The first submission points to http://denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm (which has the same post with better formatting than this submission)

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This idea is dangerously embedded in society now, and it risks creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of barbarism. What possible motivation does one have for behaving in a manner other than that of an animal, if society is telling me that I cannot do so, and that any internal experience I might have of doing so is an illusion? How is it even possible to behave in a non-animalistic manner once you have internalised these ideas?

Look into the history of George Price, one of the key figures in actually developing a lot of the stuff that Dawkins popularised:

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/George_R._Pri...

The interesting part is how he spent the latter part of his life systematically giving away all his possessions to the poor in a guilt-ridden attempt to deny his own theories and to act against the interests of his genes. He eventually killed himself. The graphic method he chose to do so also comes across as an attempt to visibly deny his own ideas.

On an entirely separate note, all this talk of inter-gender differences is useless without some consideration of their scale relative to intra-gender differences.

Once you realise that the range in behaviour between members of the same gender is bigger than the difference in behaviour between members of different genders, by quite some way, this whole argument becomes a lot less compelling.

Why would you say this essay "paints us as slaves to our genes?" I didn't read it that way at all. In fact there's so much content there to discuss that I think it's really unfair to make such an unrelated generalization about the whole thing.

There is much discussion about evolutionary traits, for sure, but just because it's there as an explanation doesn't mean it's "painting us as slaves" any more than is really the case. To some extent, you must admit that people are slaves to their biological disposition. We can't, for example, stop and start our own heart at will. Admitting that for the purposes of discussion is not "painting us as slaves."

Almost seems like another round of people looking to maintain the illusion that humans are separate from animals. What was the last one we had, tool use?

It's not a uniquely human ability.

That said, what is the cutoff for determining if a behavior is instinctual or not? There's a lot of variables in play. For example, I would imagine my dog's instinct is to just jump up and snatch the treat from my hand. Does she sit, shake, lay down, roll over, high-five, whatever else I tell her to do because she knows it will get her the treat and earn favor? Couldn't this also be explained as instinct?

That is, how exactly do we determine what is "overcoming" instinct in a dog, and what is merely more complex expression of what is also instinctual behavior? We could question this equally with humans as well, except we're absolutely confident that humans have the ability of introspection, even if it's not necessarily put to good use all the time.

Edit: Let me just state I wasn't trying to be argumentative in my original response above. My "I'm on the opposite side of that" was apparently poorly-worded. I wasn't disagreeing with you, I was trying to say something orthogonal to your comment. That is, I felt like my starting assumption was that human behavior could be heritable, while the context of your comment was that some felt that is even up for debate.

I'm sorry if I'm not making this very clear, I'm frankly taken aback by the amount of furor over my comment, which I meant not as a direct response or argument to yours, but as an aside.

It pisses me off when people don't concede that they were wrong and promise to do better next time. jordan0day, admit that your simplistic argument was flawed, and vow to re-examine your assumptions.

Damn but 99% of arguments need a moderator. Startup opportunity?

In this case, we have saturn exemplifying a pure animalistic instinct of rage. You being pissed off is not an argument that helps the conversation.

Humans are not pets of society because humans are a part of society. You're trying to personalize society, in a similar way that religious freaks try to personalize the universe.

In reality, society is better understood as an emergence of many tribes working together in an economic model. Let me dumb it down:

There is a tribe of programmers. They have their own rituals, their own ceremonies, even their own drugs that they like to take (yay Mountain Dew). They are very good at controlling computers.

Then there is a tribe of people who make pizza. They are good at making pizza, really good. Well, better than most programmers anyway. They eat pizza a lot, and their life revolves around making pizza, eating pizza, talking about how different pizzas are awesome or how they suck.

Now first tribe is all like "hey, we need pizza" so they go to the second tribe and ask that tribe to make them some pizza in return for herding pizzamen's freaky computers that just get out of control all the time.

1. jordan0day was wrong and Saturn expanded on Silverstorms rebuttal in a meaningful way.

2. It would be nice if people owned up to being wrong. Especially when they're "that" wrong.

Additionally, is your second comment directed at me as well? I guess maybe you'll say it applies after what I just wrote above, but it's not like I came back and responded to these other comments wit "NO UR WRONG IM RIGHT!" I haven't been on hn for a few days, so I haven't even had a chance to respond. When I haven't made any additional comments, why is your first instinct (relevant!) to presume I'm refusing to "own up", rather than "given that jordan0day hasn't had any additional activity in this thread, perhaps they haven't read these responses yet?"

That's not unique to humans, which is fairly obvious to anyone who thinks about it for a minute. I'd even argue that it is, in itself, an instinct.

When anything overcomes instinct, it's never just for the fun of it. Animals (and we are animals, pure and simple) will often override their instinct to attack with their instinct to survive. I won't try to seduce the wife of a man twice my size, despite my primal urge to get laid because the risk outweighs the reward. Nor will a pack animal copulate with the Alpha Males females for the same reason.

There is nothing that separates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom. Humans may have superior intelligence, but we don't have a monopoly on intelligence, we just have the best kind. Arguing that humans are distinct because of our mental faculties hold as much water as saying birds are superior because they can fly. If we point to our dominance in the world as a distinguishing factor, we must then concede that we rank well below insects, bacteria, viruses etc.

Humans are pretty cool animals, but we're still animals.

What is a pet? It's a subordinate part of a larger whole. I would submit that the vast majority of men meet this description, where society is the larger group. Society demands a man gets out of bed and goes to work; against his sleeping instinct, man complies.

> a pure animalistic instinct of rage

I would like to think that my annoyance that good arguments did not seem to be carrying the day is more than dumb animal rage? If you heard a group of people agreeing that 1 + 1 = 3 then surely you'd also be guilty of an instinctive opposition. Something has to be true.

The only case where society actually does demand a man to get out of bed is jail.

Usually, a man gets out of bed not because he is dragged out like a pet but because society offers something in return -- employment, company, money, food, purpose, etc. He can stay in his bed if he really wants to, or he can choose a more flexible schedule and wake up later, or wake up earlier.

It's a system of symbiosis; the man is making a fucking choice.

Regarding 1+1=3, there are several possibilities here:

a) The people are mathematicians, they redefined symbols and are playing around -- it would evoke curiosity in me.

b) The people are children and they're getting a rise out of you -- it would evoke amusement in me.

c) The people are deluded and insane -- it would evoke sympathy.

I don't see how these possibilities require anyone to get aggressive.

Why does the man find value in what work gives him in return? Because he feels he needs those things, he can still make the choice not to get them but why would have this choice in the first place, why do those things appeal to him?

The same as how a dog will choose to jump when you train him to expect treats, he could just ignore it but someone he'll do it because treats taste good. Why they taste good is I believe something that is honed by evolution. (Same as how we like things with Fat in it. Fatty stuff taste good for a reason.)

Ridiculous. A "choice" between working and eating, or not working and not eating, is no choice at all. Hey, how about you choose to give me all your money and live, or you choose to get shot with my gun and die? Wow, symbiosis!

Thanks for providing some creative explanations for why people might propose that 1+1=3 but you have entirely missed my point. My point was that some things are demonstrable, objectively false and when people state them - as did a great grandparent of this thread - and are then thoroughly demonstrated to be completely wrong, they should have the basic decency to admit it, and pledge to not waste the group's time with such nonsense in future.

There is of course one grim possibility, which is that the OP was actually category 2 - a child, knowingly stating misinformation to "get a rise" - in which case I would really like you to both leave HN; there are plenty of sites for your lulzy trolling, it's not appreciated here.

This is not true for most of other animals.

My point is this: overcoming instinct is possible because of the way our brain is organized (this however requires some training, as we actually do in order to survive into adulthood) and because it is a positive trait.

The fact that this is not more prevalent indicates that perhaps overcoming instinct is not really that positive (the limbic system with its feelings and hunches probably helps detect cheating in a more straightforward and efficient way than deep thinking about it).

All experts in this field agree that humans inherit behaviour genetically. For example, the rooting reflex.

Good thing I did, in Australia "rooting" is common parlance for sexual intercourse. Which I suppose would also qualify as an inherited instinct.

Separate in what way from animals?

That doesn't take away from your daily experience as a human. You can still do whatever you want, day to day, year to year, not giving much thought of your genetic viability and still be a happy, healthy human being.

Just because you know how a rainbow works doesn't take away from your visceral human experience of one. (double rainbow!) In fact, I'd argue that knowing how a rainbow actually works adds to your appreciation of one.

I'm not sure about this. What I mean is that I can clearly see the logic here, but I'd love to see a discussion for instance on the continual existence of evolutionary destructive traits such as homosexuality, which by all accounts has not only been around for a great deal of human existence, but also other species.

It's possible perhaps that there are evolutionary paths that, although dead-ends, are easily mutated into and thus always present in a species...

1. Homosexuals by not being inclined to reproduce may now contribute excess resources to the group well-being.

2. Homosexuals can pick up slack child-rearing duties, e.g. in cases of orphaned children, and do so without the complications and child favoring that happens very frequently when a child is adopted by someone with his own offspring.

Furhter contributing: Homosexuality is not strictly binary, it is a combination of factors, so that those who never mate will not contribute too strong of a homosexual orientation to future generations, there are those who are bisexual or "a little gay" who can keep passing the genes that will make some portion of the population homosexual. Cultural norms of course will play in here as well sometimes being more permissive, other times not, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that there is subtle genetic idea of balance that is driving this cultural throttle to the homosexual thing.

The big thing to remember tho, is that evolution doesn't always select on individual basis, but frequently on a group basis.

NOTE: i use active words here, as if evolution has a goal, but that is just because I don't want to write like: the selection pressures sometimes result in an overal systemic balance and species or group wide advantage while at the same time resulting in some individuals with a much lower reproductive probability.

I get the bi-sexuality aspect of this, but homosexuality is much more than simply not being selective in who you have sex with. There are significant traits and brain changes in people that identify as homosexual that shouldn't be present if all homosexuality is simply the result of permissiveness in our ancestors.

