What you’re quoting me as saying is markedly different from saying that I wish for an outright ban on the word “status”. (I think you’re digging yourself into a hole, and I suggest you ought to stop digging.)
I wish we’d go back to specifics, for instance where I pointed out that “institutional status” was a poor explanation for why there hasn’t been a male counterpart of the feminist movement, and offered an alternative that was at least supported by historical facts (women organizing as a movement to seek the right to vote).
What you’re quoting me as saying is markedly different from saying that I wish for an outright ban on the word “status”.
I wouldn’t say that you did and even if you did expressing that wish would be counter-productive to the goal of achieving your desired influence. What I am countering, to whatever extent possible, is the introduction of trivial social pressure that impairs the ability of participants to develop a full understanding on how status influences the behavior of social mammals, particularly humans.
I think you’re digging yourself into a hole, and I suggest you ought to stop digging.
I disagree (and mildly object) to your claim, but not to the gist of the suggestion. My goal here is not to persuade you but to present a counter a counter to (what is in my judgment an extremely mild) toxic influence on the generalized conversation. This is not served by extended wrangling in one instance but rather by persistent response whenever such influence surfaces.
I wish we’d go back to specifics, for instance where I pointed out that “institutional status” was a poor explanation for why there hasn’t been a male counterpart of the feminist movement, and offered an alternative that was at least supported by historical facts (women organizing as a movement to seek the right to vote).
I don’t recall whether I commented on the topic but I share your objection to that usage. Any given concept should be used when, and only when, it is the most appropriate explanation for the context (that is, it balances brevity, clarity and accuracy).
Misusing the concept of ‘status’ when it doesn’t really help understanding things makes it harder to usefully draw inferences on things that actually rely on human status instincts in much the same way as associating the term in general with Bad Things. In this regard our purposes are mostly in alignment.
Another possible explanation is that a lot of the disproportionate mistreatment of men is by other men, so a simple gender split can’t address the problem.
This observation is in no way a criticism of Feminism but an approximately equal amount of the relevant mistreatment of women is from other women too. I don’t believe that problems relating to sexual discrimination or gender characterizations are often best explained in terms of actions of the other sex and or gender. The problems are rather a lot deeper than that.
IIRC, the comment I was replying to mostly mentioned unequal impact on men of war, and possibly of the legal system.
Feminism seems to deal with culturally driven abuse of women by women by blaming it on men. Since men have more overt power, this is at least vaguely plausible, though I think it leaves a lot out.
I’ve heard attempts to blame man vs. man abuse on women by saying that women prefer soldiers. I think this lacks plausibility because there’s obviously so much more driving wars.
The theory of sexual selection contains two parts: intersexual selection (mate choice) and intrasexual selection (competition within each sex. The view in evolutionary psychology is that males compete more fiercely than females in polygynous species like humans. In Male, Female, David Geary says that the primary theory for greater male body strength is female sexual selection pressures causing competition between males. A history of male-male competition is written onto men’s bodies. Greater female selectivity provides not only local incentives for greater competition between males, but appears to have caused males to be adapted for this competition.
Modern day war isn’t only only about male-male competition, of course. Though a lot of socially-harmful behavior throughout history may relate to male competition for status and resources. Female preferences create an incentive for this competition, even if women don’t actually like many of the forms that male competition ends up in (e.g. duels, video games, etc...).
To get even more speculative, I will propose that greater average male systemizing was sexually selected for. It’s probably similar to greater average male aggression: some women find it attractive, many don’t, and probably the main reason males have more of that trait is because they needed it to beat out other males.
It should go without saying that I’m not holding present-day or historical women morally responsible for the effects of their aggregate preferences on men.
Here’s a notion of mine: Knights compete for women by competing with other knights. Troubadours compete for women by getting good at things women like. When troubadours succeed, knights think it’s very unfair.
I could believe in evolutionary overshoot, where male-male competition becomes so reinforcing that it leads to less reproductive success.
These days, we’re living in an evolutionarily weird environment where higher status means fewer offspring. I’m not sure how long this has been going on.
In re upper body strength: How would you tell the difference between sexual selection by women vs. better ability to provide for and defend families?
For what it’s worth, I told my theory that war is actually a scam by older men to get their younger competition out of the way to a man, and he was shocked and annoyed. My theory had completely left out the younger men’s strongly felt motivations. Of course, even if I’m right, that wouldn’t be how things feel to the older men, either.
An alternate theory is that uninhibited young men are apt to be dangerous, and societies develop drastic methods of socializing them.
