly. Now, in your case, you’ll obviously blame women for being stupid and ungrateful and evil for not popping out more babies even with all these benefits, and how this is even further proof we need artificial wombs, but it ought to give you a bit of pause: If even women aren’t willing to have babies despite “millions of dollars” attempting to bribe them to do so, what makes you so certain men will be willing to use artificial wombs, especially since it’s far less likely any government will bribe them to do so?

“ The presence of alternative on the market will create competition. Competition will destroy the monopoly. “

Here’s the thing, though, a monopoly can only be destroyed if the “alternative” is at least competitive with the original. Given the humongous issues any sort of ectogenesis machine still has, ranging from expense to safety to scientific plausibility, women aren’t going to have any effective competitor any time soon, indicating their “monopoly” is safe for the foreseeable future. And on the subject of expense,

“You have deliberately ignored my cellphone analogy.”

I was kinda hoping you wouldn’t be quite so die-hard about the whole Brave New World dystopia bit, but OK, let’s play. Something tells me you’ve got a long way to go before you can hope to compete with an automator and mass-producer like Henry Ford. Pop quiz: Why do you think we can mass produce cell phones or dialysis machines? Because they’re machines which only need to perform specific, limited functions and can be constructed en-masse to the exact same standards rather than grown. You’ll notice none of this applies to human beings, who are not machines, who are not built but grown over the course of nine months, who are not either bred or constructed to a single standard (every fetus is a unique combination of genes, which presents each with a unique set of needs and problems, unlike a cellphone, every one of which is just like all the others). Do tell me how your ectogenesis assembly-lines will address even one of these issues, and which scientists today are working on it (even the guy making artificial placentas would deny his operation could conceivably be scaled up within the next few decades).

“ the word “misogyny” originally was used to describe “male homosexuality”. “

[citation needed]

“ I don’t think about women much in any particular way. “

Oh, this is funny. Absolutely hilarious, really. Sure, you totally don’t think about women any particular way, not at all! This is why you’re convinced feminism and/or women are engaged in some conspiracy to keep artificial wombs away from the rest of us, that men would build some peaceful, idyllic, technological homotopia away from the corrupting influence of eeeeevil females (this was one of your funnier posts on iamretrograde), that women are inherently violent but when men murder or beat each other it’s because they were raised by single moms, and so on, and so forth. Yes sir, you’re definitely concerned entirely and only with the welfare of men, and have no axe to grind whatsoever against women. Definitely. I believe you 100%.

Mr. Manospambot:

I’m skipping everything unrelated, sarcastic or outright off-topc.

“[citation needed]” - Hmmm, that’s weird but I can’t find it. Probably false memories. Still, your original point stays laughable. “Hah! Right-wing misogynist! Probably a racist and a homophobe too!” - I have much more problem with lesbians than with gay men. Basically, the gay movement transformed into LGBT movement that proceeded to exclude gay men because they’re “too privileged” to be considered marginalized. Humor of the situation is: male homosexuality was outlawed in many European and New World jurisdictions. Female wasn’t. In comparison with gay men, lesbians are not a historically oppressed group. In fact, my attempt to find a female punished under the law for lesbianism lead only to a handful of cases when a woman was executed for impersonating a man. LGBT community was built by gay men for themselves and hijacked by women.

Why do you think we *can mass produce cell phones or dialysis machines? Because they’re machines which only need to perform specific, limited functions and can be constructed en-masse to the exact same standards rather than grown. You’ll notice none of this applies to human beings - None of this also applies to custom unique thermoplastic parts. Still, we can produce 3D printers. Human is not a machine which only needs to perform specific, limited functions. Uterus is.*

“their “monopoly” is safe for the foreseeable future” - even as die-hard people as you admit that the question is “When”, not “If”. “a monopoly can only be destroyed if the “alternative” is at least competitive with the original. Given the humongous issues any sort of ectogenesis machine still has, ranging from expense to safety” - Google -> Birth Defects. Google -> Birth Defects and Recreational Drugs During Pregnancy. Google -> Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Google -> Causes Of Miscarriage. Female uteruses are not safe for fetuses. They are the safeEST environment currently available, but far from theoretical maximum.

“If even women aren’t willing to have babies despite “millions of dollars” attempting to bribe them to do so, what makes you so certain men will be willing to use artificial wombs, especially since it’s far less likely any government will bribe them to do so?” - In the conditions of operating Welfare State, who is the primary beneficiary of having many young adults in a country? - The state. I don’t think that men and only men will use artificial uteruses. Many women may not want to go through childbirth more than once, or even once. Also, hey, thanks for admitting that “let’s have even bigger government and take even more money away from men to throw at women, hoping that they’ll pop some babies” - does not work.