While the effects of evolution can be observed on a macro scale, they are always the result of selfish genes. In other words, I'm not sure I completely buy the idea of kin selection, especially with humans. That being said it's not something I've deeply versed in.

The cornucopia of debilitating mental illnesses that we tend to suffer from implies that this is almost certainly the case, and there are a lot of things that go into this.

Regarding traits like homosexuality, it's likely that the genetic "cause" ends up so widespread because the possession of it (or of a close precursor) is not necessarily that devastating to reproductive success, and may even be beneficial when it's not expressed as homosexuality. For instance, it's pretty well established at this point that whatever predisposes people to homosexuality genetically is not the whole story, a lot of it has to do with the embryonic environment, upbringing, and possibly sheer chance, so if there are other beneficial things about that mutation (or set of mutations), then as long as they outweigh the probability that homosexuality is expressed and prevents procreation, the gene stays around.

There's a rule of thumb, "one mutation, one death", which implies that no matter how deleterious a mutation is, on average, it will cause one death (or more accurately in this case, one failure to reproduce) when it happens. Roughly speaking, this is because if it's a very mildly deleterious mutation, it will spread quite far through the population before there's enough evolutionary pressure to stamp it out, and if it's a really bad one, it will kill off the first person to have it before it spreads at all. This can be influenced by social factors, as well, i.e. eyesight problems are rectified by our building glasses, but that just reduces evolutionary pressure against bad eyesight, so we're letting it spread its (much lower) fitness penalty throughout the population.

There's an element there that I'm glossing over, which is that in a population, you have to consider the probability of recreating the deleterious mutation, too - for instance, if a trait depends on a combination of a few mutations to be present, then depending on the number and prevalence of those mutated alleles in the population, the stable percentage of people displaying that trait will change.

It may just be the case that for various social reasons, predisposition to homosexuality has not been responsible for enough of a decrease in reproduction to counterbalance the probability of randomly mixing genes in just the right way to recreate it "from scratch." This could be particularly likely if some of the involved genes are useful by themselves in other situations, and homosexuality is hitchhiking on the backs of those beneficial mutations.

It allows excess parents without having excess children. Assume your objective function is to pass along genetic material that is similar to your own. Depending on your resource constraints of your environment and how close your population is to its carrying capacity, it may be game-theoretically optimal to help raise your sibling's child, rather than produce your own. If your child lowers the resources available per child for all your immediate relatives, you would be better off trying to increase the survival rate of an existing closely-related child instead. Thus, a gene that occasionally produces non-breeders (especially if the chance is modulated by relevant environmental factors) will, when properly tuned, result in a larger number of successful children.

The bigger lesson is, look at the genetic distribution of the population, not necessarily the genetics of the individuals. Humans live in groups and interact with each other, so things that don't make sense for the individual can still work. As an analogy: doctors increase everyone's survival rate, so you want lots of doctors right? Well, no, then no one would make food and we would starve. But that doesn't mean doctors are bad, either. It means you want some percentage of the population to be doctors, and that percentage is neither 0% nor 100%.

Upon sighting a bird of prey, a meerkat will stand bolt-upright and send out a warning call to other meerkats. The meerkat that does this has a demonstrably higher risk of being eaten, but in doing so improves the odds of survival for its close family.

It's not about individual reproduction; it's about the survival of genetic material. Furthermore, genes aren't a rigid blueprint; they're highly affected by the environment and by simple chance; it's not as if "oops, this family evolved a gay gene and now all of their kids will be gay and they will all die out".

Parasites. Parasites frequently manipulate the host to change its behavior. Toxoplasma gondii, for example, is associated with a 6X increase in car crashes among human drivers. Parasites also cause variety to evolve in the host immune system and other body systems, resulting in a variety of oddball genetic variations and autoimmune disorders.

There is also an effect called frequency-dependent selection. Some gene variants are useful if you get one copy of the variant, but harmful if you get two. Evolution multiplies the useful gene in the population to the point where the good effects on reproduction balance the bad. Examples of this include sickle cell anemia (one copy protects against malaria, two copies give crippling sickle cell attacks), and the sphingolipid storage disorders (a small influence causes higher IQ, more influence causes lethal degenerative changes of the brain).

In other words, it's kind of like statistics. When I roll these two dice, I could get any combination of results. The past has no control, the future has no control. But if I take it beyond one trial, and execute many trials, I will find the system tends towards statistically predictable results.

DNA and evolution is like those statistical predictions.

Reminds me of what a friend of mine used to tell his girlfriend when she would catch him looking at other girls walking by.

"I can't fight thousands of years of evolution." :)

I am curious why people keep taking this attitude to Dawkins. And Dawkins himself was also curious why people had this reaction to his books. In his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, he says:

"We can rise above our genes, indeed, we do every time we use contraceptives."

As he makes clear, several times, in the book, our evolution allows a range of behavior that allows for more than simplistic game-theory calculations.

Personally, there were 2 main things that I got from The Selfish Gene:

1.) sometimes simple experiments, with simple motivations, lead to surprising results (or sometimes game theory models have surprising conclusions). For instance, the story of the 2 pigs was surprising -- they had to push a lever on one end of the pen to get a reward at the other end of the pen, and it turned out that it was the dominant pig who had to do all the work whereas the submissive pig got to eat most of the food.

2.) evolution is too slow to react to fast changing circumstances, so behavior was "invented" to allow creatures to quickly adapt to circumstances. The word "behavior" in this sense, is meant to suggest a range of possible actions that a creature can change without having to change its genes. Dawkins devotes a lot of time to this idea, and it seems to me this idea goes directly against the interpretation that so many people want to ascribe to Dawkins: "it risks creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of barbarism".

I suspect that a lot of people who criticize Dawkins have never actually read Dawkins.

This sentence deserves special criticism:

"How is it even possible to behave in a non-animalistic manner once you have internalised these ideas?"

Here the word "animalistic" is being used to suggest a failure of morality. There is history behind this usage, which I don't have time to get into. For now, I'll simply point out that humans are part of the animal branch of life, and therefore all human behavior is animalistic by definition.

The above sentence suggests that being an animal leads to immoral behavior. Frans B. M. de Waal has been especially good about undermining this idea:

http://www.amazon.com/Good-Natured-Origins-Humans-Animals/dp...

Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals

Kindness is also a product of evolution. Our sense of decency is also a product of evolution. To be clear about this, all human behavior has been facilitated by evolution. Our genes do not control us in a rigid and deterministic way, but our genes do establish perhaps the outer limits of the possible for us. It might be best to use the word "facilitate" when describing the effect of evolution on our behavior.

When Saint Francis of Assisi gave all of his possessions to the poor, his actions were facilitated by evolution.

When Hitler ordered 6 million Jews killed, his actions were facilitated by evolution.

When marine Jason Dunham decided to sacrifice his life to save his fellow soldiers, by diving on top of a hand grenade, his actions were facilitated by evolution.

When Susan Leigh Vaughan Smith killed her 2 children, her actions were facilitated by evolution.

When Adrienne Rich decided to write a book denouncing male-dominated family life, and when she came out as a lesbian, her actions were facilitated by evolution.

When George F. Gilder wrote a book denouncing feminism, his actions were facilitated by evolution.

What we are capable of has been facilitated by our history so far, all 4 billion years of it. This includes all behavior, including what some might regard as "good" and some might regard as "bad". But, while keeping all this in mind, it is also important to realize that we are still evolving today, still inventing the new, day by day. Possibly the pace is so slow that it is hard to see, but still, evolution is still happening, for every species on the planet, including humans. If we could get in a time machine and skip 100,000 years in the future, we would probably note the emergence of many new behaviors in the human line.

  converse

There is an important subtlety with social groups: a trait that decreases the likelihood of an individual's reproduction may increase the likelihood of the group's reproduction. For instance, worker ants have near zero probability of reproducing, yet they highly increase the likelihood of the group's (colony's) reproduction.

But claiming that mutation and natural selection alone explains ALL speciation and ALL behavior that we observe today is just a simplistic position, almost an article of faith. How do you know there is no other factor involved? How do you know no other process WAS involved in the past?

We don't. So far as I know, we have never observed macro evolution taking place in recorded history (although I would be happy to be shown wrong on this point), so what actually causes speciation is just speculation at this point.

Common descent is one thing. "Evolution" is a loaded term. What does it mean?

It's a bit like the people who claim that the Bing Bang Theory describes an explosion in the first seconds of the universe. Actually, the BBT just extrapolates backwards from what we observe today -- which is that the visible universe is expanding, and there is microwave radiation at its edges. How do we know there wasn't some other process earlier in the real universe, which would make our extrapolation completely erroneous? How do we know that the universe isn't infinite beyond our visible universe? Every year objects disappear further beyond the light horizon, due to the expansion of space. Who knows hoc much lies beyond that? And yet people talk about "the universe had a beginning" ... how do they KNOW?

Okay I just wanted to throw a crazy idea at the end: Maybe our universe is like a reverse black hole, with a singularity at the edges instead of its interior. Meaning that just as gravity increases as you approach the singularity in a black hole, so the universe expands faster the bigger a "sphere" you take in it.

We have observed macro evolution countless times in bacteria and viruses. It's not even difficult.

I'm not sure why you'd call Evolution a loaded term in a scientific domain. It's clearly loaded in politics these days, but it's a very clear and celebrated theory with sharp and validated predictions in scientific domains.

You're somewhat right in the statement that BBT extrapolates from data observable today, but due to the nature of the universe, data observable today provides evidence that is not fully localized in time. We believe that the universe is infinite beyond our light cone because if we make the minimal possible assumptions on the net geometry of the universe you end up with three choices, each having to do with the sum of the angles in a very large triangle. We measured this triangle (see WMAP) and found the angles to be very nearly 180 degrees corresponding to a flat, infinite universe. So long as we have no compelling reason to invent more exotic geometry (which if GR holds would require some rather incredible momentum-energy that we haven't observed --- all possible, but very, very exotic) then this is a safe prediction.

BBT theory doesn't even describe an explosion anywhere. There wasn't something to explode in to. It instead suggests that the invariant metric has been expanding throughout the lifetime of the universe making things grow further and further apart. It's unclear that there wasn't more exotic behavior in there again, but without evidence of it, the best prediction is the simplest prediction.

