Project Reason is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit foundation devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society. The foundation draws on the talents of prominent and creative thinkers in a wide range of disciplines to encourage critical thinking and erode the influence of dogmatism, superstition, and bigotry in our world.
These definitions are considerably different than yours. Dominance and assertiveness are not the same as being a jerk and getting more sex by being an asshole (as many here have pointed out ad nauseum).
Well.. on this quote alone. Dominance would be something that helped you get your way, and it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with kindness and as I was discussing earlier assertiveness is perceived as aggression anytime it’s something someone doesn’t want to have happen.
Ironic, because you’re quite ideologically and rhetorically aggressive.
Basically, nobody wants to hear that males who appreciate most games or sports are aggressive. You can tell just from the aggressiveness of the audience and players how aggressive these activities are, and the pointlessness of them suggests that the parsimony of what you compete for that is eliciting aggression is not being upheld. You perceive it as an act of aggression because you don’t want to hear it.
It is not ideologically aggressive to state that the kindest people should be approached equally by both genders and those who are more cruel and aggressive should not be approached sexually by either gender, it’s common sense and I might add, a common sense that is not taught in any religious text or any tract of philosophy in human history.
If my theory is correct, males who say more often, “How’s it going?” than “Hi” should receive more sexual partners, it’s less sensitive, more confrontational and more aggressive. There is a reason why women do it less than men, because women have more social personality structures on average than men do. It’s the same reason women are less likely to watch sports, wondering why they don’t just kick several balls around for play rather than having goals and scores.
These maladaptive traits are receiving more sexual selections on the male side than the female side which is why there are more men doing them than women.
These definitions are considerably different than yours. Dominance and assertiveness are not the same as being a jerk and getting more sex by being an asshole (as many here have pointed out ad nauseum).
Well.. on this quote alone. Dominance would be something that helped you get your way, and it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with kindness and as I was discussing earlier assertiveness is perceived as aggression anytime it’s something someone doesn’t want to have happen.
Ironic, because you’re quite ideologically and rhetorically aggressive.
Interesting article in the Scientific American Mind this month: Nice Guys Finish First.
The article is titled “When nice guys finish first.” It’s not really about guys, it’s about nice people and here is what it has to say: I didn’t read the entire thing just what little of it was online
“People who are nice are those who score high on the agreeableness personality trait. They are generous, considerate of others and pleasant. Such people benefit from good personal and work relationships. They are more likely to get a job—and to keep it.
Being exceedingly agreeable does have drawbacks, however. Nice people tend to earn less than their more demanding colleagues and to get passed over for promotions
Nice people should pay attention to their posture when they find themselves in leadership positions or in situations in which they need to exert authority over other people.”
What a fucking nut-bag! Can you people just leave here and go to another forum? You Charlie Tuna wannabes hang out here like it means something, like it elevates your credibility somehow just to post here. I’m flattered, but it’s awfully sad and annoying.
What a fucking nut-bag! Can you people just leave here and go to another forum? You Charlie Tuna wannabes hang out here like it means something, like it elevates your credibility somehow just to post here. I’m flattered, but it’s awfully sad and annoying.
It’s not about credibility, as a credit to Sam Harris, his forums are the only ones I can present this hypothesis without being banned. To put it plainly, people are afraid that it will detract women readers and that I am being mysoginistic, and that this is a ban-worthy offence. I think those forums would equally ban me if I posted about how certain races were inferior (which I don’t believe), which suggests to me that it is about the taboo nature of the topic and the level of offensiveness that it is perceived as producing. In fact, I think I would be less likely to be banned for posting on racial superiority and arguing those points as a racist than I am for posting this theory about our species dynamics with respect to sexual selection. I think you’ll observe this behavior in primates as well… the bullies will receive more sexual partners even though the non-bullies can do adaptive things like acquire resources just as much as the bullies can.
I think you’ll observe this behavior in primates as well… the bullies will receive more sexual partners even though the non-bullies can do adaptive things like acquire resources just as much as the bullies can.
