GirlChat #541941


Re: But I am the 1% !

Posted by Markaba on 2011-October-19 22:50:19 EDT, Wednesday
In reply to Re: But I am the 1% ! posted by lgsinmyheart on 2011-October-19 06:48:03 EDT, Wednesday

  Views: 1    Likes: 0     
I suppose we should throw to the bin all the teen gay suicides, because they don't fit the theory.

I think you are waaaaay missing the point there. Moreover, I don't see how this point about gay suicides in any way contradicts my position, and in fact it reinforces my point. We are, like all (or at least most) primates, social animals; conformity is built into our genes. If this weren't so, memes wouldn't be as powerful as they are. This does not mean that conformity is absolute. We also have genetic mutations, plain vanilla genetic variance and incredibly pliable brains that hardwire as we age according to our experiences and schemas. Hence, a kid who grows up gay (or different in any way that's socially taboo) may feel extreme guilt about that and thus be motivated to remove themselves from the gene pool.

Not entirely. The size differential is biased towards the gender that has the most partners - in species that are polyandric rather than polygynic it's reversed, and I must say usually more markedly dimorphic than it is in polygynic species: see many spiders, fish and most social insects.

Yes, your assessment is generally right for humans, but is not itself a male feature, it is, so to speak, a "sultanistic" feature but the sultan can be female too.


Our focus should be on mammals, particularly primates, since animals below that intelligence level are motivated almost entirely by instinct, so size variance in lower level animal species really is not much of an issue. But even in species where the female is larger, I don't recall reading that it had anything to do with "sultanism" as you put it (this sounds like a bias specific to your ethnicity and/or religion). For example, on the Wiki page on sexual dimorphism ⚠️ ↗, it says the following:

"One example of sexual size dimorphism is the bat Myotis nigricans. In this species, females are substantially larger than males. They differ in body weight, skull measurement, and forearm length. The difference in size is believed to be caused by natural selection for a large female size due to a fecundity advantage. The interaction between the sexes and energetic needs such as time and energy required to produce viable offspring make it favorable for females to be larger in this species. Females bear the energetic cost of producing eggs which is much greater than that of the male who only bears the cost of making sperm. The fecundity advantage hypothesis 3 states, that a big mother is able to produce more offspring and give those offspring more favorable conditions to ensure their survival. This is true for most ectotherms. Another reason why females are believed to be larger is due to the fact that they provide parental care for a substantial amount of time while the offspring matures. The time of gestation and lactation is fairly long in the M. nigricans, where females suckle their offspring until nearly adult size. They would not be able to fly and catch prey if they did not compensate for the additional mass of the offspring during this time.In addition to the hypothesis that explains an advantage of large female size, it is hypothesized that smaller male size is an adaptation for males to increase maneuverability and agility. This selection for agility in flying is a helpful adaptation which allows males to better compete with females for food and other resources.
Female triplewart seadevil, an anglerfish, with male attached near vent (arrow)

Some species of anglerfish also display extreme sexual dimorphism. Females are more typical in appearance to other fish, whereas the males are tiny rudimentary creatures with stunted digestive systems. A male must find a female and fuse with her: he then lives parasitically, becoming little more than a sperm-producing body. A similar situation is found in the Zeus water bug Phoreticovelia disparata where the female has a glandular area on her back that can serve to feed a male that clings to her (note that although males can survive away from females, they generally are not free-living)."

Of course, in most lower species males and females are about the same size; it's only when you get to mammalian species where male/female differential is noticeable and relevant to our discussion. Elephant seals ⚠️ ↗ are an extreme example of what I mean here, due to the immense size difference, but the sexual power differential is relevant to a wide spectrum of mammalian species, and largely for the same reasons.

Yet, if we become a space-faring species, which is still likely, we will need warriors. Or we will be walking merrily to our own destruction.