I could go further into how we KNOW things and why that's not really a great way to think about it, but this is already grown long. But if you want your crazy idea to be meaningful at all, please specify it formally enough so that it predicts something about the shape or behavior of the universe different from current theories and then see if that prediction holds. Without at least claiming a prediction, it's difficult to even begin to understand what a crazy idea might mean.

Regarding bacteria and viruses: that's micro-evolution, isn't it? Why is it macroevolution?

2) Regarding the BBT: so why do people think there was a "big bang" and talk about the "first few seconds of the universe" if the universe is probably infinite, and it is only the visible universe that we see expanding?

3) I don't know, I'm not a physicist... seemed like an intriguing way to think about the expansion though

Evolution doesn't claim to explain all changes, just the "force" which causes populations to grow to resemble the units of the population which are best selected for in later generations. It, for instance, doesn't explain eye color either; there isn't sufficient reproductive pressure to affect those aleles. Eye color requires understanding of DNA and the structure of our genetics to begin to make sense of.

Microevolution and macroevolution are the same thing at different (orthogonally arbitrary) scales. The appearance of a significant difference occurs under strong selective pressure or differential selective pressure leading to punctuated equilibria or genetic splitting, but really it's just a matter of sharp changes of a smooth parameter instead of actual categorical differences.

---

Because there were presumably first few seconds of the universe. The cosmic microwave background radiation is a picture of these first few seconds when everything was closer together and thus interacted strongly! The resolution to this conundrum turns out to not be tied to the finiteness of the universe but instead the astounding fact that if you fix two objects in space the distance between them will still grow (very slowly) with time.

---

I'm not a physicist either, so I avoid seriously proposing strange theories of cosmology. It's gotta be pretty equivalent to having a manager ask for some new feature assuming it'll be trivial to build.

If you create a more complex model that includes more factors than mutation and natural selection and it is able to predict reality better than one that only includes those factors then you win. As it turns out, people have by using more complete understanding of the actual mechanics of human genetics, but a rough and basically accurate picture can be painted without invoking those mechanisms.

That "mostly accurate" picture is where most people stop when they argue "for evolution". It's a fantastic rule of thumb.

Isn't it the fact that our behaviors all have an evolutionary basis, including e.g. the desire for a human male to sleep after sex? Each of these gets its specially concocted rendition of the narrator's fantasy -- e.g. "so that the women could get away more often after copulating".

I find this to be completely unscientific and wonder what falsifiable predictions these theories make. I mean the ones that imply that everything can be explained simply in terms of "evolution" by mutation and natural selection.

I'm not sure of my scientific history here, but I believe one extraordinary falsifiable prediction drawn from evolution in its earlier days is that there should be some common structure of generational information between almost all living things, a prediction which the discovery of DNA clearly validated.

To be honest I didn't remember a lot of my gripes off the bat when I wrote it, but a big one is the gratuitous use of evolutionary psychology by all armchair theorists and their book writing moms these days. How is that religious? They take any sort of human behavior and start speculating evolutionary reasons for it purely in terms of reproductive fitness, because in essence they are saying it all boils down to mutation and natural selection + it must be super simple. WHY?

Science doesn't work this way. "Unless you have some truly spectacular competing theory, I'm just gonna use empty speculation to explain why people have non-advantageous trait X, because we know that mutation and natural selection take place". It works by making falsifiable predictions. What falsifiable predictions do armchair speculators about tiny human behavior make? Do they test them?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zv7b-KPg9hY :P

Here is one that I remember was posted by a friend of mine on facebook. Note the empty speculation at the end. Really, narrator? Just because you have a British accent we should implicitly accept that assertion?

It turns out, unsurprisingly, that all human phenotypes cannot be explained by naïve evolutionary biology but instead require more genetics and biochemistry to describe. Consider the specifics of eye color: evolution does not specify this feature, so a theory which goes above evolution (not contrary to what EGreg is asking for) is necessary to predict this phenotype. We're just more complicated than that.

This is a rebuttal to using pure evolution to model the shape of human physiology that doesn't introduce religion.

[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html

But isn't that exactly what the author is suggesting? That the within-group variance tends to be higher in men than in women, even if the differences in averages between the groups are not significant?

We already ARE barbarians. Figuring out the cause does not suddenly make us so.

Plenty of people believe in equality but have trouble following through. Figuring out our impulses will only help us understand and control them better. (e.g. genetically-caused discrimination has been countered in many parts of the world by the brainwashing of "equality" memes)

People are not rational! This is demonstrably true. Even if they were uber-rational, they never have enough data about the world to make useful rational decisions WRT maximising gene propagation through strategic altruism.

It is very telling that this modern notion whereby every time someone acts selflessly towards another they are in fact acting with laser-precise logic in their own interests was developed by the RAND corporation at the height of 1950s/60s cold-war paranoia.

That is, our behaviors may be influenced more by our instinct than our reasoning. Our instincts are the result of a random exploration process where only certain strategies could win. Rational reasoning is not required.

As to your point, while I would not assume people are strictly rational it’s important to understand the transition points where rational behavior becomes destructive for society. Not because everyone acts in a strictly rational fashion but rather because there is a tendency for the average individual to do so. for example corruption often links to both the benefit and the risk of being corrupt and enforcement is far more important than what's in the books. IMO, the most important insight is given a large population there are usually several productive approaches that tend to balance over time.

PS: If you think about it Sociology and Psychology are considered separate disciplines for obvious reasons. But economics is plenty complex to avoid being merged with Sociology because how you exit a burning building is only peripherally related to which brand of soda you buy.

Secondly, our instincts do delegate perceptual control to our intellectual selves: e.g. if we can work out who the bad guy is, our anger is directed at that person. We can even talk ourselves into all sorts of things! Though we have no choice in having instincts, we have great influence in applying them.

That's something I don't understand.

What does a paradigm useful for understanding biological systems have in common with human society? I'm not saying that human society isn't a biological system. I'm saying that extending an abstraction suited for understanding and explaining how and why genetic evolution works, to the complex intricacies and dances of human society is like trying to use ohm's law (a very useful, proven and beautiful abstraction) to make a video game.

Sure, you can predict how the amount of current flowing per unit potential difference will change as the wires get thinner, and you can understand how transistors work to a certain point, but you won't see what that processor actually is and does. You'll miss the several layers sandwiched between this abstraction that video game. Layers built on top of each other, creating a richer set of knowledge, tools in the process.

I think that we have jumped the gun several times in this regard. Take the entire glorious soviet communism vs. Ayn Rand-ian capitalism. They are in fact different from the predecessors in the idea that they separate the producers and the consumers using something called the market, but they differ on how that market should be run. Before you launch a debate, I'm not saying that one is better than the other. It's just that both of them are economic theories talking about different ways to run a market. What on earth do they have to do with raising children? Or, our actions as human beings?

So, yes Dawkins is right and so was Price, but they explained how biological systems worked. Not how human society ought to, and must be forced to, work. If people were indeed such beings then the financial crisis wouldn't have happened. This article wouldn't have been written.

I might be wrong over here, but I really think that this born from a mistake of finding ways for humans to be perfect. I really think that this search to portray humans as rational beings, or beings that are genetic machines (note the implicit association with precise perfection we have in our mental models) is a product of human chauvinism. This is in a bizarre way the product of our quest to make ourselves special.

We aren't that special. We're flawed and it's okay, and I think that it's about time we as a species moved on.

well, actually most of "behaving like an animal" is only done by humans and such behavior can't be found in the animal kingdom. Calling it "like an animal" is a typical hypocrisy of humans.

>human beings as nothing more than meat-based mechanisms for storing and transporting DNA.

yes, like any lifeforms we know.

>This idea is dangerously embedded in society now, and it risks creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of barbarism.

Blaming society, ideas, whatever ... instead of taking personal responsibility is a human species trait that, i think, will either have to disappear or it will take the human race down (it wasn't that important before, when Mother Nature held your personally responsible for your actions, yet with technological growth and power wielded by individuals and small groups over highly organized masses of humans it becomes an extremely dangerous trait - i think the 20th century was a nice preview of the future and the WW III is going to be an interesting exercise).

It would take quite a bit of evolution to expel those 'stabilizing' parts from Humanity, if it ever happened. Some people are genetically more likely to be generous, in certain conditions, and others are more likely to be selfish in those same conditions. Change the conditions, and change the probabilistic response. Those types of genetic probabilities keep the chaotic system stable.

The probability of action in context probably fits like a normal curve. Its a balancing act of some flitting genes moving around a median point equilibrium.

I'm making all these assertions from my intuition, of course.

This is getting new-agey, but selfish promotion of our genes would logically include helping all mankind, since we share many genes (of course, we'd have more reason to help those more closely related); then, to similar species such as apes, then to mammals, then animals in general, then plants - which we'd prefer over rocks. All based on genetic similarity, of ones own genes helping other instances of itself. Which does seem to fit in which the attitudes of most people.

1. It doesn't. 2. What's wrong with the gene-centric view of human nature?

There is a collection of book citations (rather than links, mostly, so far) in Wikipedia userspace.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WeijiBaikeBianji/Anthropol...

I'm amazed how neglected most of the best scholarly sources are in online discussions of these issues. The linked Wikipedia user subpage has a suggestions page (its "talk" page) for suggesting further resources, which would be helpful to participants here on HN.

> The problem with this essay is that is paints us as slaves to our genes

The problem with your comment is that in the very first sentence it makes a huge assumption that we are not slaves to our genes. Compelling arguments may well be made otherwise but not by some attempt at an "appeal to assumed general knowledge" for want of a better description.

The other obvious problem is that societies which played into the competitive heirarchy were only successful for some weird definitions of successful. If the Mongol empire is your idea of success, you have some crazy ideas about success, because the empire flared up and disappeared within 100 years, leaving Asia in ruins. On the other hand, the British and their methodical boringness not only conquered the world but lived to tell of it, and they did so largely by exploiting the willingness of less organized and "fair" societies to turn on each other -- how, precisely, did the tiny island of Britain conquer all of India (which had 20 times as many people)? Mostly because the Indians of the 19th century were backstabbing assholes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_and_Rule

And how were the British kicked out of India? Well, by none other than some pacifist self-sacrificing guy named Mohandas Gandhi.