For what it’s worth, I told my theory that war is actually a scam by older men to get their younger competition out of the way to a man, and he was shocked and annoyed.
Probably not as much as a woman would be if you told her that becoming a soldier is an even worse deal for her than for young men, evolutionarily speaking.
Anyone want to take a crack at evolutionary pressures for nations, and in particular, the pressure to convince people that being soldiers is the one sure way for people without extraordinary talents to do something important with their lives?
Eh, I was asking the same thing last week. Check out the responses I got. That’s why I’m just throwing the warning flag, not saying you’ve committed the error.
I recently read Howard Bloom’s The Lucifer Principle, which heavily relies on the phenomenon you’re referring to but which was criticized for being group selectionist. (He views societies as being superorganisms that can collectively act in ways that further themselves, which results in individuals behaving very much like cells, and having the same tendencies, like gradually dying when they’re not put to use for the rest of the organism, which is how he explains suicidal tendencies.)
Probably not as much as a woman would be if you told her that becoming a soldier is an even worse deal for her than for young men, evolutionarily speaking.
Which would be even worse if you explained why, including the part that involves raping the women in the other tribe when you win and quite possibly killing the existing children.
A small difference in framing often makes a disproportionate difference in my response and I agree with everything you are saying here.
Even so, just considering the whole question of ‘blame’ feels odd to me. That’s a primarily social explanation and if it happens to have epistemic merit too that is just a bonus. Since I don’t feel personally involved in the question “blame” based thinking just doesn’t spring to mind naturally.
I expect a different experience on a question that is closer to home, that I am politically invested in. For example the meta question of the merit of blaming. When considering that topic it would undoubtedly feel natural to me to produce explanations blaming ‘blame’ for all sorts of epistemic and instrumental crimes. Mind you, these objections would for most part be accurate, valid and reasonable, but they would still be prompted by a whole different class of thought.
(Disclaimer: Posts written by me when time-since-sleeping > 30 can be expected to have far more errors in grammar and clarity of expression and slightly less intellectual merit at the level of underlying content.)
I have to proof read a lot more. Simple grammar errors slip in. Most commonly the ones you get if you change your mind about the best way to present something but end up putting half of the first version there and half of the second in a way that doesn’t really fit. I also outright type the wrong word sometimes, that part of my brain that links up concepts with labels is a real weak point. For most part I avoid the problem when writing but my vocabulary is totally abused. I can think in terms of all the words I know, I can phrase the sentences how they should flow given what I know to be words available to me, but sometimes the actual word is not accessible when I try to say/type it. Freaky stuff.
I don’t start losing the ability to program until about the 48 hour mark.
What you’re quoting me as saying is markedly different from saying that I wish for an outright ban on the word “status”. (I think you’re digging yourself into a hole, and I suggest you ought to stop digging.)
I wish we’d go back to specifics, for instance where I pointed out that “institutional status” was a poor explanation for why there hasn’t been a male counterpart of the feminist movement, and offered an alternative that was at least supported by historical facts (women organizing as a movement to seek the right to vote).
I wouldn’t say that you did and even if you did expressing that wish would be counter-productive to the goal of achieving your desired influence. What I am countering, to whatever extent possible, is the introduction of trivial social pressure that impairs the ability of participants to develop a full understanding on how status influences the behavior of social mammals, particularly humans.
I disagree (and mildly object) to your claim, but not to the gist of the suggestion. My goal here is not to persuade you but to present a counter a counter to (what is in my judgment an extremely mild) toxic influence on the generalized conversation. This is not served by extended wrangling in one instance but rather by persistent response whenever such influence surfaces.
I don’t recall whether I commented on the topic but I share your objection to that usage. Any given concept should be used when, and only when, it is the most appropriate explanation for the context (that is, it balances brevity, clarity and accuracy).
Misusing the concept of ‘status’ when it doesn’t really help understanding things makes it harder to usefully draw inferences on things that actually rely on human status instincts in much the same way as associating the term in general with Bad Things. In this regard our purposes are mostly in alignment.
Another possible explanation is that a lot of the disproportionate mistreatment of men is by other men, so a simple gender split can’t address the problem.
This observation is in no way a criticism of Feminism but an approximately equal amount of the relevant mistreatment of women is from other women too. I don’t believe that problems relating to sexual discrimination or gender characterizations are often best explained in terms of actions of the other sex and or gender. The problems are rather a lot deeper than that.
IIRC, the comment I was replying to mostly mentioned unequal impact on men of war, and possibly of the legal system.
Feminism seems to deal with culturally driven abuse of women by women by blaming it on men. Since men have more overt power, this is at least vaguely plausible, though I think it leaves a lot out.