First of all, given the resources it would require to do so, the possibility of interstellar travel is so remote that it's entirely unlikely we will ever have to contend with another species, period, much less one with both the technology and the goal of human domination requiring soldiers. Secondly, what are war machines for if not reducing casualties on our side? At that point in the future are human soldiers even necessary? Look what we can do with drones even today. Thirdly, arranging our entire species lives' around such a fantastically low possibility is ludicrous. Again, cost-benefit analysis demonstrates that the costs would be far higher than benefits.

Accumulation is a protection against waste; waste inevitably leads to impoverishing yourself and your dependants, which is detrimental to everyone. It also protects against bubbles, and while the debate is in full force in current Economics, it might be that bubbles are themselves inevitable due to human psychology - in which case accumulation is also adaptive that way.

Accumulation of goods/food for the benefit of a family or community is different than individual hoarding for it's own sake. There may even be a genetic component to hoarding more than we'll ever need, but we don't have to be slaves to our genes. At the very least we can channel this tendency towards community rather than self. Ah, but of course we are too selfish for such socialist ends, aren't we? And yet not so selfish that we can't, on the whole, overcome our baser male instincts, I suppose. Hmmm . . . So you see, you libertarians claim we're too self-centered to work together, and yet you make no such claims for the problems inherent to your position, like the fact that power vacuums like those you get with anarchies and minarchies always get filled, and usually by those you least want to have power over you--e.g. brutal warlords. And yet history shows that those types are almost never females. In fact, I can't really think of a single example (though I'm sure you will). Which brings us back to the point of this thread: male tendencies like aggression and violence. Can we overcome them? And if not, aren't we better off as a species without males?

Well, maybe we can. According to Stephen Pinker's new book, The Better Angels of Our Nature ⚠️ ↗, setting aside a few spikes (like the eras of the two world wars) the death toll due to violence has absolutely decreased (statistically speaking) from our caveman days to now. Funnily enough, that decrease is concurrent with, among other things, the rise of female empowerment. Imagine that.

Are there any hierarchies not linked to biology itself (such as male/female, young/old and arguably racism) or to inescapable economics (such as wealth storage as you mentioned) or to power itself because of power (ie, the whole anarchist conception)?

This is a bit of a red herring. You could rather successfully argue any and all human behaviors are biological. But when I speak of artificial hierarchies, I am speaking of those hierarchies which run anathema to natural traits. For example, the weaker, lazier, less intelligent pipsqueak who has more power and makes more money than you at work. Every major business has at least one of those guys. How he got there one can only wonder, and yet there he is. Without that artificial power structure there's no way he ever would've been there. He would've been dethroned long ago. This is not to say that all more naturally occurring hierarchies are good either (nor necessarily bad.) To me the issue comes down to first off whether the collective good outweighs the individual good (I think it does), and secondly, what benefits we're talking about and how exactly they play out. I consider peace and happiness to be the highest values, and my ethical philosophy flows out from there.

And if I am right, biological hierarchies are likely to reappear or survive in some way; economical hierarchies are likely never to disappear; and power hierarchies will exist as long as some people have power over another (whether or not that power is justified because of something else).

I don't buy it. There's nothing inherently valuable about hierarchies. There are lifeforms that function perfectly well without them. Therefore, evolution has no reason to continue to manifest them. Evolution tends to go with what works. At any rate, as I've already said, all this is moot anyway since controlling our own evolution is well within our grasp.

Yet the hunting mindset is not good only for hunting. It is the driving force of innovation, and as more people are driven away from working in food production and mining, innovation gains more and more importance to keep society running.

No, the driving force for innovation is need. Or, to put it more familiarly, necessity is the mother of invention. We are now near or at the point where machines can invent. Therefore, what need have we of males?

I don't think they are even today; and if they are today, they certainly are not in a timeframe of "forever".

"Forever" is not a useful time-frame to focus on, and I'm pretty sure I made no suggestions to that end.

And I think we will be able to become cyborgs before we are able to truly design ourselves completely in a 100% biological body.

(Although, ultimately, there are advantages to keeping both possibilities open.)


Entirely possible, but it amounts to the same thing for me.






Markaba


This post is archived, preventing any new replies.

Responses
0 Responses