To make a long story really short, the British did ridiculous amounts of good in their colonies.

For instance, eliminating the Thugee strangling cult:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuggee#The_practice

They also ended a lot of cannibalism, human sacrifices, completely ended the worldwide slave trade, eliminated piracy, brought rule of law, built infrastructure, brought science and the scientific method, eliminated cults, ended rituals of widows burning themselves on their husband's funeral pyre, eliminated kidnap/rape/murder cycles in many of their possessions, brought sanitation and education, and... just tons of good. Overwhelming amounts of good.

The Empire was lost largely out of a sense of guilt and an unwillingness to take the actions that would have preserved it - pretty much any individual uprising could have been crushed if they'd decided to (including the American Revolution - see Ron Chernow's "Washington - A Life" for just how easy it would been for the British to end the whole thing at Boston, New York, or Valley Forge at various times).

Hindu culture was not going anywhere, it desperately needed an injection of rationality and a forced demonstration of good government. India is on a very good path now and it owes most of that to the British. The British used raw force to reform Indian culture away from degenerate, irrational religious fatalism toward a progressive, modern approach to life.

Anyway Indian culture today is unrecognizable compared to pre-British India. The most important part of culture is the approach to law, property, government, and individual rights, and these are the fruits of the British Empire in India. Underestimating these crucial factors is very easy now that you are reaping their benefits. India today would look like Somalia if it wasn't for the Empire.

In 19th century India the British really did reform the savages. They ended wife burning, vigilante decapitations, cannibalism, among other savage but accepted cultural norms. They significantly curtailed the systematic corruption, clarified property rights, introduced representative government, paved the way for social mobility, and are really solely responsible for the slow turning away from pernicious Hindu mysticism -- which is the bane of civilization. Hindu mysticism is really the most damaging kind of irrational religiosity on Earth and causes tremendous suffering and poverty.

The Brits were surprisingly generous given their global hegemony. It is easy to argue that the American Empire is more exploitative and uncaring with respect to their colonies: and the American Empire is less powerful today thanks to the liberalizing influence of the British who themselves foresaw independence for every colony, often before the colonies did. The positive effects of Rhodesian foreign policy should not be underestimated.

It's popular to hate Empires but there really is nothing romantic about cannibalism, institutionalized irrationality, rigid caste systems and all the other savage cultural features of many parts of the world before the age of sail. For all the faults of the British, we often forget just how good England and her colonies had life in comparison to the alternatives.

The India of today would be unrecognizable from British India. Many former British colonies in Africa continue to be only slightly better than Somalia. You are giving the Raj too much credit.

Wiki doesn't agree:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Raj#Technological_and_e...

>India's per capita GDP decreased from $550 in 1700 to $520 by 1857, although it had increased to $618 by 1947

I'm not sure whose dollars those are... but it certainly doesn't sound like the Mughal empire ever controlled anything remotely approaching 30% of world GDP. Here's how the British won India, for reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Plassey

750 European soldiers and 2100 sepoys defeating 53000 Indians speaks volumes about the latter's ability to organize.

these early wins were against muslim rulers who did not have that much support of their majority populace because of taxation issues and also suffered from lost revenues due to the new trade routes.

the hardest wars were against the hindu/sikh rulers - marattas, rajputs and sikhs who were not subdued until 1850s with great effort.

Do you know what another regime is that had a legendary ability to organize? NAZI GERMANY.

Hitler put the minorities in gas chambers.

England invited minorities to Oxford and taught them everything they knew.

Uh, okay, so... I'm bad at explaining things, because that is the point of what I wrote about the British. The British were successful not by being cutthroat but by being fair. The author characterizes such 'cooperative' strategies as ineffective, and says that they don't tend to succeed:

>The essence of how culture uses men depends on a basic social insecurity. This insecurity is in fact social, existential, and biological. Built into the male role is the danger of not being good enough to be accepted and respected and even the danger of not being able to do well enough to create offspring.

>The basic social insecurity of manhood is stressful for the men, and it is hardly surprising that so many men crack up or do evil or heroic things or die younger than women. But that insecurity is useful and productive for the culture, the system.

>Again, I’m not saying it’s right, or fair, or proper. But it has worked. The cultures that have succeeded have used this formula, and that is one reason that they have succeeded instead of their rivals.

The Empire had lots of 'morality' and 'fairness' provisions that the societies it conquered did not. It could be said that this sense of fairness led to the loss of the Empire -- but Britain is arguably better off now than 80 years ago, whereas Mongolia is... not rich.

See link below regarding "two speed economies" in which resource booms can actually have a negative structural impact on production.

http://www.treasury.gov.au/documents/1421/HTML/docshell.asp?...

But saying only that To make a long story really short, the British did ridiculous amounts of good in their colonies. is VERY simplistic. No sentence describing the British empire should start with "To make a long story short".

No, it's not. By pretty much any reasonable metric, the British Empire has contributed more net good to humanity than any other nation in history.

Plenty of bad, too. But overwhelmingly more good than bad. Much of the good is taken for granted until you realize all the mess they cleaned up that isn't talked about. In a number of their African wars, they were destroying cities that had altars of human sacrifice where the blood was made to keep wet - constant non-stop human sacrifice. I forget the chief's name and Wikipedia isn't helping me, but he claimed credit for over 180,000 sacrifices before losing to the Empire.

The Boers are interesting. I kind of sympathize with them a little philosophically as rough individualists, but they were nasty motherfuckers as well. Brutal slavedrivers and merciless during ambushes in wartime. Again, I've actually got quite a bit of admiration of their good points and they were tough as nails, but they could really be sick bastards sometimes. (I think most of their modern descendants would say that's a fair description, and might even smile at it.)

This is before even getting into all the science, culture, law, engineering, infrastructure, and technology that British culture fostered. Yes, they did more net good than anywhere else in history. That's not even a particularly bold statement to make.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Charles_Trevelyan,_1st_Baro...

In Ireland this man was responsible for administering famine relief, and I respectfully disagree with your contention. Perhaps he felt he was doing net good. What he then felt he was doing and what he actually did are different things. He changed his mind later on, but his policies are believed to have lead to the death of over one million three hundred and eighty five thousand Irish.

I would suggest that picking a specific example -- a whoppingly large example, in this case -- is a very good beginning of a counterargument.

Lionhearted saying "here is all the good that happened" needs to be weighed against a reasonable summation of all the good that would have happened. And a "here are all the bad things that happened" likewise should be totaled against the bad things that would have continued to happen.

They're both very, very hard positions to make briefly.

Opposing viewpoints are not hard to find if you actually take the time to look. See Mike Davis' Late victorian holocausts and the making of the third world which I think is the best explanation of why the differences between east and west are now so great.

Or R.C.Dutt's "Early economic history of the british empire". It's seriously astounding how much money was funnelled out of India and used to build modern Europe and America, while the native Indian industry was killed off.

All this makes the British PR effort entirely justified of course.

Indians came across the 3 monotheistic religions in reverse of order of their birth and their ethos being completely different from their own, did'nt realize their aggressive nature - India had become pacifist since the time of Buddha and Ashoka. By the time the british came, India had already been weakened by the Muslim rules which itself had fallen out of dominance because of new trade routes. So India was doubly weak and this allowed the British to use their resources to easily win and weaken India even further.

The fact that a few Indians were able to leverage the internal dissensions within Europe to their advantage gets very little coverage but was the real story of how the course of history was overturned.

That's odd - I grew up in Scotland and our history lessons were mostly about how bad the British empire was and how evil our imperialistic ancestors were. We weren't taught anything about the instilled systems of law and governance, the ending of the slave trade, the breakthroughs in science and engineering, etc. - I've discovered all these things afterwards, by myself.

Generally speaking, I would say that the majority of the British public have a negative view of the empire and are pretty much blind to the fact that it did a lot of good as well as harm.

But the whole fascination with idol and temple breaking which Indians can't fathom about Islam turns out to have its origins in the Judaic story of the golden calf.

The example I gave shows starkly their attitude towards those they subjugated, and if you go to the wiki linked, you will see it was a popular viewpoint. It's an effective example exposing the views popularly maintained by those holding power in the Empire. How can people holding these views do more good than harm, overall?

A famine on the doorstep of a superpower is not forgiveable, no amount of scientific progress or engineering prowess can forgive it. Many of the things they credit themselves with improving they initially instigated and promoted, e.g. opium trade, slave trade, penal colonies, regional wars arising out of 'divide and conquer' tactics. They were not a civilising force.

When discussing Alexander the Great we talk about how he spread Hellenistic culture and gave rise to western civilization. It doesn't turn into a flame war about how many Persians he killed, or how many slaves he owned.

If we judge historical cultures by modern standards none of them would come out smelling like roses.

From an utilitarian point of view, correct.

Name one.

Thats complete bullshit

1)In 1650 the Indian per capita GDP was more than 80 per cent of the British level, by 1871 it had fallen to less than 15 per cent.They did this by completely destryoing the indian cottage industries by westernized machinery. http://www.cepr.org/pubs/new-dps/dplist.asp?dpno=8007

2)So they were not just content with taking all the money....they also wanted to starve people to death. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_India

3)The british rule was very racist too.Indians were not allowed to travel or dine in the same places as the British.They called us "dirty kaffirs".

4)Even when these motherfuckers were leaving coz they got fucked in WW2 and did not have any more money to rule India(by then the british had sucked all the money from India anyways) they seperated the country into India and Pakistan based on religion."Estimates of the number of deaths range around roughly 500,000, with low estimates at 200,000 and high estimates at 1,000,000" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India#Perspectives

1) The British GDP increased dramatically with the (British-led) industrial revolution, regardless of any effect the British had on India. Comparing the two and claiming that it is entirely due to Britain's involvement with India is ridiculous.