I’ve heard attempts to blame man vs. man abuse on women by saying that women prefer soldiers. I think this lacks plausibility because there’s obviously so much more driving wars.
The theory of sexual selection contains two parts: intersexual selection (mate choice) and intrasexual selection (competition within each sex. The view in evolutionary psychology is that males compete more fiercely than females in polygynous species like humans. In Male, Female, David Geary says that the primary theory for greater male body strength is female sexual selection pressures causing competition between males. A history of male-male competition is written onto men’s bodies. Greater female selectivity provides not only local incentives for greater competition between males, but appears to have caused males to be adapted for this competition.
Modern day war isn’t only only about male-male competition, of course. Though a lot of socially-harmful behavior throughout history may relate to male competition for status and resources. Female preferences create an incentive for this competition, even if women don’t actually like many of the forms that male competition ends up in (e.g. duels, video games, etc...).
To get even more speculative, I will propose that greater average male systemizing was sexually selected for. It’s probably similar to greater average male aggression: some women find it attractive, many don’t, and probably the main reason males have more of that trait is because they needed it to beat out other males.
It should go without saying that I’m not holding present-day or historical women morally responsible for the effects of their aggregate preferences on men.
Here’s a notion of mine: Knights compete for women by competing with other knights. Troubadours compete for women by getting good at things women like. When troubadours succeed, knights think it’s very unfair.
I could believe in evolutionary overshoot, where male-male competition becomes so reinforcing that it leads to less reproductive success.
These days, we’re living in an evolutionarily weird environment where higher status means fewer offspring. I’m not sure how long this has been going on.
In re upper body strength: How would you tell the difference between sexual selection by women vs. better ability to provide for and defend families?
For what it’s worth, I told my theory that war is actually a scam by older men to get their younger competition out of the way to a man, and he was shocked and annoyed. My theory had completely left out the younger men’s strongly felt motivations. Of course, even if I’m right, that wouldn’t be how things feel to the older men, either.
An alternate theory is that uninhibited young men are apt to be dangerous, and societies develop drastic methods of socializing them.
Probably not as much as a woman would be if you told her that becoming a soldier is an even worse deal for her than for young men, evolutionarily speaking.
Anyone want to take a crack at evolutionary pressures for nations, and in particular, the pressure to convince people that being soldiers is the one sure way for people without extraordinary talents to do something important with their lives?
*throws group selection warning flag*
Is group selection problematic when it’s for memes?
Eh, I was asking the same thing last week. Check out the responses I got. That’s why I’m just throwing the warning flag, not saying you’ve committed the error.
I recently read Howard Bloom’s The Lucifer Principle, which heavily relies on the phenomenon you’re referring to but which was criticized for being group selectionist. (He views societies as being superorganisms that can collectively act in ways that further themselves, which results in individuals behaving very much like cells, and having the same tendencies, like gradually dying when they’re not put to use for the rest of the organism, which is how he explains suicidal tendencies.)
Which would be even worse if you explained why, including the part that involves raping the women in the other tribe when you win and quite possibly killing the existing children.
A small difference in framing often makes a disproportionate difference in my response and I agree with everything you are saying here.
Even so, just considering the whole question of ‘blame’ feels odd to me. That’s a primarily social explanation and if it happens to have epistemic merit too that is just a bonus. Since I don’t feel personally involved in the question “blame” based thinking just doesn’t spring to mind naturally.
I expect a different experience on a question that is closer to home, that I am politically invested in. For example the meta question of the merit of blaming. When considering that topic it would undoubtedly feel natural to me to produce explanations blaming ‘blame’ for all sorts of epistemic and instrumental crimes. Mind you, these objections would for most part be accurate, valid and reasonable, but they would still be prompted by a whole different class of thought.
(Disclaimer: Posts written by me when time-since-sleeping > 30 can be expected to have far more errors in grammar and clarity of expression and slightly less intellectual merit at the level of underlying content.)
30 hours? Really? And you can still manage to type and spell?
I have to proof read a lot more. Simple grammar errors slip in. Most commonly the ones you get if you change your mind about the best way to present something but end up putting half of the first version there and half of the second in a way that doesn’t really fit. I also outright type the wrong word sometimes, that part of my brain that links up concepts with labels is a real weak point. For most part I avoid the problem when writing but my vocabulary is totally abused. I can think in terms of all the words I know, I can phrase the sentences how they should flow given what I know to be words available to me, but sometimes the actual word is not accessible when I try to say/type it. Freaky stuff.
I don’t start losing the ability to program until about the 48 hour mark.