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There's a bit of cognitive dissonance in your post. It's obvious that you think that the reason that men have been the head of wars is innate, biological deter

by araneae 17y ago

There's a bit of cognitive dissonance in your post. It's obvious that you think that the reason that men have been the head of wars is innate, biological determinism. Yet men have also been the ones who developed science and technology. On HN, almost all of us are men. Is that also due to innate, biological determinism? If not, how do you explain the fact that all the things you dislike about men are innate, and all the things you like are not? And if yes, how can you say that women are better than men? Do you not value science, technology, and entrepreneurship?

relay 17y ago
I'm not going to argue on nature vs nurture but I will ask you a hypothetical question.. if you had to make a choice between fast evolution of "science, technology, entrepreneurship" and a peaceful world without war nor violence, which would you take ? If (I have no idea whether it's the case or not) biological determinism was true and those views were confirmed, I still wouldn't see women as inferior. Being smart enough to create and have low enough morals to use the atomic bomb is NOT a gift, it's a curse.
- geebee 17y ago
  We posted at the same time. I actually agree with you. The only thing that really irritates me is they way some people are willing to assign "innate" or "cultural" based (it appears) on nothing more than whether they consider the activity to be good or bad.
- araneae 17y ago
  Ask girls about their experiences in all girls schools and ask them if they'd like to experience that for the rest of their lives. It's unlikely that killing off all men and then cloning the remaining females is a viable solution to world peace. In answer to your actual question, though, you proffer a world with no war in violence as an ideal. However, I challenge that idea that you would even enjoy living in such a world; or at least enjoy living in such a world that is necessitated by a total lack of violence. In elementary school, we learned that the central element to every story is conflict. A story with no conflict is boring. The same is true of life. And then add to that that it's impossible to have a world without conflict without giving everyone a lobotomy, which would then result in the sudden collapse of civilization and the extinction of the human race... It's a very simplistic world view you have that all violence is wrong. Sometimes violence is necessary, and sometimes it's entertaining (sports or action movies, anyone? Or a good beheading in the old days?). But even if you disagree on those two points, conflict is inherent in any system where individuals of the same species compete for resources. There are such things as dumb questions, especially if they're hypothetical.
  - greenlblue 17y ago
    Ya, what's so nice about a world where there is no genocide and mass murder? I am not against conflict and you are deliberately using two meanings of the word to make your "point".
  - relay 17y ago
    My world view is not any more simplistic than your biased view based on western culture.The buddhist's nirvana is the absence of desire and while they believe in reincarnation, they see it as a curse to those who are too much anchored to their wealth and earthly delights. What seems boring to you is some other people idea of paradise. I'm not religious myself but I feel dramatically attracted by the underlying philosophy of Buddhism. There is something wrong with you if you think that life needs to perpetuate violence for thrill's sake.
    - lionhearted 17y ago
      > The buddhist's nirvana is the absence of desire and while they believe in reincarnation, they see it as a curse to those who are too much anchored to their wealth and earthly delights. As a sidenote, I know Buddhism is quite popular in the West these days, but after spending time in Asia, I don't see it as superior in practice to the Western religions. The best of Buddhism, the most interesting and enlightening concepts make it to the West. But they have just as much silly superstition, social control, religious rank and hierarchy, and warriorship/violence in their history as the Western religions. Actually, some of the finest fighters of their era are the Shaolin and Honganji monks of China and Japan, who were at times much equivalently brutal to crusdaders and jihadists. As for me