2) Famines have a long history in India. During the British-led period, they were particularly bad. However, the strong system of government instilled by the British did pave the way for an organised, united Indian government that heaped resources into agricultural research in the post-war period.

3) It's not just British people that are racist. That's a feature of almost every culture and society. This is pretty much beyond dispute - take a look at the Indian caste system, for example.

4) This was done pretty much at the insistence of contemporary Muslims and Hindus. That it was done poorly is not disputed - that it is entirely the fault of Brits is a ridiculous proposition. India and Pakistan have been free from British rule for decades - there doesn't seem to have been any increased tendency for detente and diplomatic relations now that the British are inconsequential, does there?

You are also completely ignoring any effect that British rule had outside of the Indian region, aren't you? British ships were instrumental in stopping the slave trade in Europe, and British rule brought all kinds of scientific, engineering and medical progress to countries that, at the time of arrival, were still practising human sacrifice and had life expectancies in their mid-30s or younger. I think that you have a rather one-sided view on the matter.

1. There is a much bigger correlation with India than you suppose.

You can a. build universities and schools to train people b. create favorable tax and corporate structures to foster industry c. capture markets to make a and b and c into a positive feedback loop that makes rapid advancement possible.

Guess which of these is the hardest. It is c - having a captive market. The british captured the Indian market through money and cunning and proceded to systematically weaken then denude native industry then force export their own goods under the pretext of governance. The ratio of manufactures turned from something like 4:1 in India's favor in 1800 to 1:4 by 1900. This entire period was the one of greatest growth for the industrial revolution and it was in fact financed by India. As a french guy wrote, even if the french lost the war to the brits, it was beneficial for europe as this arrangement reduced the cost of development for all of europe. There was no capitalism or industrialism in the west before the Brits came to India.

2. There is no simply comparison between famines under the British, where supplies were not sent out even though they had control of them, and instead levies on starving peasants were increased 10% year over year and famines before and after. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1770

3. It has become standard practice in the west to use the caste system to whitewash British exploitation. Fact is British rule made the situation for the poorest in India much worse than it had ever historically been economically. Poor people could'nt even buy salt which was monopolized by the British for almost 200 years. This salt tax which Gandhi nonviolently protested against was not repealed until the British were kicked out of the country.

4.There was a popular election in 1939 which Jinnah lost even in muslim majority provinces in India. When Nehru tried to pressure the British to leave, Jinnah took the opportunity to get the Queen's support to launch a party which never got even the Muslim popular vote for a new country in the name of Islam. Hindu-muslim is kind of a false label for what actually happened.

Nothing against the British really - they took advantage of history when it was in their favor. It's just the false propaganda that they were somehow hugely beneficial for India that needs to be called out, something which has become truth by sheer repetition.

1. Well, I don't necessarily agree that your point c. is the most difficult and I would guess (without knowing) that in many countries the proportion of British-made goods increased dramatically during the 19th century. Is it possible to explain any of the growth in manufactured goods in terms of increased quality, reduced price, improved shipping and transportation and a large immigrant population with massive comparative economic power?

I also disagree with the implication that industrialism and capitalism in the west are purely due to GB's exploitation of India. I'm certain that the influx of money and goods from India to GB helped. I find it beyond reasonable to claim it the sole cause. Britain was already a strong (the strongest?) world power before it became dominant in India.

2. Yes, I agree. The British did the same thing in Ireland. However, as with slavery, the empire seemed to learn from its mistakes and had reversed this inhumane policy towards the end of its life. British rule did unite an historically divided country and thus set the course for a country that looks to ascertain status as an economic superpower today.

3. The fact is that all around the world, being a peasant during the 18th and 19th centuries was awful and that it is only in the last 20-30 years that we have come to understand and abhor racism - in fact, in most countries, that statement is still not true. Blaming the British Empire for racism is misleading - racism wasn't a particular trait of the empire. You'd as well blame the empire for female subjugation. It was specifically bad in India because India was in a unique situation as having a mix of ruling whites and a large population of native peoples, but it could have been worse. See, e.g., America of the same time period.

4. My point was that the division between India and Pakistan was not something that could be laid solely at the feet of the Brits as the OP seemed to do. I accept that it is simplistic to label the divide simply as Muslim-Hindu.

I wouldn't claim that the Brits were hugely beneficial for India. I would claim that they were not entirely negative and that there was some good to the empire as a whole. I'm not regularly exposed to points of view that see the empire as a positive anywhere - quite the opposite, actually. In my part of the world, the empire is viewed as a terribly shameful, hateful thing (something the OP seemed to claim) and I disagree with that.

the other cause which you I'm sure you're thinking of is better systems of writing, publishing and central system of goveranance - I'd agree with you there that european systems were better at the time. having said that europe as a whole was'nt that far ahead of india/china before colonialism began.

2. India was politically united in 300BC, about a 1000 years before the UK was in 700A.D. Hugo Grotius in discussing international law around 1600 talked of India as a single entity. the muslim empire around 1600s still had India politically united. culturally and even linguistically India has always had great inherent unity - contrary to the image sometimes portrayed in the west. India was not united by the British - they divided into innumerable princely states and sundry other divisions. It was Sardar Patel who united India after its independance despite all the efforts of the British for the opposite effect and hopes of getting India again once they were out of bankruptcy dues to WW2. You cannot grasp this until you read history of that period very carefully. America helped a bit - basically out of its own selfish motive so that the markets that were captive by the British would open up for itself.

Anyways thanks to Nehru and Gandhi most Indians (at least middle/upper classes) don't have much sting left of the British period of history. Different parts of the world that used to be apart were joining together and there was upheavel that accompanied it which could be expected. But the continuing pain in the peasants and less fortunate classes is very real. Nehru in his biography penned the feeling of loss that Indians feel when they visit America and see how rich it is- and wondered if India would not today have had a sunnier disposition if the British had not turned things so much upside down once they gained political control. He also thought that the loss of American colonies made the British even more vengeful in India, which I think is true.

All that does make it hard to hear the narrative of how Indian success owes itself to British - I mean wow, that really takes the cake does'nt it.

What do you think happened between when they landed and when they left? They landed as traders; they took sides between the warring kingdoms and sultanates for access to markets. They just played on the differences for their own gains - divide and rule. Read about the Partition of Bengal. This was the modus operandi of the empire everywhere: hindu v muslims in India, catholics v protestants in Ireland, muslims v jews in Palestine.

>When they left, they left a united India. Those are just cold hard facts that cannot be argued with - India may have been politically united in 300BC, but it sure as hell wasn't in 1700. At the bitter end, if the Brits had really, really wanted to leave India divided, it would not have been a difficult thing to accomplish.

Well they did not try to leave it united. The British never had direct control over all of India. Many regions were under direct rule, many still under princes. It was the Indian political will, after independence (and after the India-Pakistan partition), which united India in to a whole. India did not become a Republic until 1950.

Let me close my argument by asking you to read a document that warned of British intentions to the Americans just before the American revolution - Common Sense by Thomas Paine. All the things he warned America about the British crown came true for India, whereas America which was also not united at the time - there were more loyalists than revolutionaries and many different colonies - got the warning in time and got its unity and independance early on. India was not so lucky and did not discern the threat or receive this kind of explicit warning and suffered for it.

There's no bias there, I am clearly stating facts from the Indian perspective not some utilitarian world good perspective. In case you believe in that perspective, the question to you is why America chose not to continue being a British colony.

As far as unity argument, like I said the history of the time has to be examined carefully and it turns out to be false as far as British intentions and actions went. Churchill said was no more a country than the equator for example. Also why UK been so opposed to EU and unification in its own backyard.

here's a reference on internal tariffs from R.C.Dutt since it is very hard to locate online.

"The transit duties became more oppressive under the British Rule than they had been under the Nawabs. For the Company's power was more far- reaching, absolute, and undisputed, and each low- paid officer, at each Chowki or toll-house, had the means of exercising greater oppression. The evil grew without cessation for sixty years, and as late as 1825, Holt Mackenzie, then Territorial Secretary, condemned it in the strongest terms. " ..

"But Holt Mackenzie spoke to deaf ears. The East India Company would not willingly sacrifice even a re- venue of ;!{^2 2 0,000, or any portion of it, for the prosperity of the internal trade of India. Professing the utmost anxiety for the material welfare of the people of India, they were unwilling to sacrifice a shilling to promote that welfare. If the abolition of the Inland Duties had depended on the East India Company, the duties would never have been abolished under their administration. "

Are you a Bond villain?

However economics is not a zero sum game. I'm not adversely affected if Asia's economies grow. In fact, I'd love to see them succeed. More wealth anywhere is good for free people everywhere; it give's me more people to trade with.

You've completely forgotten about automation. Within a generation robotics will make low cost labor obsolete. We won't need factories of Chinese workers to build our products; We'll have factories full of robots.

Also, I don't really care who has the most power. I don't care if America has the largest military in the world. I only want our military to protect our borders and police shipping lanes.

If China becomes more powerful than the west and my standard of living increases thanks to technology, I don't care. The only thing to worry about is chinese military intervention, but even if they have a significantly more powerful military our nuclear deterrents will prevent them from directly harming us.

First, up your civility a bit there. The snark is unnecessary and counterproductive to good discussion.

Second, my argument wasn't, "They did some good things too."

It was, "They were overwhelmingly the largest force for good in all of history."

Seriously, check out Heaven's Command. It's pretty balanced and covers every significant battle, controversy, and hypocrisy. And factoring all of that in, the Empire still comes out as the nation that's done more for humanity than anyone else.

You're fundamentally not thinking about genes and evolution the right way. It's not an individual thing. Genghis Khan probably didn't care how many children he had. But in an evolutionary sense, his genes were extremely successful.

Genes "wanting" things is simply a figure of speech to make the whole thing more understandable in colloquial language. They of course do not have desires, but because of the way the system works it makes things clearer to think of them as if they did have an agenda.

I never once asserted that the man, Genghis Khan, benefited in any way whatsoever from having such a large progeny.

