Moose, I just have few questions for you:

1. Do you believe there is a disparity in income between men and women in the United States such that men earn more income? Do you believe there is a disparity in income between men and women in the world such that men earn more income?

2. Do you believe that men have more accumulated wealth than women in the United States? How about in the world?

3. Do you believe that a person who has more income and/or more accumulated wealth is, in general, afforded more opportunities in life?

I just want to know your opinion on those. Yes/no answers will suffice. Can you do that?

A person who introduces himself by blindly quoting a long-debunked statistic renowned for its bad methodology is going to tell me I'm unmoved by logic. Brilliant.

A person who simply cannot get it through his head that correlation does not equal causation is going to tell me I'm unmoved by logic. Brilliant.

Let's just say I'm not here to convert Nick either. He is welcome to believe in equality achieved by inequality. Notice I didn't bother pointing out or reminding him that I live my life believing in equality by actual equality, because he is just going to trot out the WOST 201 argument that I, as a man, can never truly claim to treat women equally because I'm a product of the patriarchy that gave him privilege. But exposing ignorant hypocritical nonsense is, sadly, a hobby of mine.

When you answer my questions, I'll answer yours.

With the game suffering from contracting player numbers over the past couple of years, shouldn't we all want to support anything that brings new players to the table? Because that's precisely what I see the ladies event doing, and at numbers that are growing faster than any of the open WSOP or WPT events.

Let women break their tournament cherries playing in ever-growing gender-restricted events, and help them build the confidence and have the fun they need to subsequently enter open events and grow open event fields.

Only by process of elimination. What else could it be? Men are just inherently worth more money than women? If so, then that is a product of sexism. DUCY?

You already said that, even when taking into account clearly measurable non-wage compensatory factors, the wage gap still exists and is somewhere between 4.8% and 7.1%. That's what you posted. Are you arguing with yourself now? Are you gearing up for a war with the entire discipline of actuarial science?

I don't know, but it won't have anything to do with poker tournaments. Like I said, I suspect that the sentencing gap stems from a culture of paternalism. Do you agree? If that's true, then it stands to reason that it will be eliminated when said culture of paternalism is also eliminated. I believe that can be achieved through social, economic, and political equality of the genders.

That exact same logic would bring even more new players into the game with less effort if done in a non-sexist fashion.

And so your disingenuousness is unequivocally revealed. Check and mate.

No it wouldn't. As clearly evident from the growth of the event field, ladies want to and like to play in a ladies-only NLHE WSOP event. My belief is that this event serves as a conduit for introducing more female players to open NLHE events. And anything that can grow female numbers to 10, or 12, or 15 percent of open tournament fields is unequivocally good for the game.

What? I ask for clear cut answers, you give me propoganda, then ask me for clear cut answers. How does that make me disingenuous?

What? I posted that the wage gap is at most 4.8 - 7.1%, and pointed that there are a number of non-wage compensatory factors that cannot be measured but that women are more prone to favor than men.

If a man takes $50k a year and no health plan and a woman takes $47.5k a year and a health plan, this would show a gap in wages due to women's choices, not sexism. DUCY?



Nononono, you don't get to ask me for a clear cut, non-qualified answer, and not provide one yourself.

I repeat: If 70s style feminism is relevant today, then every sex-based double standard can be solved solely by elevating the status of women. This means that you can show me how to fix the clear-cut "gender discount" that women get in sentencing solely by improving the lot of women.

So what pro-woman affirmative action program, what pro-woman legislation, or what pro-woman social reform can we institute so that women can get "equal time for equal crime"?

Are you saying the wage gap doesn't exist? Are you saying the wealth gap doesn't exist?

Are you saying the wage gap is justified? Are you saying the wealth gap is justified? Why? Are men just inherently worth more than women? Men are 4.8% - 7.1% better at jobs? According to whose standards?

Before we can really have a dialogue, we really should check and see if we're on the same page. I'm going to need you to answer those questions I posed earlier. Yes/no will suffice.

