DurianJoe, you live by a beautiful principle, one that I myself try to follow. As I said, I once had a pig as a pet, and I understand they are living beings who can suffer. Believe me, I don't say "kill the pigs" as lightly as you seem to think.

But the problem is that we're not always given a choice of means that includes our ideal solution for a problem. I will always listen to suggestions from other people; but if I were there in Nepal and were trying to think of ways to save those girls from being sold, and if no one had any idea better than using the pigs, then yes, I would do it. If someone can give me an idea that is at least as good and efficient, and that will save both the 3,000 girls and the pigs, I'll go for it. If nobody can... I'll kill the pigs. I'll be sorry for them, but I'll kill them.

I don't think we're that different, DurianJoe. I think if you were also confronted with such a situation, and you were convinced that there was no other solution but to kill the pigs -- or then accept the girls' being sold into slavery -- then you would eventually also favor killing the pigs, no matter how much this decision might make you suffer as a person who wants to show and practice kindness to all living creatures.

If only our choices always included the perfect solution among them!... If only life were that simple!... But one of the hard facts of life is that it often enough doesn't include the perfect solution among the possible solutions. In fact, it's even worse: sometimes the perfect solution is available, but we simply don't know about it and, despite trying, did not find out about it in time. If later on we end up finding it... then it's remorse time.

I think you're probably right (though I'll be interested in hearing MMM himself, if he wants to share his thoughts). I think what really bothers me is that he does have some points worth making (though probably not in this tread, which should be discussing IQs variances, SAT scores, women in high-science jobs, man and women stereotyping wrt math, and how to judge statistical studies), but he defeats them by being so rude. I can also relate to the pain, since I'm a man and I've also been hurt by women (and also by men, for that matter). It's such a pity.

I am also a desk jockey myself (actually, more the absent-minded professor) who, for professional reasons, actually had to go to the "men with cut, callused hands" -- who duly laughed at me and my efforts to bond, before they realized I wasn't such a lazy chap after all and actually had some things to offer them --. Interesting experience.

they wouldn't be selling the daughters, right? I wouldn't say it takes a Westerner; it takes a person with money who wants to do that. If the money -- and pigs -- run out, they will certainly go back to doing whatever they can to survive, including selling daughters (unless other kinds of programs change their economical situation first, of course). But what's the point? When you're poor, you do what you have to do. This is like saying that, if (when) Americans run out of gas, they'll abandon their cars and go back to walking or riding horses (unless, of course, some solar or ethanol-based vehicle, or something similar, manages to become sufficiently practical, affordable, and popular beforehand). What's the point?