“Men never died of uterus cancer in the first place. Did you mean ‘women’ here?” - No, I mean that female body is adapted to carry the burden of childbearing and gets sick if it doesn’t fulfill this function. Childlessness is much more dangerous for women than for men. But many women keep insisting that they only give birth to children because men want them to do it, or for men, or as a part of power structure created by men, or whatever. While the top risk for men - is separation and divorce.

“Really, now? Let’s get some hard numbers on that. Leaving aside the idea that some of this “free shit” might pay for itself (according to the book Freakonomics, abortion reduces crime, meaning federal funding for abortion reduces the expense spent on prisons, for instance), ” - Freakonomics was published as a popular and not scientific book because it doesn’t hold much scientific merit. One of the debunks of the “abortions reduce crime” statement was presented by Colttaine. More than that, Roe v. Wade did NOT directly cause cuts in prison spending.

“just how much do you think individual women spend on tampons and, uh, “paid period leave?” Is it 5 million? 10 million? A billion dollars?“ - In the US, the top amount of abortions was performed in 1990 (1,608,620). The cheapest abortion is around 500 bucks. 804 million in 2016 dollars in 1990, if abortions were federally funded, and around 500 million now. If implemented, federally funded abortions on demand in the US will only add to the state’s expenses already covered almost entirely by men. Average American woman earns 726 dollars a week. In December 2014, there were over 73 million working women in the U.S. Giving one day of paid period leave per month to every working woman will cost the state 90 billion dollars yearly. Paid by men. In Britain, according to HuffPo, a woman spends 18450 pounds on her periods (in a lifetime). Covering this by the state would cost 19.6 billion pounds yearly - roughly half of expenditure on education or military. Paid by men. Benefits only women.

Satisfied?

Me:

"“ Hmmm, that’s weird but I can’t find it. Probably false memories.” What a surprise. I’d almost be tempted to wonder if most of the rest of what you say isn’t similarly made up, but I’ll be nice and refrain from doing so.

“ “Hah! Right-wing misogynist! Probably a racist and a homophobe too!” “

No, no, you misunderstand me. I can happily believe you’re actually a left-winger, or at least supportive of gay brothers and men of different races. Under other circumstances, I’d salute you for this and call you an ally. My problem with you is that your “support” for guys like me (I’m not white, and while I’m not gay, I consider myself a firm opponent of homophobia) is both based on an utterly retarded paranoia about “feminism” and mixed in with bed-fellows who’d happily see both of us hang. If you mouth the same platitudes about the evils of women I hear from right-wing racists and homophobes, you can’t blame me for being a little suspicious of your true beliefs, no matter how much you claim you’re not like those guys. Birds of a feather and all that.

“Human is not a machine which only needs to perform specific, limited functions. Uterus is.” It’s a bit tough to mass-produce a machine that itself can mass-produce something that’s hard to mass-produce. The functions of a uterus are just a wee bit more complex than the functions of a cell phone or a dialysis machine. The linked articles describe a few–providing both nutrients and immunization for the baby, pre-birth socialization, etc. etc. etc. The functions of a cell phone or a car, despite how complex such machines may seem to be, are a bit easier to replicate.

“ They are the safeEST environment currently available, but far from theoretical maximum. “ Yes, and artificial wombs are obviously and self-evidently safer. It’s totally not as if it’ll take years for all possible problems with them to be worked out. Totally not as if, say, Dr. Liu hadn’t encountered terrible problems with her fetuses (http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2005-08/artificial-wombs, “ Liu’s rodent fetus died, deformed and contorted, more seahorse than mouse, a developmental freak”) in her own artificial wombs, and that was just for mice. Totally not as if ectogenesis machines in a hospital wouldn’t be vulnerable to sabotage or even just bad luck (what happens to the incubation tanks if the power goes out?). No, no, we’ll have perfectly reliable, or even just more-reliable-than-women, birthing chambers within the next week or so. Sure.

“ In the conditions of operating Welfare State, who is the primary beneficiary of having many young adults in a country? - The state.”

The state might be willing to give a few hundred thousand (at the very most) in bennies to women for getting knocked up, but given that it’ll cost a fair sight more than that for the foreseeable future (again, you’ve provided no evidence whatsoever that costs are rapidly falling for ectogenesis the same way they are for cell phones or 3d printing), it’s a bit more of a stretch to say it’ll pay the way towards your wonderful male paradise.

