History

Re: Want to hear a joke?

Autolykos — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 15:05:58 GMT

Sexual jealousy can still occur even with promiscuous species. If A and B both want to mate with C right now, but C only wants to mate with B right now, then A could become jealous, even if A mates with C later on or has mated with C in the past. So I don't see how sexual jealousy is any evidence for inherent monogamy.

Would you say that there's a natural state for chimpanzees and bonobos? If so, then why do you make an exception for humans?

Re: Want to hear a joke?

cporter — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 03:40:26 GMT

Autolykos:
There's one undeniable biological trait in humans that I'd like to point to as evidence for our inherent promiscuity. Human females have what's called hidden estrus. In just about every other species of mammal, the females are only sexually receptive at certain times. This is called estrus or "being in heat", and it coincides with ovulation. Human females don't do this. They can be sexually receptive at any time, whether they're ovulating or not. What's the advantage to this? Since mating tends to occur more often, paternity of offspring tends to be hidden, reducing the likelihood of infanticide by non-paternal males and increasing the number of potential caregivers. Ironically, the reverse situation occurs in bonobos - the females have lengthened estrus.

I don't want to derail the thread too far so I'll just post this one response. The evolutionary history of humans is an interesting topic and not one that can really be covered here anyway.

Concealed estrus is no more evidence that our natural state is promiscuity than sexual jealousy (which, apparently, must be trained out of humans even in cultures where the males aren't thought to have any role in the creation of children) is evidence that our natural state is monogamy. There are competing selection interests, wherein the female tries to have the best offspring possible and the male tries to make sure the offspring are his if he's going to expend effort raising them.

My point isn't that there aren't inherent aspects of human nature that advantage one tactic or the other. There are. My point is that none of it amounts to saying that our natural state leans one way or the other, and if only we could cast off these purely social mores we could fall back to our original, evolutionary sexual nature that is simply being repressed by our terrible modern culture. There is no single natural state, there's just the solution to contrasting selection pressures that is most popular at any given time.

Luminar:
"Communists and Leftists tend to promote freedom of information. The conservatives are the ones who generally are against the dispersion of information."

This claim is demonstrably false, at least in part. After a century of communism it should be obvious that communist countries aren't bastions of free information. That said, conservatives are also against the dispersion of (some) information. The divide she's talking about isn't strictly along a political line. There are people of all stripes that seek to be the masters of others, and one tactic is through the control of information.

Re: Want to hear a joke?

hashem — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 03:28:43 GMT

Hang on slow down.

Me: "...statism as a belief (indoctrination) and as a system (force), has proved effective at persisting..."
(note: Statism as a system is force, its persistence relies on force.)
You: "Indoctrination yes, force no. Most societies that try to force their customs on themselves tend to self destruct..."
Me: "statist societies DO [persist through force and DO] tend to self-destruct, so your objection is actually support for my argument."

But it's all off topic. I was demonstrating that the OP presented a false dilemma. Clearly taboos, regardless of whether they arise naturally (instinct) or artificially (force and/or indoctrination), do persist through force and/or indoctrination. But further, regardless of whether a taboo is natural or artificial, it's obviously instinctive for people with power to perpetuate taboos which limit competition for their power.

Re: Want to hear a joke?

Seraiah — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 02:59:29 GMT

hashem:
so your objection is actually support for my argument.

What, how does that even happen? You're like a word ninja.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I can't think of any self-destructive societies that have lasted longer than a generation (Maybe the Aztecs?). Our longest held taboo's have all been indoctrinated, not violently forced onto the population.

Our supreme overlords aren't currently forcing us to like the state, most of us just do. Most people just cannot wrap their head around a stateless society.

We're being forced to perpetuate the state, we're not being forced to perpetuate the taboo (yet). You could say that forcing us to feed the beast grants it some legitimacy, and I suppose there's some truth to that.

Re: Want to hear a joke?

Luminar — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 02:55:59 GMT

100,000 years?

Re: Want to hear a joke?

hashem — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 02:21:47 GMT

Clever, I lol'd so...respect.

Anyways, I should have said force and/or indoctrination. My point was that the OP was presenting a false dilemma, and in that context my response holds.