You can ask me for yes/no answers and you will get them. What do you want me to answer?

So now you're contradicting yourself. First, you say these additional non-wage compensatory factors cannot be measured, but you also say they favor women. If they cannot be measured, how can you tell they favor women? What kind of mysterious, immeasurable factors are these? The value of health care can be measured, and the increased lifespan of a woman is factored into the value of healthcare. Do you think you're the first person to ever notice that, and that the disparity in lifespan has gone unnoticed by actuaries for generations?

But that's not what happens, is it? What happens it that a man's wages and compensation, adjusted for experience (which is already unfair, seeing as how women haven't had an opportunity to get as much experience in professional level careers for as long as men have) and everything else, is higher than a woman's by 4.8% - 7.1%. Ergo, a disparity still persists, even in modern, first-world countries like the United States.

Can you please define "'70s style feminism." I don't know WTF you're talking about. As for your question, I already answered it. Sexism is unfair to women but, sometimes, it's also unfair to men. Sentencing double-standards are a very good example of where paternalism has hung men out to dry. In this case, men in power are abusing said power more forcefully against men than women, because of a culture of paternalism.

I should point out, too, that feminism has coincided with a rise in the number of female inmates. Much as women are growing as a percentage of the poker population, so too are women growing as a percentage of the US prison population. The female prison population grows almost almost 50% faster than the male population. This implies that they are getting harsher sentences than in previous decades, so it may well be that feminism's equalizing efforts are working here as well, precisely by eradicating the culture of paternalism that has existed for so long.

It's a sad truth of modern life that, with more opportunity in general, comes more opportunity to commit a crime.

Economic equality should probably be attained first. That way, women will be able to afford legal council that is just as competent as the legal council men can afford. For all you know, women may be getting punished too much in the modern legal system, because a lot of them would have gotten off altogether if they could have afforded a good defense attorney like a man could have. So, until you adjust for economics, your statistics really aren't any good here.

I say, let's work on the biggest problem first. That problem is the tremendous income and wealth gap between men and women. After that is solved, we can work on other problems, such as the sentencing gap in prisons, if they still exist at all. Do you think it is logical to tackle the biggest, most pervasive problems first? I mean, there are about 150,000 women in prison in the United States, but there are 3.5 billion women in the world facing overwhelming economic oppression from men. It makes even more sense to take on the economic problem first when you see that, as women have made social, political, and economic gains, the growth of the female inmate population has been on the rise as well, and faster than that of men. It could be that feminism is correcting this problem, and, if my theory about paternalism is true, it would make perfect sense that it would.

Either way you cut it, this has nothing to do with poker tournaments for women, and is an obvious obfuscation tactic. There's no need to discuss prison, when economics is clearly what's relevant.

[QUOTE=Nick Rivers;19688587]You can ask me for yes/no answers and you will get them. What do you want me to answer?

Can you make women get "equal time for equal crime" by instituting a pro-woman piece of legislation, pro-woman affirmative action, or pro-woman social reform?

Their equivalent dollar value cannot be measured exactly, but it can easily be measured to have SOME wage equivalent. Women are more likely than men to choose non-wage compensation factors. It seems pretty clear to me.

What is the dollar value of flex-time scheduling, which would clearly be more desirable with people who want to pay more attention to family needs? What is the dollar value of a downside guarantee? What is the dollar value of "separate but equal" in hard-segregated fields like athletics? The gender gap stat will notice the best female tennis player makes 95% of what the best male tennis player makes, and say that's unfair. How do you account for the fact that the #1 woman player is the 200th best player in the world and the 199th best player in the world, a man, makes 1% of what she does? What is the dollar value of "soft segregation" and affirmative action that gives women opportunities that an equally qualified man would not get?

.. and so on.

Like I've said repeatedly, "Attempting to achieve equal status and equal protection under the law by focusing solely on elevating the status of women". I added the "70s style" because you have self-identified as a feminist for the first time and you are certainly not the first person I've met who is capable of playing the "definition shell game", so I'm setting it out clearly.