“ Childlessness is much more dangerous for women than for men. “

Uh…huh. OK then, given this, why do you want men having children? If men get along fine without children when our handy-dandy biological incubators are doing the job, it seems to follow we’d do fine without children even if those children were incubated in machines.

“ One of the debunks of the “abortions reduce crime” statement was presented by Colttaine. “

Yes, I’m sure some random Youtube “mgtow” is as reliable a source as a trained economist. To be honest, I’m not entirely wedded to the ‘abortions reduce crime’ hypothesis either, but the fact that it’s plausible ought to tell us that it’s not entirely impossible for the “spending” on women to have a greater positive effect down the line. In reference to the image you posted as a supposedly slam-dunk refutation of the hypothesis, you might do well to remember that correlation is not necessarily causation. The fact that incarcerations rose so rapidly after Roe vs. Wade is not necessarily proof that abortion failed to reduce crime, because there are so many other factors which make an incarceration rate. If the number of prisoners went up by a factor of 5 in an America where Roe v. Wade was upheld, it is entirely believable that they would have instead risen by a factor of 10 or more if abortion had remained illegal. This is a debatable point, of course, but it needs to be debated, not simply asserted. Your belief that any money spent on women is axiomatically and self-evidently a “waste” is not very convincing.

“ [804 million dollars if] abortions were federally funded…In December 2014, there were over 73 million working women in the U.S. Giving one day of paid period leave per month to every working woman will cost the state 10 and a half billion dollar yearly.”

Uh-huh. So let’s say women are costing the state 11 billion, 304 million dollars yearly…hell, let’s be even more generous to you and say those worthless evil parasites are soaking up 20 billion dollars of your precious, precious resources every year. OK. So let’s see how much money we’d save if we replaced them all with artificial wombs!

According to the CDC (http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/06/17/415227138/baby-bump-u-s-birth-rate-rises), 3,985,924 babies were born in the U.S. in 2014. That number will probably remain more or less constant, but we can round it down to maybe 3.9 million babbies born in 2016. Multiply that by the 2.7 million dollars it took to incubate some sheep and, well, we get a pretty high number. But OK, let’s be super generous and assume that technology will advance SO FAST that the price for human babies will be only around 500,000 per pop. So what’s 3,900,000 times 500,000? I’ll let you do the math, but I think you’ll find the answer is somewhere in the neighborhood of a “trillion,” which, surprise surprise, is a wee bit larger than 20 billion. In 2016 dollars, of course. Don’t get me wrong, I know you’re gonna rationalize this away by saying women cost more anyways. I’d be interested in seeing how you try to do this. How can you turn 20 billion in women’s expenses into something more than 1 trillion? This is gonna be fun."

Mr. Manospambot:

Again, I’ll go backwards through your post and ignore outright trolling.

“I know you’re gonna rationalize this away by saying women cost more anyways. I’d be interested in seeing how you try to do this. How can you turn 20 billion in women’s expenses into something more than 1 trillion?” -

Oooh you mardepop, you can’t believe, YOU CAN’T IMAGINE what an easy task you presented me with!!! Gladly, in the US, there’s a legal norm that allows us to determine EXACTLY how much money women are entitled to for their mere existence, which is alimonyyy! Also known as vaginamony. And oh look I found the calculator! Based on my previous source, an average American man working full time makes roughly 41600 dollars a year. The calculator gives an estimate of 6240 lowest alimony for Maricopa county after 10 years of marriage (if the wife did not work). Average woman spends 66 years in the state of adulthood. Which leaves us with 411840 in a lifetime, which is very close to your estimate for the pop. But let’s switch to a little bit more patriarchal Massachusetts that will force us to pay 14560 dollars yearly. Or 960960 dollars in a lifetime. Almost exactly two machine-pops by your estimate. ~micdrop~ Why haven’t we estimated such numbers earlier when we analyzed budget? Because this is how much a woman costs to her husband, her father and in some jurisdictions her son, not to the state. And again, my idea is not how to get rid of smelly females and build a patriarchal homoheaven. My idea is how the fuck we raise women’s productivity above and beyond their childbearing capacity. Paying women for existence and providing women with free goods, services and assistance does not work.

“Your belief that any money spent on women is axiomatically and self-evidently a “waste” is not very convincing.” - I don’t have such belief. I believe that money spent on women IF AND WHEN said money was forcibly taken away from men under threat of imprisonment - is injustice. By definition of injustice. Want to have an abortion - take a fucking loan and stay the fuck out of my pocket. I have a wife and VERY soon will have a daughter to feed. Good women will anyway be provided for by men if we stop paying them for existence. Paying women for existence, essentially, benefits bad women over and at the expense of good women and men. This is something you people always completely forget: if we stop taking money away from men, men will spend it on women. Why? - Because this is what happened cross-culturally thoughout all of recorded human history.