personally, I think struggle is a good thing. I think all the most important and valuable aspects of life are struggle - living, thriving, growing. Childbirth, one of the heights of human experience, is a brutal struggle. Farming is struggle, hunting is struggle, cooking is struggle. Training to dance or sing or play an instrument is struggle. I'm with you on non-materialism as accumulating stuff isn't particularly effective, but I (personally) reject the notion that struggle is bad. All the best parts of life are a struggle or the fruits of struggle. I embrace struggle, I embrace suffering for worthy causes - suffering in exercise, in farming, in hunting, in cooking, in dancing, in having and rearing children. It's all struggle - I don't want nirvana, give me this world and its struggles and sufferings, and I'll embrace it fully. > There is something wrong with you if you think that life needs to perpetuate violence for thrill's sake. This I agree with, but I think the original commentor's point was a bit more nuanced than that. I think he was saying conflict is necessary at times for life, and he was also noting that people do enjoy observing conflict and drama playing out. Myself, I've got mixed feelings on this - you know, I much prefer baseball to American football for instance. I played linebacker in high school, but watching a 6'6 220 pound receiver catch a pass in the air and get destroyed by a 6'4 260 pound safety while he's largely helpless makes me cringe a little. The strategy aspect of American football I quite like, the brutality of it not so much. So I'm with you on some points, less so on others.
geebee 17y ago
Unfortunately, this dissonance seems very widespread. I think it comes from a very uncomfortable compromise between two divergent perspectives on biological differences between men and women. Some people think that innate differences are extremely minor, while others attribute major cognitive and behavior traits to gender. Perspective 1 is appealing to people women admire the amazing things men have done, such as develop a vaccination against polio or smallpox, or splitting the atom, and want to see more participation from women. Perspective 2 is appealing to women who are appalled with the negative things men have done, such as spreading the plague to invade a city or dropping an atomic bomb on a city, and want to believe that women would never do such a thing. So the uncomfortable compromise is that men and women are the same, except for the countless ways in which women are better. Of course, I don't know how much is innate and how much is cultural, but I'm almost certain that the whole "if it's bad, it's innate to men, if it's good, it's just because women have lacked opportunities" is total crap.
- greenlblue 17y ago
  When you reduce it to a straw man it certainly is crap but thousands of years of history is a hard thing to ignore.
DaniFong 17y ago
Memes are sticker, spread faster, and far more powerful than genes. It's the negative memes of the male segment of civilizations that beget violence; it is to a great extent negative memes that have suppressed women over the years. What's good is that the memes composing an individual can actually be altered -- mutamemic activity. What's bad is that mindsets are set pretty early on in life; you can't change much in the vast majority of people until much later. In this way the lines between innate determinism of biology and determinism/influence of culture are blurred. It is probably difficult to understand the historical effect of women being cut out of the academy, and otherwise ignored, unless you read some accounts of it. Simone de'Beauvoir's "memoirs of a beautiful daughter" and "the second sex" may explain much to you.
- DaniFong 17y ago
  *'memoirs of a dutiful daughter'
greenlblue 17y ago
Everyone keeps reiterating the inventive and creative aspects of men but I don't see why. Nothing in my post mentioned any of that and it's not really a rebuttal of my viewpoint. Most people, male or female, are capable of the same intellectual tasks so saying men are capable of great things doesn't really mean much. When you have to stay home for 9 months and then take care of another human being for another 6-7 years and still have the energy and time to be as creative and inventive then I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. What makes you think I don't value science and technology. Just because I don't approve of the man doing the work does not mean his work does not have merit.