Over the millenia of our tenure here, maybe natural selection has determined that we need both bullies and non-bullies?
During the First World War young women would hand a white feather to men on the street who were not in uniform - a form of saying, “Coward! Go off to the trenches and get yourself killed or mutilated like all the other numbskulls!”
Armies need a majority of people who are willing to follow stupid orders without question or hesitation. I heard of a World War 1 British regiment that, when ordered, climbed out of the trenches and ran toward the German machine guns and barbed-wire kicking a football back and forth. Might as well die doing something you enjoy. Eh? Better than being alive among bully women and figuring out how to solve the world’s bully problems.
I think you’ll observe this behavior in primates as well… the bullies will receive more sexual partners even though the non-bullies can do adaptive things like acquire resources just as much as the bullies can.
Over the millenia of our tenure here, maybe natural selection has determined that we need both bullies and non-bullies?
During the First World War young women would hand a white feather to men on the street who were not in uniform - a form of saying, “Coward! Go off to the trenches and get yourself killed or mutilated like all the other numbskulls!”
Armies need a majority of people who are willing to follow stupid orders without question or hesitation. I heard of a World War 1 British regiment that, when ordered, climbed out of the trenches and ran toward the German machine guns and barbed-wire kicking a football back and forth. Might as well die doing something you enjoy. Eh? Better than being alive among bully women and figuring out how to solve the world’s bully problems.
We don’t need bullies. We have never needed bullies. I don’t believe that natural selection is some sort of omniscient God that gives us attributes for perfect survival fitness, I don’t think we as a species are engaged in systems of reward distribution that optimize survival fitness, and this is something natural selection has done. We only need bullying against bullies (removing their power) when there are bullies who bully against people who aren’t bullying, just like we only need homicide in defense of someone’s life or some ideals life. The question is, is that persons or ideals life worth it, and this gets to the idea that some ideals and some people are more worthy of certain things than others, that some people distribute resources better than others. Men bully more than women in all except one area, how they sexually select, this is the one area that women as a sum total bully more than men, they reward bullying more than not bullying, and that is a form of bullying. If you’re going to use the idea of resource accumulation as something that women prefer to protect offspring, the above study that burt highlighted stated that people who are kinder tend to make less money and get passed for promotions more often. If the reward system is to have the greatest choice of sexual partners and the partners are going for the money, it is additional support that the assholes will do better than the nice guys. My guess is that if nice guys were in charge of these resources, they’d pay their workers better and accept less money for themselves, they’d donate lots of their additional income to charity etc… But assholes are usually the ones in these positions and they don’t do these things, and the reason I don’t think they do these things is because assholeness has been sexually selected more than non-assholeness, for no evolutionary adaptation reason other than that it’s a malfunction of the perception of what constitutes survival fitness.
It is when the person believes that acting out risky or anti-social behavior and surviving is evidence of survival fitness. For whatever reason, the men in our species are less likely to fall for this malfunction than the women of our species when they sexually select, however, since the sexual consent structure is separate from the rest of the personality structure, this doesn’t make men less aggressive than women, in fact it makes them more aggressive, more anti-social, and since men don’t fall for this malfunction as much in women it will make the women more social on average than the men.
We don’t need bullies. We have never needed bullies.
But don’t ignore the fact that human individuals, just like dog individuals and cat individuals, arrive in the world with many and varied personality quirks and differences. Some like to violently—or just unfairly—take advantage of others. Many of them don’t seem to be bullies at all until they open fire on you. Many of them are nice and polite enough to gain the confidence of boards of directors who allow them to run very large companies and botch things up royally with their unethical decision-making habits. A current Science Channel show called Are You Good Or Evil? goes into some detail about the latest discoveries in psychopathy. I hope someone opens a thread about it.
We don’t need bullies. We have never needed bullies.