“you might do well to remember that correlation is not necessarily causation” - You might also remember what Ad Hominem is: “I’m sure some random Youtube “mgtow” is as reliable a source as a trained economist”. Levitt is a manifestation of bad science. You were proven wrong, wipe your cooties and move on.

“Uh…huh. OK then, given this, why do you want men having children? If men get along fine without children when our handy-dandy biological incubators are doing the job, it seems to follow we’d do fine without children even if those children were incubated in machines.” - Where have I stated that I want men having children? Currently, we have a bottleneck for repopulation of humankind (and yes, I believe humankind to be self-evidently worthy of existence). More than that, said bottleneck narrows. I simply want it to widen. Because I believe that in any systemic analysis problem, bottlenecks and positive feedbacks are a bad thing. “Since men commit more crimes, let’s put EVEN MORE men in prisons for EVEN LONGER sentences” is a bad decision-making. “Since women make less babies, let’s throw EVEN MORE money, free goods and services at them” is a bad decision-making. “Since nothing works as intended, let’s keep doing what we were always doing, and even more” is a bad decision-making. “Yes, and artificial wombs are obviously and self-evidently safer.” - Yes they are. Because you can make 50…plets from one zygote and put them into 50 separate tanks and leave the one without pathologies, destroying the rest of them. Which is MUCH easier to do when you observe them through a glass tank rather than through a meatbag. And again, use your goddamn google; there were THREE labs that worked on artificial uterus problem. Not one that failed. Not two. Three. I’m too lazy to google that for you. Yes, okay, Helen Liu is the worst and the least competent of the people who worked on this problem, congratz, you’ve convinced me.

“The functions of a uterus are just a wee bit more complex than the functions of a cell phone or a dialysis machine” - The functions of a uterus are almost as complex as the functions of dialysis machine. Or at least as functions of a medical anesthesia circuit.

“If you mouth the same platitudes about the evils of women” - Citation needed.

My last post:

Such anger…after this I’ll let you have the last word, as you’ve demonstrated most of what I wanted you to at this point (much of this last post of mine will be directed to my audience).

Amusingly enough, you’ve responded to pretty much all of the post and all of the points I’ve raised (not convincingly, but I can at least salute your effort). Seems as if I didn’t troll too much.

“ Gladly, in the US, there’s a legal norm that allows us to determine EXACTLY how much money women are entitled to for their mere existence, which is alimonyyy! “

Yes, I thought you’d say something funny. Leaving aside the silliness of this example (not every woman receives alimony, you need to get married and then divorced first), I hope my readers will be able to discern something amusing about this guy’s worldview: It’s essentially unfalsifiable. Any evidence refuting it will be bent around or disregarded. Women don’t cost as much to the state as government-funded artificial wombs would? Make up and add in any sort of “cost” imaginable until the numbers are what you want! As I often say, that can be an amusing game to play, but not a particularly enriching one.

“ My idea is how the fuck we raise women’s productivity above and beyond their childbearing capacity. Paying women for existence and providing women with free goods, services and assistance does not work. “

Again, largely for the benefit of any of my interested friends, iamretrograde/mensquad sounds like a feminist here. I mean that literally–the feminist Shulamith Firestone made a similar argument for artificial wombs in one of her books, claiming they were necessary for female liberation. Check out her book The Dialectic of Sex.

“ By definition of injustice. Want to have an abortion - take a fucking loan and stay the fuck out of my pocket. “

Hmm, it seems this guy is one of the lolbertarian “MY MONEY MY BODY” kind of manospambots. Not really important, just cataloguing this for my own knowledge.

“ I have a wife and VERY soon will have a daughter to feed. “

A daughter, oh boy. First, for someone who who accuses me of off-topicness, you were the one who brought up your “family” first and you keep doing it even when it has no particular relevance to your argument. Second, I honestly hate to do stuff like this, since I try to avoid going for low blows or saying extremely nasty things these days–it’s an adolescent habit I’m trying to leave behind, and my friends tell me charity is much preferred to cruelty. But Lord, this guy makes it hard to do. I don’t think it’s ungentlemanly or uncharitable to express concern about the fate of his future daughter given the sort of stuff he’s said about women here and in general, really (his iamretrogradeblog was a barrel of kookiness). In any case, all I’ll do is wish your wife and daughter the very best of luck. As I said, they desperately need it.