Also, your claim that "societies that try to force their customs on themselves tend to self destruct" is no refutation of my example of statism and the taboo against liberty, however it arose, being perpetuated through force and indoctrination. Obviously, statist societies DO tend to self-destruct, so your objection is actually support for my argument.

Re: Want to hear a joke?

Seraiah — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 02:06:08 GMT

@hashem
Indoctrination yes, force no. Most societies that try to force their customs on themselves tend to self destruct, the destruction is even faster when they try to force their customs on others.
Everyone grows up and is taught certain values and everyone is resistant to changing those values. Take cryptocurrency for example, Misesians are extremely resistant to calling any cryptocurrency "Money", and are even resistant to accepting that cryptocurrency could ever be money. Traditionally they have always advocated for gold backed currency so to promote any other form of currency is sacriligous. Misesians are not being forced in any way, they are just being held back by traditionally held values.

BAM! You didn't know how I was going to smuggle in cryptocurrency did you? You knew it was coming but you just didn't quite know how. Ahahaha.

I'm sorry.

Re: Want to hear a joke?

hashem — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 01:08:50 GMT

@OP: False Dilemma.

I don't see why taboos can't arise through either artificial (force, indoctrination) or natural biological (instinctive) reasons, but persist for through force and indoctrination. Clearly humans don't need a central authority and yet the taboo against liberty, and thus statism as a belief (indoctrination) and as a system (force), has proved effective at persisting long beyond any period of prehistory when such arrangements may have been instinctive and necessary for survival.

Or, why can't it be instinctive for humans with power to use force and indoctrination to perpetuate taboos beyond their period of social value? Given consistent patterns of human behavior throughout history, that seems perfectly obvious.

I would consider it self-evident that taboos, whether natural or artificial, persist through force and indoctrination.

Re: Want to hear a joke?

Autolykos — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 00:40:03 GMT

There's one undeniable biological trait in humans that I'd like to point to as evidence for our inherent promiscuity. Human females have what's called hidden estrus. In just about every other species of mammal, the females are only sexually receptive at certain times. This is called estrus or "being in heat", and it coincides with ovulation. Human females don't do this. They can be sexually receptive at any time, whether they're ovulating or not. What's the advantage to this? Since mating tends to occur more often, paternity of offspring tends to be hidden, reducing the likelihood of infanticide by non-paternal males and increasing the number of potential caregivers. Ironically, the reverse situation occurs in bonobos - the females have lengthened estrus.

Re: Want to hear a joke?

cporter — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 00:26:21 GMT

Autolykos:
Based on our closest relatives (chimpanzees and [even moreso] bonobos), it seems clear to me that humans are indeed naturally promiscuous. Whence monogamy then? I think it arose as a social convention after the advent of agriculture, in order to mitigate STDs that were running rampant due to relatively explosive population growth.

Luminar:
"Also, humans are naturally polygamous, so the family structure is biologically nonexistent. It's a social construct."

This argument is poorly framed. We are social animals, and so our social constructs are part of our biology. In addition, organisms try to maximize their chances of passing on their genes to successful offspring who do the same. This is also part of our biology. It seems that, at least for the majority of human history, it has taken the efforts of both parents to successfully raise children. When this is the case, animals more frequently form monogamous relationships. The reason why appears to be parental uncertainty. Males don't want to expend tons of effort making sure someone else's genes are passed on. The mother has no such concerns - the child is clearly hers. Ergo, the males attempt to control the mating habits of the females because they are the ones with the uncertainty problems. In return, the females try to ensure continued involvement by the male in providing for the offspring.

Of course this isn't the only possible arrangement. Bonobos have groups of unrelated females that run around with a group of related males and they cross-breed. However, with such low parental certainty the males also don't do much to take care of the children. They just try to fertilize as many of them as possible as often as possible. The females work together to make sure the kids survive, which they can afford to do because their natural habitat has enough resources to allow for it.

There are a lot of factors pushing and pulling to arrive at various optimal mating strategies, and one species could feasibly use or evolve to use multiple strategies if you arrange the factors in different ways. To say it isn't biological, though, is pretty far fetched.