But don’t ignore the fact that human individuals, just like dog individuals and cat individuals, arrive in the world with many and varied personality quirks and differences. Some like to violently—or just unfairly—take advantage of others. Many of them don’t seem to be bullies at all until they open fire on you. Many of them are nice and polite enough to gain the confidence of boards of directors who allow them to run very large companies and botch things up royally with their unethical decision-making habits. A current Science Channel show called Are You Good Or Evil? goes into some detail about the latest discoveries in psychopathy. I hope someone opens a thread about it.
In addition, we are primates, and genetically programmed in certain ways including alpha male behavior.
What a fucking nut-bag! Can you people just leave here and go to another forum? You Charlie Tuna wannabes hang out here like it means something, like it elevates your credibility somehow just to post here. I’m flattered, but it’s awfully sad and annoying.
It’s not about credibility, as a credit to Sam Harris, his forums are the only ones I can present this hypothesis without being banned. To put it plainly, people are afraid that it will detract women readers and that I am being mysoginistic, and that this is a ban-worthy offence. I think those forums would equally ban me if I posted about how certain races were inferior (which I don’t believe), which suggests to me that it is about the taboo nature of the topic and the level of offensiveness that it is perceived as producing. In fact, I think I would be less likely to be banned for posting on racial superiority and arguing those points as a racist than I am for posting this theory about our species dynamics with respect to sexual selection. I think you’ll observe this behavior in primates as well… the bullies will receive more sexual partners even though the non-bullies can do adaptive things like acquire resources just as much as the bullies can.
It’s not about its taboo nature and level of offensiveness, it’s about your outlandish insistence that it’s worth anything.
It’s not about its taboo nature and level of offensiveness, it’s about your outlandish insistence that it’s worth anything.
I think it’s one of the best ethical codes in terms of harm reduction that is possible for reproductive life-forms to conceive. It is certainly the best one that doesn’t have a long list of complicated exceptions like the golden rule has: For example you would never want to go to prison, so you would never send someone to prison if you obeyed the golden rule. But the basic idea that kinder people should have the most reproductive choice is probably the best rule for harm reduction in the species that there is. It reduces offspring being raised by cruel parents, it reduces acting out to participate in the reward system and it may have biological factors that express themselves over time as well. All in all it’s probably the best way to get at anti-social behavior. I think it is an exceedingly valuable moral code.
Well, so far you are the only one that thinks so. When you use words like “...It is certainly the best one…” to describe your hypothesis that no one else agrees with, can’t you see why it would get people’s backs up?
I may have missed it in all of the drek, but when did your hypothesis on sexual selection go from being an idea about how humans can better sexually select mates to a full blown ethical code? Your thoughts on the Golden Rule are ridiculous. What if you murdered someone, would you still expect not to go to prison if you were following the Golden Rule? Knowing the laws as they are, can you say that you wouldn’t expect society to put you away if you break a law? I believe that a better variant of the golden rule (which is still not a complete ethical code) is the Silver Rule: “Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you”. It’s pretty much the same, but with the golden rule there is a little more room for subjectivity (what’s good for the goose may not be good for the gander). Actually, your example of going to prison is more in line with the silver rule.
I have seen it on this forum in the past, but some have advocated a much simpler mantra: do no harm. It is still not a code of ethics but is pretty simple in theory (not so in practice).
I would suggest doing yet more research into what constitutes an ethical rule before proposing your rule as one that should command respect (for example, like justice based ethics, utilitarianism, duty- based ethics, etc).
Well, so far you are the only one that thinks so. When you use words like “...It is certainly the best one…” to describe your hypothesis that no one else agrees with, can’t you see why it would get people’s backs up?
I may have missed it in all of the drek, but when did your hypothesis on sexual selection go from being an idea about how humans can better sexually select mates to a full blown ethical code? Your thoughts on the Golden Rule are ridiculous. What if you murdered someone, would you still expect not to go to prison if you were following the Golden Rule? Knowing the laws as they are, can you say that you wouldn’t expect society to put you away if you break a law? I believe that a better variant of the golden rule (which is still not a complete ethical code) is the Silver Rule: “Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you”. It’s pretty much the same, but with the golden rule there is a little more room for subjectivity (what’s good for the goose may not be good for the gander). Actually, your example of going to prison is more in line with the silver rule.