Eh, no - Gandhi had little to do with the actual 'end game' of Indian independence. The main drivers were unrest within the Indian army and a lack of focus and drive of the British empire to spend money and effort on keeping control of India after the very taxing second World War. It's unclear what real effects, if any, Gandhi's action in the decades before the 1940's really had.

"Evolution is not teleological and genes do not "want". Genes just happen; they're chemicals. Working to ensure the continuation of your genes is not mandated or valuable -- it is likely.

This doesn't conflict with the article at all. The article never claims that humans have an ethical mandate to ensure the continuation of your genes. Furthermore your statement that this behavior is _likely_ actually agrees with the article.

"The other obvious problem is that societies which played into the competitive heirarchy were only successful for some weird definitions of successful.

I don't see where the article claims competitive heirarchies are more successful. About the closest I could find is that cultures who disproportionately use their men for high-risk roles are more successful than those who do not; but I don't see how this differentiated the British from the Mongols.

Oh, they both did -- no question about that -- but the Mongols did it a whole damn lot more, i.e. warrior society as opposed to civil society, and were arguably less successful, long term.

I think you're missing the larger point by focusing on specifics and minutiae.

"Communal (including communist) countries remain primitive and poor, whereas the rich, advanced nations have gotten where they are by means of economic exchange."

From European (continental) perspective, that statement is false. Rich countries in Europe (Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway etc.) are observably more communal than poorer countries. Division is not between the former Communist countries vs. other countries. Among the former the more communal, bourgeois-oriented Czech Republic has bigger GDP per capita than more individualistic, nobility-oriented Hungary or Poland. More communal means richer, how weird! Why is that?

My favorite theory explaining it is based on historical military considerations - countries in mainland Europe have long land borders other countries of approximately equal size and development level. In order to maintain sovereignty a country (or other "culture" as defined in the article, say independent city) needs as many soldiers as possible. So it pays to offer free medical care and welfare to the population so that all citizens are stay in good health and can, if necessary, defend the country and it's culture. So it was beneficial to the country to divide resources more equally rather than based on equity. Prime example is Switzerland which was founded in exactly these circumstances and look where they are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_....

http://www.amazon.com/There-Anything-Good-About-Men/dp/01953...

It seems like the most successful cultures today (measured by standard of living, anyway) are no longer those with the fastest-growing populations. China (strictly speaking a nation and not a culture) explicitly embraced a policy of slowing population growth, but I'm not knowledgable enough to have an opinion on how complete a success it has been.

The interesting thing about culture in the modern age is that it is increasingly divorced from the genetic makeup of its members. If someone who is genetically foreign (to the extent that such a thing is possible) moves to the US and assimilates, their "home culture" has lost a member and "American culture" has gained one (leaving aside the plausibility of this scenario the current insanity of the US immigration system). If this "cultural switcher" phenomenon is large enough to overwhelm birthrate effects we could see culture shaped by some very different forces than in the past.

It's not, as far as I can see, a conspiracy -- i.e. a secret plan hatched by a clandestine group that goes against a larger society's interests. You can have a pat/kyriarchy where each member acts on their own best interests, and yet the results of that unfairly disadvantage certain groups.

A good example of the kind of decentralised, mass-action that disenfranchises a particular social group or class can be found in Michael Young's coining of the word "meritocracy", and how, through the collective action of a group of self-interested actors, a particular social group can be disenfranchised or demoralised. It doesn't require secrets, it doesn't require conspiracies, as a matter of fact it just requires everyone acting to their own best interests.

Secondly, the author doesn't make a convincing argument that the fact that the reason why men get all the risk and all the reward is because of something innate, instead of a self-perpetuating social system that actively encourages one gender to risk it all and reap the rewards, while holding back the other gender to mediocrity and risk-free existences. The possibility is raised for a few sentences, and discarded, as if it's ridiculous, and it's obvious that the reasons are inherent.

Since the arguments in the rest of the post requires me to buy the above premise without conclusively eliminating social mores and non-innate possibilities, I didn't bother reading the rest of the article.

Incidentally, as a member of a nation that was born out of British Colonialism, the statement "the British Empire did a lot more good than harm" is a disgusting, privileged statement that really doesn't elicit much more than pitying contempt from me. Since of course we wouldn't have known what our lives would have been without John Company coming down to "civilise" our barbarian asses, obviously the only feelings we should be having is gratitude, especially since we owe our broken conception of race and ethnicity, our de-facto one-party rule since we gained independence from our Magnanimous Masters, our police force, more intent in beating down dissent and enforcing "public order" that is beneficial to only the ruling class and no one else, to organisations, concepts and social structures derived from British rule.

That's right; it was this or barbarism. Yeah, I hope it helps you sleep at night too, jerk.

The article explains that the "innate" reason is simply that, biologically speaking, men are more expendable. A few men and many women can create a large population more quickly than many men and only a few women. Applying risk equally possibly results in a substantially reduced population, while leaving risk mostly to males allows more to be accomplished without strongly affecting population numbers. Great rewards provided for those who succeed in a risky endeavor merely supports the accomplishment of those objectives. I'm not sure where you find fault with this argument.

The premise is undeniable and the only conclusion that is on even possibly shaky grounds is that societies would act to preserve their population, hence leaving men responsible for risky activities. To suggest otherwise does seem "ridiculous," though I'd love to hear someone who disagrees with that and why one would believe otherwise.

The rest of the article has support for the reason you object to. You're papering over a lot of reasoning by just saying he "doesn't make a convincing argument." In what way is it not convincing?

I'm very sorry to write this, but you seem to fail at reading comprehension.

The author may not have gone into it, but the argument exists, based on what we know about genetics and reproduction.

Female reproduction is inherently limited, first of all by the time it takes to have a single child, second by the probability of death due to childbirth (relatively small, but not insignificant for most of human history), and third by the reduced fertility that comes with age.

Male reproduction is essentially unlimited; the potential maximum "genetic fitness" (measured by simple count of the branches you spawn on the tree of life) of becoming a king and impregnating an entire harem of women over your life is easily 10x the maximum "fitness" for a woman (though the probability is very low for such extreme situations), so it's to be expected that any preferentially male-expressed genes that would increase the probability of ending up in that situation would be more prevalent in the gene pool than the corresponding traits for women (which would be mostly neutral evolutionarily, since a woman with a male harem is not going to spread, on average, more copies of her genes than she would in normal life).

We don't need to assume that the dominant factor is the king + harem situation, either; it's enough merely that men, on average, see wider variability in reproduction than women do (cheating, cuckolding, etc. tend to make that happen).

The "leaps of faith" required to let this explain increased male risk-seeking are:

a) That the traits we associate with risk seeking correlate well with the traits that cause men to be highly genetically successful

b) That the way things actually transpired in history, the variance in male genetic success was, in fact, significantly higher than the variance in female genetic success. Note that we are not talking about averages (they're equal, quite trivially), but variances

If you accept a) (which is not much of a stretch - sleeping with other men's wives is definitely a risk-seeking behavior that increases genetic success for men), then it's absolutely 100% certain that the amount of genetically linked risk-seeking will be higher (or equal) in men than in women. It's very easy to make a similar argument that implies that any genetically linked risk-avoidance genes that are preferentially expressed in females will be more common than those that are expressed in males, at least to the extent that they would reduce male reproductive variance without a corresponding survival benefit.

Bear in mind that your comment about a "self-perpetuating social system" and the things that it encourages may not be entirely off-base, but that doesn't change the genetic imperatives: given what we've seen above, such a social system would align very well with the genetic best interests of its constituents, so it's hardly a stretch to imagine that the two factors have coexisted and reinforced each other quite strongly.

I've read that female bonobos, for instance, take a great interest in the mating success of their male offspring:

"http://www.indstate.edu/news/news.php?newsid=1742

So having a high social status in the pecking order can absolutely translate in to "unlimited" reproductive potential for a female in this case.

An interesting quote:

"Scientists believe a bonobo mother's rank in the group has an impact on her son's reproductive rank because if she dies the son falls in rank and becomes unimportant."

I absolutely agree with you about that, and in fact, the genes that made Genghis Khan reproduce so wildly may have even come from his mother. They may not have been linked to sex at all, and might be expressed equally in his male and female descendants.

None of which changes the conclusion, though, which is that if there are any sex-linkages (either by presence on the Y chromosome or by preferential expression) amongst the genes controlling risk (reproductive risk, especially), then they will tend to accumulate in such a way that the high risk male genes are much more strongly selected for than female ones (which will be mostly neutral if they're not deleterious).

Put another way, the "risk-seeking" phenotype is not the same as the "encourage male offspring to be risk-seeking" phenotype, and while the former is only beneficial to male genes, the latter is beneficial to everyone's. And the end result is that male risk seeking is encouraged in the gene pool in many ways - in fact, what you've suggested is that the social reasons that male risk-seeking is encouraged are actually quite strongly selected for individually, which puts the conclusion on even stronger genetic grounds (as opposed to what comes up often as the more PC theory, that it's just an accident of history that society decided to bring up males that way, not an evolutionary imperative).

The stuff about bonobos is quite interesting, I hadn't seen that before. They have a quite different power structure that makes things very unusual (almost inverted, in many ways), and it's very interesting to see that increased reproductive variance there is not linked to dominance, but to keeping a good position within the female hierarchy. It makes very clear the point that while a lot of (human) male traits may be evolved in order to increase reproductive variance, those traits do not necessarily achieve that goal (or any positive goal) in general, but only within the context of our other evolutionary peculiarities. As usual, it's difficult to evaluate anything in a vacuum.

  If you accept a) (which is not much of a stretch - sleeping with other men's wives 
  is definitely a risk-seeking behavior that increases genetic success for men)

For instance, imagine a world where it's all switched around: women are assumed to be the risk-taking, sexually aggressive gender, and society is organized in a pretty clear matriarchy, women make 30% more than men, etc. A woman who sleeps with another woman's husband, while certainly "more obvious" ("how is she pregnant, again!") could be just as 'culturally accepted' as men sleeping with other men's wives are here. There are certainly examples in the animal kingdom -- female dominant, where females maximize their genetic 'success' by successfully having children of many males. "female dominant animals" is a very rich google vein ;)

So a better question to ask is "why did that not happen with homo sapiens sapiens?"

