The Relationship Thread

[OccultHawk]

Originally Posted by The Batlord

Penises exist because women selected for them.

Can confirm

[OccultHawk]

Is it caused by a supernatural force then?

[OccultHawk]

social influences

This is supernatural?

[The Batlord]

Originally Posted by elphenor

if the question is whether men are more violent naturally that enters the realm of super controversial

I mean men simply are more violent than women and we have a culture of violence. And if male violence doesn't affect women in a way that reduces reproduction then it's possible that evolution is essentially thowing women under the bus and allowing them to be brutalized so that male violence can be maintained as a desirable trait.

[Lucem Ferre]

I know one thing. You guys surely haven't evolved to shut the **** up.

[jwb]

Originally Posted by elphenor

nah this is pretty controversial

I guess it depends on how you look at it

beating your wife, the gather part of your hunter gather tribe, is not a beneficial trait...

is it a byproduct? maybe, but it seems to me actually to be a largely separate phenomenon that does follow from a historical influence

when you get into specific forms of violence obviously the cultural influence increases

But the propensity for violence in general is higher in men than in women. It seems like it would be a rather strange coincidence that the stronger sex that did most of the hunting and fighting is also more violent. I would say it's more of a stretch that this is not related to our evolution than to presume that it probably is.

[jwb]

Originally Posted by elphenor

social influences

+ men are just bigger

could be biological too, but if you search it you'll see that nobody agrees on this

why are men bigger?

[OccultHawk]

Originally Posted by jwb

why are men bigger?

The culture ghost.

[jwb]

It's always possible

It's also possible that the violence in men is rooted in biology and the culture of violence is something that manifested as a result in order to reinforce this existing dynamic

Since it seems pretty ubiquitous across cultures and has clear physiological indicators (as you said, men are bigger) and also conveniently aligns with the primitive division of labor (men as hunters and warriors)... It seems like there's a good chance this isn't all some big coincidence

This is what I was saying about terms like social construct and conditioning not being mutually exclusive with biological answers. Technically, "species" is a social construct. So is "life." Neither of these categories have straight forward definitions that apply across the board, the same way genders and sex don't. That doesn't mean they aren't essentially describing an underlying biological reality.

[jwb]

Originally Posted by elphenor

Yeah but in modern day rich societies senseless violence is exceedingly rare

you have domestic violence and gang related violence accounting for the incredible majority

so it seems like we'd want to look at the causes there, rather than suppose some natural violence thing in the male brain (these assumptions almost always turn out wrong)

they're more rare yes. That doesn't detract from the fact that men are much more prone towards violence even in these richer societies. That's true regardless of how advanced or primitive a society is.

That's not to say I'm saying the answers to how to decrease violence aren't going to be sociological as opposed to biological. Obviously that's true. But the inherent propensity difference is probably something with a biological component to it.

It's like racism. Racism is clearly a sort of modern manifestation of tribalism, which is somewhat natural. But the way to address racism is socially. There are no biological remedies for it.