I have seen it on this forum in the past, but some have advocated a much simpler mantra: do no harm. It is still not a code of ethics but is pretty simple in theory (not so in practice).
I would suggest doing yet more research into what constitutes an ethical rule before proposing your rule as one that should command respect (for example, like justice based ethics, utilitarianism, duty- based ethics, etc).
The point is that you probably wouldn’t want to go to prison if you murdered someone without self defense. So why do it to them? It follows the golden rule. Releasing them from punishment is doing something to them. Perhaps that’s a stretch and it’s closer to the silver rule.
I have always presented it as an ethical code, which is why I stated that it’s evidence that the species has not been divinely inspired, because I think it is one of the best ethical codes. You may disagree with me about men and women, but I think you’ll be hard pressed to disagree that the rule, the kindest people should be receiving more choice and more sexual partners than the less kind people by orders of magnitude is one of the best ethical codes humans can conceive. Whatever we have to do, however we have to modulate our social norms to make sure that this rule is excecuted well would be good for the species. My theory is that women who are less aggressive have more choice and men who are more aggressive have more choice. I think it is the same in primates as in humans and I don’t think alpha male behavior explains away being a simple jerk. A male can still defend their offspring and not be a jerk about it. Males who engage in even subtle forms of bullying such as teasing others and laughing at jokes that tease others will have more choice and more sexual parters over their life-spans over males who do not do this. Women who do not do this will have more choice over their life-spans over women who do do this. I think this has been going on for a long time, which is why the anti-social profiles between the genders are divergent with women being less than males, even though there are women who do some horrendous stuff, as an entire gender, they are less anti-social on these metrics.
I have seen it on this forum in the past, but some have advocated a much simpler mantra: do no harm. It is still not a code of ethics but is pretty simple in theory (not so in practice).
“The renowned poet Bo Juyi asked the Bird’s Nest Monk, “What is the Way?” The Bird’s Nest Monk said, “Don’t do any evils, do all forms of good.” Bo Juyi said, “Even a three-year-old could say this.” The Bird’s Nest Monk said, “Though a three-year-old might say it, an eighty-year-old might not be able to carry it out.”
(quoted from the book, ‘ZEN LETTERS - Teachings of Yuanwu” - translated by J.C. Cleary and Thomas Cleary)
You may disagree with me about men and women, but I think you’ll be hard pressed to disagree that the rule, the kindest people should be receiving more choice and more sexual partners than the less kind people by orders of magnitude is one of the best ethical codes humans can conceive
Guess what? I disagree, and I didn’t feel hard pressed at all. I’m not disagreeing just to be difficult, but because your “ethical code” isn’t really all that well fleshed out. Who’s to say that “kind” people will actually conceive more, better human beings than others who are less kind? Are you assuming that a child born of kind parents will also grow up to be a kind person, and if we take this cycle to the ultimate conclusion, that the entire human race will be nice and gentle in a number of generations, once all the athletes and leaders are bred out of the cycle?
You have stated that simple assertion is aggressive and maladaptive, have you not? Have you thought about the concept of leadership? Who will lead all of these nice people without backbones? Sometimes leadership requires directness and assertiveness. I’m not even talking about military leadership, which apparently wouldn’t be required in your utopian fantasy, but leaders of communities and businesses.
Why should kind people get sexual partners on an order of magnitude more than their Neanderthal brethren? So an aggressive person gets one sexual partner, and the nice guy gets 10? (that is exactly one order of magnitude, as you know) Is ethics really about how many chicks you get to bang? Wow, what an insight.
The more I read you digging yourself into a hole with this pet theory, the more laughable and outside of reality it becomes. Even if it made sense intuitively (it doesn’t), it would still never work in practice. Also, your initial premises, that generally jerks get more sexual partners than respectful men, is still unproven using any measure.