Please note also the huge amount of cultural assumptions about behaviors, norms, & risks, in the tiny sentence fragment "sleeping with other men's wives". Which implied pronouns are the active ones there, which are the passive objects acted upon, etc.

Sleeping with more than one man may decrease a woman's time-spent-not-pregnant by a small factor. But no matter how many women a man is already sleeping with, adding one more will always increase his reproductive success by the same amount. The potential gain due to "cheating" is much higher for a man's genes than for a woman's because he has no downtime.

That has nothing to do with cultural norms, it's just biology.

There are certainly examples in the animal kingdom -- female dominant, where females maximize their genetic 'success' by successfully having children of many males.

Yes, the inverted world scenario could have happened with humans, as it has in a few cases (lemurs, bonobos, and hyenas).

But I think you're misinterpreting why it comes about in those cases. There is no suggestion that it emerges because it in any way increases the probability of a woman getting pregnant; to the contrary, that's the easy part, most researchers think female dominance is more related to ensuring that adequate resources are available to ensure the survival of the mother and offspring, which is a different issue altogether.

In those types of societies, we should (and do!) find that male reproductive risk seeking is more muted, because such risk seeking no longer carries with it significant evolutionary benefit - with females in control of the hierarchy and (limited) resources, and quickly impregnated when they're able, a male maximizes his potential success by staying alive, playing nice, and working to make sure the children survive. There's no contradiction there with what I've suggested: if you change the environmental constraints (social, developmental, and physical), the optimal evolutionary responses to those constraints change, too.

Such a society would be quite different in many ways, and the evolved differences between the sexes would be much smaller (lemurs display very minor sex differences compared to most mammals). But we should not pretend that the very real evolutionary pressures humans evolved in response to are not there just because things worked out the opposite way for a tiny fraction of mammals, and in the absence of a female dominant social structure, male risk seeking tends to have a significant evolutionary payoff. When we see evidence of it in humans, I don't see anything wrong with recognizing the incentives that lead to its expression.

So a better question to ask is "why did that not happen with homo sapiens sapiens?"

To put it bluntly, we can ask the question, but it's trivial to answer: female dominance is such an aberration in the mammalian world that it's probably selected against. 3 known examples out of more than 5000 species is under .1%, small enough that we can assume that in the evolutionary space and ecological habitats that we exist, female dominance has not been an optimal reproductive strategy. Even if it was neutral, we should be seeing more instances due to drift.

That's not a moral value judgment, or a justification, or anything like that - we're not slaves to our genes, we have the ability to overcome our instincts and emotions, and we should do so whenever they lead us astray. I think most reasonable people these days agree that dominance in any form is a primitive trait whose expression we should be trying to eradicate from our society.

But the current trend in some circles is to claim that in humans, most sex differences are purely social constructs, and hence are not influenced in any meaningful way by our genes or evolution. Which is bollocks - genetics and society are highly intertwined in most species, performing a delicate coevolutionary dance where one can't move without the other compensating accordingly, and this is something that any evolutionary biologist sees every day. Like nature vs. nurture, socialization vs. genetics is an argument for the fools, they happen together, and it's supremely naive to argue for one to the exclusion of the other.

Where was this quote even in the article?

I do find it true that men seem to try harder to be different, to entertain, to exceed and to impress. The top is dominated by cocky people and there aren't a lot of cocky women.

Now is that biology or society? I have no idea. Is there a society on the planet where women have to impress men to get any attention? Do lesbians rise higher than straight women because they have to impress other women to stand out?

I believe men are better at creating civilization and seeing more men who failed fits exactly in that worldview.

The typesetting makes this terrible to read.

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/07/continued-investi...

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2010/12/an-update-on-mice...

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/03/rasgrf1-deficienc...

For what it's worth.

...open source?

What do you think?

Does anyone know what research he's referring to?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve#Not_a_contemp...

Initial studies, such as Thomson et al. 2000[7] proposed that Y-chromosome Adam lived about 59,000 years ago. This date suggested that Y chromosome Adam lived tens of thousands of years after his female counterpart Mitochondrial Eve, who lived 150,000-200,000 years ago[8]. This date also meant that Y-chromosome Adam lived at a time very close to, and possibly after, the out of Africa migration which is believed to have taken place 50,000-80,000 years ago.

One explanation given for this discrepancy in the dates of Adam and Eve was that females have a better chance of reproducing than males due to the practice of polygyny. When a male individual has several wives, he has effectively prevented other males in the community from reproducing and passing on their y-chromosomes to subsequent generations. On the other hand, polygyny doesn't prevent most females in a community from passing on their mitochondrial DNA to subsequent generations. This differential reproductive success of males and females can lead to fewer male lineages relative to female lineages persisting into the future. These fewer male lineages are more sensitive to drift and would most likely coalesce on a more recent common ancestor. This would potentially explain the more recent dates associated with Y-chromosome Adam.[9][10]

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Adam

Well, I'm convinced!

The logical counter-response to this would be "well there were so many social barriers (de-facto and de-jure) preventing women from producing creative output"

He then gives an example of a similarly or more repressed group with extreme ability in an area (Black jazz musicians) that managed to be extremely prolific in that area.

It is actually pretty convincing. Or at least thought-provoking.

That is, if you do in fact think.

I'm curious how many of his contentions are borne up by science (other than the outlier study).

I don't think it's that surprising that so many women are opposed to the idea that we're essentially designed to live out our whole lives hidden in the private sphere. Especially when you consider the 1950s, when (white, middle-to-upper class) women were "free" to do just that. They were miserable. I know I would have been miserable too. There's a reason the Feminine Mystique exists, and the 50s housewife who drowns herself in a bottle of booze is a cliche. For most people, that's just not enough to make a fulfilling life by itself. Even women today who are SAHMs have other things going on than taking care of their household, husband, and kids. He implies that it's somehow detrimental to our survival if women like me are free to create lives that don't make us deeply unhappy. If this arrangement had been as cooperative and nice as the author claims, how does feminism fit in? If we were happy inside the home, why did women look up and think, "I want to be a CEO" in the first place? Why did they not all look up and say, "I'm glad I don't have to do that, it looks stressful"? Given that it was their job to take care of the CEOs and other assorted businessmen after they came home stressed from work, it's not as though they didn't realize the drawbacks. Vacuuming is just not meaningful work.

Guys, if you lived in a time where your choices were to latch onto a woman for financial support or pick a low-paying unskilled job, because everyone believed you were genetically incapable of doing anything better, would that be OK with you? Or would you find it personally offensive? What if they said you were incapable of making art, and labelled any creative work made by men as not art in order to reinforce that? (In the case of women, that's tapestries, embroideries, and pottery, for a start.) What if our default model of "real" sex was stuff women liked more than men (random, probably inaccurate example: doll up for us, dance for us, an hour of groping, grinding, and oral, PIV at the end optional), and "all men were frigid" because for some reason they found it less interesting than women? Come on. Women are people, like you; empathy applies. The old ways were awful.

Your disagreement is predicated on certain traits not being linked to femininity or masculinity and economic forces. You wave your hand over the entire article and then rail against women's role in the past. The argument is a classic strawman. You failed to invalidate any of the article's points and instead talk about narrow definitions of women's social behaviors as if the entire article had said women are only good in one-on-one relationships. The article merely posits that women have more stake in maintaining a few intimate relationships than a large number of shallow relationships. This point is arguable but, rather than argue against it, you claim that the article insinuates women should /only/ focus on intimate relationships for the survival of our species, and then say this is clearly ridiculous. I agree with your logic here, but it is rather irrelevant to the topic at hand. The discourse is about why women are better/worse/different than men, not whether women should be allowed to live in the "public sphere".

The closing of your argument goes even further afield and tries to elicit empathy from men by attempting to justify women's historically subservient economic position and then forming a weak thought experiment based on outdated female stereotypes. Your penultimate statement is that "women are people" which is followed by the "The old ways were awful." None of this contributes to the discussion nor does it it reveal any interesting insight.

You will find that not all cultures are like this - in many Asian cultures for example, being a mother is a very honorable and glamorous thing to do.

Women usually make up more than half of a society's population, something you agree with yourself. In that case, don't think it highly unlikely that societies in which women are miserable might not survive long? And yet the cultures in which you assume women are miserable have survived, endured, and even thrived, for millennia (I'm not talking about the 50s in America here).

Imagine the consequences if women were truly miserable in these societies: What would happen to the next generation? What would be the consequences of having a mother, grandmother, and aunts, who are utterly miserable? How would the next generation be raised in a setting like this? Every society has men and women, every family has men and women. It would tear families apart, husbands from wives, brothers from sisters. And it would tear societies apart. Any society who went down the path of making women miserable, or men miserable, has not survived because it cannot reproduce and pass on its culture successfully.

Which cultures in which women are homemakers only, have stayed without change to gender roles for millenia? When I think of cultures that have stayed mostly unchanged, I think of the ones where women are contributing significantly to survival. Hunter-gatherer societies where men hunt and women gather. In most HG societies plant foods make up a large portion of the food; women's work is essential. And a step beyond that, societies where men hunt and women tend gardens or farms. Or where men and women farm and ranch together. Yes, women also tend to take care of the children in these societies. But modern-day me still has to do dishes and laundry; that doesn't preclude me from doing other things.

Consider, for a moment, that a woman may not want to be a mother, or more realistically, that's not all she wants to be.

Many Asian cultures are notoriously sexist. And, no, I wouldn't say being a mother is glamorous in those cultures... being a mother is expected and a woman is honored, briefly, when she fulfills those expectations, but it's not glamorous. Society's expectation, even Western society, is precisely that motherhood is something to be valued by women. There's nothing to fix there. However, the broken part, and the part feminism addresses, is that is should not be the only thing valued in women.

You're naive. In the real world, plenty of misery lasts. Saying a culture cannot survive with misery is something you invented. It's not like we're removing limbs here -- a woman can live with decreased expectations and limitations without killing the culture that oppresses her. Often the coping techniques include (surprise!) investing all her energy into making her children accomplish by proxy (speaking of asian cultures, sound familiar?) what she could not.