“ if we stop taking money away from men, men will spend it on women. Why? - Because this is what happened cross-culturally thoughout all of recorded human history. “

Lol. I’d ask for [citation needed], but again, as mentioned before, this guy will portray just about anything as “men paying for women.”

“ You were proven wrong, wipe your cooties and move on. “

Fine, I’ll apologize to Colttaine. We still have a problem, though: The link you provided was a Youtube video, and you don’t provide a timestamp for when discussion of Freakonomics comes up. Briefly summarize Colttaine’s argument or at least say when he starts discussing it if you’d like me to take it seriously, I don’t want to waste 54 minutes (the video’s approximate length) waiting for it.

“ More than that, said bottleneck narrows. I simply want it to widen. “ Right, that’s great. I don’t deny an artificial womb will be good for humanity, I simply deny it’ll do much good for men specifically. They’re too inexpensive and inefficient to really compete with women for the foreseeable future…though, again, we already know you’ll rationalize any evidence away to “prove” that such machines would be a bargain no matter what, so there’s no point belaboring the point. Just clarifying my own position for my readers.

“ Yes they are. Because you can make 50…plets from one zygote and put them into 50 separate tanks and leave the one without pathologies, destroying the rest of them. “

This is politically extremely difficult, at least in the U.S. A lot of folks here, particularly Catholics, think fertilized embryos are living human beings. There’s no way they’d support destroying them, even ‘defective’ ones. Seems your Brave New World hatcheries have run into another problem.

“ And again, use your goddamn google; there were THREE labs that worked on artificial uterus problem.

Not one that failed. Not two. Three. I’m too lazy to google that for you. Yes, okay, Helen Liu is the worst and the least competent of the people who worked on this problem, congratz, you’ve convinced me. “ Ugh. Ordinarily I’d let this go, but the insult to Dr. Liu annoys me. So Let’s look at the other two: http://labblog.uofmhealth.org/health-tech/artificial-placenta-holds-promise-for-extremely-premature-infants

Dr. Mychaliska’s lab kept premature sheep alive for only one week, not much better than Liu’s efforts with mice. He’s also working on an artificial placenta, not a womb itself as a whole. The placenta can keep a fetus alive, but the uterus is necessary to “kickstart” the development of an embryo, so to speak; a fertilized egg needs to attach itself to something before it can start dividing and growing into a proper fetus. This was what Liu’s lab was working on.

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/29/magazine/the-artificial-womb-is-born.html

Yoshinori Kuwabara’s work was similar, he built an artificial placenta and holding tank for goat fetuses. They didn’t live that long, “ the doctor’s team ran into problems with circulatory failure, along with many other technical difficulties.” So no, neither team was much “better” than Dr. Liu’s.

“ The functions of a uterus are almost as complex as the functions of dialysis machine. Or at least as functions of a medical anesthesia circuit. “

No it’s not. A dialysis machine just has to purify the blood. A fully working artificial uterus has to allow an embryo to attach and start growing, and THEN provide nutrients and oxygenation, and THEN provide warmth, and THEN help the fetus’s immune system, and THEN connect the fetus to a mother’s voice, body rhythms, etc. etc. etc. The device is far more complicated, as amply demonstrated by the fact we have working dialysis machines now but still haven’t managed to keep goat or sheep babies alive for more than a couple of weeks.

“ Citation needed. “

There are a ton of artificial-womb advocates on /pol/, most of whom also advocate exterminating Jews and non-whites.

http://archive.4plebs.org/_/search/text/%22artificial%20womb%22%20jews/

Just look at some of those posts and tell me these ectogenesis advocates are decent people who just want more options for men. Maybe you’re not one of those genocidal racist lunatics, but you’ll have to put in a little more work to convince me of that. Anyways, for my readers and Tumblr followers, that link ought to demonstrate how batshit insane a lot of these ectogenesis guys are. That shouldn’t sour you on the prospect as a whole–good people like Dr. Liu, Dr. Mychaliska, and the late Dr. Kuwabara would be shocked at this lunacy, and artificial wombs could really help make births safer for women, give more options for gay couples, and so on. But it’s definitely something to keep an eye on. And that’s about all the time I’m willing to spend on this, at least for now. Odd as it may sound, I have to leave you off with some best wishes, mensquad, as well as hopes for the best for your family, who, as I said, will almost certainly need all the help they can get. This little exchange has given me a lot of material for a future post on artificial wombs I might write some day, so I suppose I owe you one. Cheers!

That's all the time I was willing to spend on him--quite a lot, I suppose, but I was entertained and I hope you were too. For a few extra lolz, here's his last word. I'll let you be the judge of which one of us was angry and blew our top (posted in the next comment):