by araneae 17y ago

relay 17y ago

I'm not going to argue on nature vs nurture but I will ask you a hypothetical question.. if you had to make a choice between fast evolution of "science, technology, entrepreneurship" and a peaceful world without war nor violence, which would you take ? If (I have no idea whether it's the case or not) biological determinism was true and those views were confirmed, I still wouldn't see women as inferior. Being smart enough to create and have low enough morals to use the atomic bomb is NOT a gift, it's a curse.

geebee 17y ago
We posted at the same time. I actually agree with you. The only thing that really irritates me is they way some people are willing to assign "innate" or "cultural" based (it appears) on nothing more than whether they consider the activity to be good or bad.
araneae 17y ago
Ask girls about their experiences in all girls schools and ask them if they'd like to experience that for the rest of their lives. It's unlikely that killing off all men and then cloning the remaining females is a viable solution to world peace. In answer to your actual question, though, you proffer a world with no war in violence as an ideal. However, I challenge that idea that you would even enjoy living in such a world; or at least enjoy living in such a world that is necessitated by a total lack of violence. In elementary school, we learned that the central element to every story is conflict. A story with no conflict is boring. The same is true of life. And then add to that that it's impossible to have a world without conflict without giving everyone a lobotomy, which would then result in the sudden collapse of civilization and the extinction of the human race... It's a very simplistic world view you have that all violence is wrong. Sometimes violence is necessary, and sometimes it's entertaining (sports or action movies, anyone? Or a good beheading in the old days?). But even if you disagree on those two points, conflict is inherent in any system where individuals of the same species compete for resources. There are such things as dumb questions, especially if they're hypothetical.
- greenlblue 17y ago
  Ya, what's so nice about a world where there is no genocide and mass murder? I am not against conflict and you are deliberately using two meanings of the word to make your "point".
- relay 17y ago
  My world view is not any more simplistic than your biased view based on western culture.The buddhist's nirvana is the absence of desire and while they believe in reincarnation, they see it as a curse to those who are too much anchored to their wealth and earthly delights. What seems boring to you is some other people idea of paradise. I'm not religious myself but I feel dramatically attracted by the underlying philosophy of Buddhism. There is something wrong with you if you think that life needs to perpetuate violence for thrill's sake.
  - lionhearted 17y ago
    > The buddhist's nirvana is the absence of desire and while they believe in reincarnation, they see it as a curse to those who are too much anchored to their wealth and earthly delights. As a sidenote, I know Buddhism is quite popular in the West these days, but after spending time in Asia, I don't see it as superior in practice to the Western religions. The best of Buddhism, the most interesting and enlightening concepts make it to the West. But they have just as much silly superstition, social control, religious rank and hierarchy, and warriorship/violence in their history as the Western religions. Actually, some of the finest fighters of their era are the Shaolin and Honganji monks of China and Japan, who were at times much equivalently brutal to crusdaders and jihadists. As for me personally, I think struggle is a good thing. I think all the most important and valuable aspects of life are struggle - living, thriving, growing. Childbirth, one of the heights of human experience, is a brutal struggle. Farming is struggle, hunting is struggle, cooking is struggle. Training to dance or sing or play an instrument is struggle. I'm with you on non-materialism as accumulating stuff isn't particularly effective, but I (personally) reject the notion that struggle is bad. All the best parts of life are a struggle or the fruits of struggle. I embrace struggle, I embrace suffering for worthy causes - suffering in exercise, in farming, in hunting, in cooking, in dancing, in having and rearing children. It's all struggle - I don't want nirvana, give me this world and its struggles and sufferings, and I'll embrace it fully. > There is something wrong with you if you think that life needs to perpetuate violence for thrill's sake. This I agree with, but I think the original commentor's point was a bit more nuanced than that. I think he was saying conflict is necessary at times for life, and he was also noting that people do enjoy observing conflict and drama playing out. Myself, I've got mixed feelings on this - you know, I much prefer baseball to American football for instance. I played linebacker in high school, but watching a 6'6 220 pound receiver catch a pass in the air and get destroyed by a 6'4 260 pound safety while he's largely helpless makes me cringe a little. The strategy aspect of American football I quite like, the brutality of it not so much. So I'm with you on some points, less so on others.

geebee 17y ago

Unfortunately, this dissonance seems very widespread. I think it comes from a very uncomfortable compromise between two divergent perspectives on biological differences between men and women. Some people think that innate differences are extremely minor, while others attribute major cognitive and behavior traits to gender. Perspective 1 is appealing to people women admire the amazing things men have done, such as develop a vaccination against polio or smallpox, or splitting the atom, and want to see more participation from women. Perspective 2 is appealing to women who are appalled with the negative things men have done, such as spreading the plague to invade a city or dropping an atomic bomb on a city, and want to believe that women would never do such a thing. So the uncomfortable compromise is that men and women are the same, except for the countless ways in which women are better. Of course, I don't know how much is innate and how much is cultural, but I'm almost certain that the whole "if it's bad, it's innate to men, if it's good, it's just because women have lacked opportunities" is total crap.

greenlblue 17y ago
When you reduce it to a straw man it certainly is crap but thousands of years of history is a hard thing to ignore.

DaniFong 17y ago

Memes are sticker, spread faster, and far more powerful than genes. It's the negative memes of the male segment of civilizations that beget violence; it is to a great extent negative memes that have suppressed women over the years. What's good is that the memes composing an individual can actually be altered -- mutamemic activity. What's bad is that mindsets are set pretty early on in life; you can't change much in the vast majority of people until much later. In this way the lines between innate determinism of biology and determinism/influence of culture are blurred. It is probably difficult to understand the historical effect of women being cut out of the academy, and otherwise ignored, unless you read some accounts of it. Simone de'Beauvoir's "memoirs of a beautiful daughter" and "the second sex" may explain much to you.

DaniFong 17y ago
*'memoirs of a dutiful daughter'

greenlblue 17y ago

Everyone keeps reiterating the inventive and creative aspects of men but I don't see why. Nothing in my post mentioned any of that and it's not really a rebuttal of my viewpoint. Most people, male or female, are capable of the same intellectual tasks so saying men are capable of great things doesn't really mean much. When you have to stay home for 9 months and then take care of another human being for another 6-7 years and still have the energy and time to be as creative and inventive then I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. What makes you think I don't value science and technology. Just because I don't approve of the man doing the work does not mean his work does not have merit.