Then she is not likely to get the same respect as a woman who does want to be a mother. Respect for women who want to be mothers, and not respecting women who do not want to be mothers, is something that naturally evolves in a culture that values its population. This is because women who have genes and/or memes that cause them to have more children will spread those genes and/or memes more widely than women who have fewer children because they had a genes and/or memes that caused them to not want to be a mother or not have so many children. This would be reflected in the culture in that women who want to be mothers would be respected more than women who did not want to be mothers. The same thing can be said for men being fathers.

> or more realistically, that's not all she wants to be

I never said anything about women being _only_ mothers. The best mothers to raise the next generation are those who, first of all of course have children, but then after that, have an education, are able to dream and aspire of other things, and pursue those opportunities.

> Many Asian cultures are notoriously sexist.

You say this as if being sexist is a bad thing. Men and women are different, and this is reflected in the fact that every culture has different social roles for men and women. There is nothing wrong with being sexist, it simply arises from the fact that men and women are biologically different. The problem happens when women are judged by what men are supposed to do, or when men are judged by what women are supposed to do.

> Saying a culture cannot survive with misery is something you invented.

No, it simply stands to reason. You cannot subjugate the females in society, generation after generation, and expect it to survive. The psychological effects would be passed down to the next generation, and the fabric of society which raises the next generation, would unravel. Just look at the effects on children who grow up in abusive households. Now extrapolate this to an entire society. The results would be catastrophic.

> Often the coping techniques include (surprise!) investing all her energy into making her children accomplish by proxy (speaking of asian cultures, sound familiar?) what she could not.

All parents, mothers and fathers, want their children to accomplish what they could not. This is not limited to mothers. Fathers will also use it as a "coping technique". Say a father wanted to go to the city and get an education so he could have a bigger house and more luxuries for his family, but was unable to do so in his life. Would he not encourage his children to pursue that? Of course. This has nothing to do with the issue at hand, namely the subjugation of women.

If you know how to read English, yes, it's a bad thing. In the modern definition, the connotation of the word implies over-generalization. i.e. it's not rational behavior. No one interprets it otherwise unless you're trying to score points.

> The problem happens when women are judged by what men are supposed to do, or when men are judged by what women are supposed to do.

Somehow we know women are "supposed to" demote the rest of their aspirations and nurture a child all the way to adulthood because they breastfeed a child until it's 2, but a father can pursue his dreams because he need not be around after depositing a sperm donation.

> No, it simply stands to reason. You cannot subjugate the females in society, generation after generation, and expect it to survive.

Around we go... You'll have to define "reason" for me, because I usually think of it as taking into account existing evidence, including reading about women's experiences in such societies, before drawing such conclusions, but, to each his own. There is such a thing as a sustainable society that never reaches it's full potential...

> All parents, mothers and fathers, want their children to accomplish what they could not.

I worded this badly. Most parents want their children to be successful. This does not imply that the children should exist as proxies for them -- as complete representations of their self-worth. Again, I suppose it's sustainable culturally, although I'm not sure how it's supposed to be non-miserable. :-)

In order to keep the discussion clear, I went with the precise definition of the word rather than a colloquial one.

> Somehow we know women are "supposed to" demote the rest of their aspirations and nurture a child all the way to adulthood because they breastfeed a child until it's 2

By saying this, you are implying that raising kids is not a worthy aspiration for women. It is a most worthy aspiration not only for women, but also for men. No matter that I, as a man, may make breakthrough scientific discoveries, become a billionaire and donate it all to charities, or something else that makes a big impact; my biggest aspiration and the biggest legacy I leave to the world will still be my children.

> but a father can pursue his dreams because he need not be around after depositing a sperm donation.

A father plays just an important a role as the mother in raising kids. Since a woman's body is more involved in nurturing a child, the father provides for her and the children. And yes, this means a big sacrifice on the part of the father. But it is something that millions of fathers make willingly and lovingly, one that I will too. For example, I could say I don't want to have kids, a family, etc, and just put my whole life into business, make a lot of money, and spend the rest of my life traveling and vacationing. But if I want to have a family and raise kids, I can't do that. My family would need my money and my time.

> There is such a thing as a sustainable society that never reaches it's full potential...

You have a point there, and I don't have any hard evidence backing up my statement that a society cannot survive sustainably if its women are subjugated. But I'm not saying this blindly either - we do have solid evidence of the kind of detrimental effects a broken household can have on children, and I extrapolate this to a society and I just don't see it functioning sustainably if the whole society behaves like a broken household.

> Most parents want their children to be successful. This does not imply that the children should exist as proxies for them

I think most parents want their children to be successful and they also consider their children to be proxies for them. It's how we continue our culture, our societies, and the human race in general.

By analogy, I would claim that sharks are successful. By the standard above, they clearly are: they've continued to exist and out-competed peer species for millions of years. But I'm making an objective claim only, not a value judgement on whether or not this is good.

Do you have any data to support the assertion that everyone that isn't occupying a high-status leadership role within a society is "miserable"?

You're personalizing the argument and then missing the point.

His discussion on relative sex drives (sorry, typo) is spurious because, again, he doesn't separate this from cultural factors like what actions we define as being "normal" sex, and how the sexes relate to each other. The Mosuo, for example, does things differently. Instead of monogamy or polygyny, they have two-way polyamory. Young women are given a private place to bring lovers back to. She can bring home as many lovers as she likes, and the men can go to as many women's homes as they are invited to. If she wants, she invites him back, and if he wants, he goes. I remember reading that at one time, it wasn't unusual for a woman to have fifty partners in her lifetime. Women are under no economic or social pressure to invite lots of men over, so to me, it's really odd that this would be common if women didn't enjoy sex. Mosuo women these days have fewer partners, because they have access to a lot of western media and culture. Some girls are now afraid that if they invite over too many boys, they will be considered "slutty", and this is an image problem that the Mosuo as a whole are having. To me, that looks like proof that women are being discouraged from having as much sex as they'd like to have, thanks to social pressures that are inherent in our own culture. Or at least better proof than saying, "it happens, so it's genetic".

So, two points. One, this kind of culture is the exception for humans. I think there are a handful of other cultures that operate this way, but it's still the exception. When an overwhelmingly large percentage of a species behaves in a particular way, we tend to attribute that to instinct rather than random chance - even though there are exceptional cases. I think it's also valid to ask why this kind of culture is not the dominant culture. It's possible that these cultures get out-competed by cultures where men are usually responsible for their own children.

Second, the author did not claim that women don't like sex or have no sex drive. Not enjoying sex was not a part of his argument. His argument was that, in aggregate, men have a stronger sex drive. That claim is consistent with Masuo women having up to 50 partners in their life.

I don't believe it is consistent. Based on the Masuo you can see that women will have less sex if they start being treated like western women. You can't look at how women behave in western culture and use them as proof that women have a lower sex drive, because we know that evidence has been tainted.

OH WAIT!

You only said 'women had 50 on average. That's a lot. Clearly they have sex drive.'

No one is debating whether they have sex drive. The article stated they had lower RELATIVE drive. You cannot refute this point with only statistics about women. Your facts are meaningless without the counterpoint male statistics from the Masuo.

I apologize for my slight snarkyness, but you are blatantly ignoring key truths about the article in an attempt to argue your point. Especially as that has already been pointed out to you and you continued to ignore it, I am somewhat irked.

Masuo women may have sex with less partners, but has it been confirmed that they have less sex?

It isn't about ability, it's about motivation.

It just happens to be that this tendency, coupled with differing social behaviours and expectations, is what has produced the current situation.

Feminism did not arise because we suddenly stopped valuing women as mothers. It arose because that is all we valued in women[1].

The history, if you bother to read it, bears this out. Hell, even today, certain attitudes bear this out, although with the help of feminism, we see less of it in modern culture.

Do you think a woman should be allowed to become a doctor? A physicist? To run in a marathon? SHould she be less valued if she chooses not to be a mother? Should she be forced to make a choice between those occupations and motherhood? And if she chooses both, which should be more valued by society?

[1] Ok, not all, but I'll leave out the other aspects so-as not to confuse the issue.

To answer your question, of course a woman should be allowed to become a doctor, a physicist, or an athlete. Yes, she should be valued less if she chooses not to be a mother, just the same as a man should be valued less if he chooses not to be a father. She should not sacrifice her motherhood in pursuit of a career, just as a man should not sacrifice his fatherhood in pursuit of a career.

Because of the biological difference between a woman and a man, a woman must take much more time and effort away from other things in life to be a mother, whereas a man barely has to do any effort to have children. And so a natural division of labor occurs where the father takes on the role of a provider and the mother takes on the role of a nurturer. Since the father has more of a burden for providing, it is more important for him to become a doctor or such, but this is because that is how he fulfills his duties as a father.

You might say, why should a person be valued less if they choose not to be a parent? Well, all normal people have a sex, male or female. Why are we male or female if not to procreate with the opposite sex? Furthermore, any culture that values people not having children over people having children would have gone extinct.

Initially, you said feminism arose because we started valuing other (more flamboyant?) occupations more than the more mundane, which essentially boiled down to motherhood in your post.

Now you're saying that, no, motherhood wasn't valued any less, but woman were discouraged from entering those more flamboyant occupations. This, in turn devalued motherhood through its association with people not involved in high status occupations, thus feminism arose as a reaction to the lessening of status.

This re-raises the question of why women were discouraged from entering high-status occupations initially. And as far as I can tell, you've completely closed your argument in a circle.

It reminds me of the theme for 'The Wire.' Systems of culture and how they affect people in them. People can have power in some systems and none in others. The kaleidoscope of outcomes (just and unjust) that come from those systems stem from people in them that (mostly) make fairly rational, self-motivated decisions. Put differently: the systems aren't fair or unfair, right or wrong. They just are.

Enjoyed your post. In particular, I am very interested in knowing what your sources are for this info about the Victorian period. Thanks.

There has never been a more revulsive "principle".