Re: Want to hear a joke?

Seraiah — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 00:06:19 GMT

Infanticide is justified as long as the babies are below two.

2 years old is just as coherant a qualifier for protection as passing through a persons abdomen or vagina, but I wont derail this thread into that little debate. My position on this is here, for anyone interested.

It's pretty obvious why woman gained the positions in society that they have/had. They didn't go to war because they're physically weaker, and it doesn't take men 9 months to pass on their genes. A large amount of woman and a small amount of men makes much more sense than the inverse.

For this same reason, woman would remain home while men took on the more risky job of hunting.

There tend to be more genius men than woman, so it makes sense that they would take on leadership positions. (Also more idiots, but that's beside the point.)

Since men tend to have leadership positions, and those men tend to be smarter than the vast majority of woman, and since men in general tend to be stronger than woman, and since those men tended to take on the more risky jobs, and since men took on several woman (since there are more due to the aforementioned reasons.), it makes sense that woman would be end up being subservient to men.

Of course as these things become less and less true, woman will take on more and more equal roles, but lets not pretend that patriarchies are the product of evil men and the reasons for them are completely arbitrary.

Re: Want to hear a joke?

Autolykos — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 23:37:05 GMT

Luminar:
"Once parthenogenesis becomes possible, men don't need to exist anymore."

It depends on what she means by "need", but I think I understand what she means.

Luminar:
"Also, humans are naturally polygamous, so the family structure is biologically nonexistent. It's a social construct."

Something tells me she actually means that humans are naturally promiscuous, as "polygamous" means "one male mating with multiple females, but not the other way around", where as "promiscuous" means "multiple males each mating with multiple females, and vice-versa". Based on our closest relatives (chimpanzees and [even moreso] bonobos), it seems clear to me that humans are indeed naturally promiscuous. Whence monogamy then? I think it arose as a social convention after the advent of agriculture, in order to mitigate STDs that were running rampant due to relatively explosive population growth.

Luminar:
"Almost all heterosexual unions emerged with the idea of suppressing women and making them inferior. There were a few matriarchal tribes that did not do this, and matriarchy and/or equality was more prominent in the Bronze Age, but most modern forms of traditional marriage originated with the idea of suppressing women."

It would be interesting to find out what tribes she's talking about. Otherwise, I agree with her in a way. Monogamy did suppress women to an extent (read up on bonobos as to why). Certainly, once monogamy came about, men really started to think of themselves as owning the tribal land, because sons typically stayed there while the daughters typically left.

Re: Want to hear a joke?

vive la insurrection — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 23:31:57 GMT

Your conversation will probably go nowhere either way, as it is possible you are both speaking gibberish, and too attached to something.

However, if you want a shot at any productivity, you have toset up criterea and scope in order to get anything done at all. After that you guys are going to have to provide sources that can be verified to show what either of you two are trying to get at. Until that happens,you're both saying random things and asserting random claims.

Re: Want to hear a joke?

Luminar — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 23:15:21 GMT

She thinks that the original prehistoric culture from Africa first developed those taboos.

Other entertaining quotes from the same person:

"Once parthenogenesis becomes possible, men don't need to exist anymore."

"Infanticide is justified as long as the babies are below two."

"Also, humans are naturally polygamous, so the family structure is biologically nonexistent. It's a social construct."

"Communists and Leftists tend to promote freedom of information. The conservatives are the ones who generally are against the dispersion of information."

"Almost all heterosexual unions emerged with the idea of suppressing women and making them inferior. There were a few matriarchal tribes that did not do this, and matriarchy and/or equality was more prominent in the Bronze Age, but most modern forms of traditional marriage originated with the idea of suppressing women."

Re: Want to hear a joke?

Autolykos — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 22:47:02 GMT

"Force and indoctrination" doesn't explain how the taboos arose in the first place. Does she seriously believe that someone woke up 100,000 years ago and thought, "You know what? I'm going to force/indoctrinate everyone around me to consider same-sex and interracial marriage to be taboo"? In all honesty, I don't think there was any form of marriage 100,000 years ago.

[Edited to fix the third-person pronoun.]