TB: On Hating the Opposite Sex (Huemer / Fake Nous)
Core Thesis
Gender-based hatred — whether misogyny or misandry — is a failure mode that symmetric reasoning exposes: the flaws that prompt contempt are human flaws, distributed across all people. The corrective is not tolerance but realistic expectations calibrated by the actual structure of incentives and social norms.
Key Takeaways
The symmetric observation
- "Don't hate the opposite sex. Hate people in general, including probably yourself."
- The contempt directed at the opposite sex for their failures misattributes what are actually human-universal tendencies to a specific group.
The realistic alternative
- "Don't expect people to treat you decently when it isn't in their interests and there aren't strong social norms."
- Recognizing flaws clearly is different from hatred — it is accurate calibration.
- The proper response to human failure is realistic expectations, not antagonism.
The structural point
- Decent treatment is largely a function of incentives and social norms, not inherent virtue or goodness.
- This connects to the companion piece (Wages of Sin): most people follow the crowd and their interests, not firm moral principles.
Mental Models
- Inversion — inverting gender-based contempt reveals it is really contempt for the human condition
See also
- The Wages of Sin (Huemer / Fake Nous) — the companion piece on character and crowd-following
- Human Nature and Evolution — the evolutionary roots of in-group/out-group dynamics
Source
Michael Huemer, Fake Nous (Substack), 2026 Original article