.. and these scenarios where it is unfair to men, this unfairness cannot be corrected solely by elevating the status of women. That is my claim as to why this older school of feminist thought is irrelevant in North America as it is today.

What are you talking about? You are accusing me of making things up, then you pull this out?

Women ALREADY do the same crime and get far less time. But because they don't get off even easier, you're saying this isn't valid evidence of anti-male discrimination?

So no one should ever donate to cure prostate cancer because more people die of breast cancer? Women's cancers (breast and cervical) have twice the fatalities of men's cancers (prostate and testicular), yet get 13 times the funding! Isn't the very concept of activism to champion an underrepresented cause that affects your life in some way?

I say, let's hammer out our principles, then act in accordance with them, rather than start with a preconceived conclusion, observe only those facts that meet that conclusion, and pour endless money into problems that may not even exist.

Yes. Now you can answer my questions. Here they are again:

1. Do you believe there is a disparity in income between men and women in the United States such that men earn more income? Do you believe there is a disparity in income between men and women in the world such that men earn more income?

2. Do you believe that men have more accumulated wealth than women in the United States? How about in the world?

3. Do you believe that a person who has more income and/or more accumulated wealth is, in general, afforded more opportunities in life?

A yes/no answer will suffice.

Here are some figures from the NIH, which represents public funding into cancer research:

2008 prostate cancer spending: $290 million.
2008 breast cancer spending: $726 million.

[ ] 13 times as much.

Nice job with the fake stats, guy. I could say how laughable it is to make up totally bogus figures to support an illogical, nonsensical, dark ages worldview, but I'd rather just take a moment to say:

Nice job with the excellent reading comprehension.

[ ] Capable of basic reading skills
[ ] Introduces himself with fake "gender gap" statistic
[X] Likely a bot using Google Ad-Sense technology to skim text and randomly spew out potentially relevant sections of WOST 201 textbook.

LOL if you think the funding for testicular and cervical cancer is anywhere close to that of breast or prostate cancer. It's nowhere close. For you to be right about that 13x figure, the funding for cervical cancer from the NIH would need to be like $3.2 billion. Is that what you're proposing?

Anyway, you keep dodging the questions, and your backpedaling and amateurish distraction tactics have grown tiresome. I've answered your question, and I did it in simple yes/no fashion. If you care to keep getting obliterated by me ITT you will need to answer those questions in a yes/no fashion, or I will consider it a concession by you that your entire position is BS and you can't back it up.

You're obliterating me by showing that you lack basic reading comprehension? Okay, whatever you say.

The fact that you can't take the time to even read the entirety of my post tells me everything I need to know about your motivations.

EDIT: Pardon me, I checked my cite and found that it included the NIH's general allocation for "Women's Health", and did not include testicular cancer. I've got the NIH cite and the cancer organization cite open, am compiling numbers myself.

EDIT: Not including the gigantic "Women's Health Grant" of 3.725 billion by the NIH, Breast/Ovarian/Cervical cancer had 59,870 fatalities and 891 million in funding; prostate cancer had 28660 deaths and 290 million in funding. Giving a funding-per-fatality ratio 1.47 times higher for women's cancers. Again, assuming none of the nearly 4 billion of the "Women's Health" funding goes to any women's cancers.

Sources:
http://report.nih.gov/rcdc/categories/ (cancer funding)
http://www.cancer.org/downloads/STT/...nalsecured.pdf (cancer fatality rates)

Good to see you guys are making head way on this issue.

Next:
[ ] Discrimination against Left handed people having to play clockwise at the table.

Im glad Deeb has opened our eyes to his plight.

Just for the record, I'm not Deeb.

But +1 for the very Onion-esque satirical parallel

I work with NIH NIA and IOM grants for a living and what I can tell you about funding is that mortality rates have nothing to do with what gets funded. It has everything to do with media and public opinion. The best example I can give on this is that in 1987 roughly 1 billion went to HIV research from all funding source. Heart disease that same year had somewhere around 500-750 million in funding. HIV killed 50k Americans per year while heart disease was killing 500k. The reason was because there was money to be made in researching HIV and not so much in heart disease because people wanted a cure for the media created epidemic. in 1987 you would see PSAs about HIV on TV and they always showed a white female with a baby, never did you see homosexual or IV drug user which made up 98% of all HIV cases at the time.

So yes cancer that affect women get more research funds, because women are more in tune with their health and more vocal. Men tend to keep their mouths shut and go to work.

But none of these guys entered that tourney for such noble reasons as gender equality. They did it for their own personal jollies and are trying to angle shoot now.

I appreciate your insight. And I can't speak about the other guys who entered because I don't know their names, short of "Shaun Deeb" and "the mystery tampon card protector guy". I'm sure those two guys "did it for the lulz" and are playing "fast and loose" with their motivations for the reasons you described. That's part of why I'd like to see someone make a more refined protest like I've described in my prior post. I think the big difference is that, unlike Deeb, I have enough confidence in myself and the legal and moral 'correctness' of my position that I could make a protest and make my point without feeling the need to "put myself over" for some cheap laughs.

You would think this to be the case, but it's clear that the casino hierarchy has no interest in having any kind of discussion about this. Sabotaging the event is probably the easiest way to expose the event and actually get people talking about it.

That's the thing exactly. It pains me to admit it, but a ham-fisted, self-centered, obnoxious protest like Deeb's has provoked more discussion than a reasonable non-intrusive protest could do in a lifetime of Sundays. Which is precisely why I'm optimistic about what a respectfully polite, yet firm and steadfast, protest could do next year.

[ ] 13x.
[ ] You answered my questions.
[x] You fail.

move to politics forum?

The very first interaction we had was me correcting your ignorant urban legend about the nature of the gender gap. If "being correctly called out for misquoting a statistic" ends the argument, I ended it with my first reply. The difference is, I owned up to an honest error, explained my error, and provided citations to show that my main point was still relevant, whereas all you've done is bombard me with ignorant polemicist Woman's Studies 201 rhetoric somehow hoping to convince me that my statements about the status of women in modern day North America are invalid because of the status of women not in the modern day and not in North America.

Long ago in this argument, you claimed that all sexist discrimination in modern day North America could be fixed solely by elevating the status of women. I gave you one example and asked repeatedly how it could be fixed solely by elevating the status of women. You glibly said "yes", then without explaining how, said I failed because I didn't answer your clearly loaded out-of-context questions. Time and time again you gloss over the fact that you exhibited a sub-grade school level of reading comprehension, yet somehow this is a fault of my position?

You exhibited no reading comprehension -- and in fact, deliberately drew the opposite conclusion through magic itself! -- when I blew your urban legend out of the tub.

You exhibited no reading comprehension when I made a claim, accused me of making up statistics not more than 10 minutes after you claimed that the pro-woman sentencing gap was due to women not being able to afford adequate legal council, as if women not being able to afford better lawyers could somehow explain how they do the same crime but serve far less time.

Yes, I failed in convincing a Woman's Studies 201 spambot to not be a Woman's Studies 201 spambot. It's just as well, because if I had done that, I'd be 1/3rd of the way to officially being a saint, needing only two more miracles.

You are in every way, shape and form the very person Nietzsche had in mind when reminding righteous and just people to take care when fighting monsters and staring into the abyss. Your outdated, antiquated notions of how equality should be achieved will be, correctly, relegated to the antique bin within a generation.

The disingenuous statistic manufacturing virtually patented by you and your ilk does not hold up in the modern information age. 25 years ago, you could have claimed that women do the same job and only get 77 cents on the dollar. Today, it took me about 5 minutes to provide a well-researched citation to blow your urban legend back into the fiction bin from whence it came.

My only shame is in wasting any effort, time and energy in constantly being a more genuine and more intellectually honest human being than you, as trying to set an example for you has been nothing but wasted energy.

You may have the last word.