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The things in your first paragraph are, for the most part, euphemisms for "evaluate the person's reproductive fitness". What do you think "getting to know someo
by wyager 10y ago
The things in your first paragraph are, for the most part, euphemisms for "evaluate the person's reproductive fitness". What do you think "getting to know someone" entails? You literally mention sex in the same sentence; this is the fundamental evolutionary (not teleological) purpose of courtship, regardless of how you dress it up.
- coldtea 10y ago>What do you think "getting to know someone" entails? Talking to them, learning their past, their character, their preferences, their favourite Tom Waits album, etc? >You literally mention sex in the same sentence; Which we've managed to separate from pure evolutionary urges to reproduce at least some millennia ago. >this is the fundamental evolutionary (not teleological) purpose of courtship, regardless of how you dress it up. You'd be surprised, billions manage to have sex with billions without having children -- in casual relationships and such. And an increasing number of people (like 20-30% in the US I've read?) even for life.
- wyager 10y ago>Talking to them, learning their past, their character, their preferences, their favourite Tom Waits album, etc? All of these things except maybe Tom Waits are indicators of reproductive fitness. Why do you think your brain is structured to prefer these characteristics in a potential mate? > Which we've managed to separate from pure evolutionary urges to reproduce at least some millennia ago. Hardly. We've only had effective birth control for a few decades. Society hasn't fully caught up to this yet, let alone our evolutionary programming. > You'd be surprised, billions manage to have sex with billions without having children What planet do you live on? In fact, billions of people have had children!
- coldtea 10y ago>All of these things except maybe Tom Waits are indicators of reproductive fitness. Why do you think your brain is structured to prefer these characteristics in a potential mate? Why do you think different men/women have completely different preferences on those things? Except if "reproductive fitness" is subjective, which defeats the whole argument... >Hardly. We've only had effective birth control for a few decades. We've had romantic (and even platonic) love, annal sex, gay people, and tons of other things besides arranged marriages or fucking for reproduction since at least ancient Greece... >What planet do you live on? In fact, billions of people have had children! One or two or five. They've had sex 100s of times.
- wyager 10y ago> Why do you think different men/women have completely different preferences on those things? Because evolutionarily optimal characteristics are different for men and women. An example: women have to endure long periods of partially debilitating gravidity, which means that, among other things, human males are optimized to perform physically exerting tasks. This is presumably why men have more muscle mass than women in general, and why women generally put more emphasis on a mate's musculature than men put on women's. > since at least ancient Greece... Most societies and religions select against those activities, presumably because it's sub-optimal from a memetic reproduction standpoint. If all your citizens or followers are galavanting about subverting the sexual reward system and reproducing less than they would if they were forced only to have sex for reproduction, then you will be out-bred by those societies who only allow sex for reproduction. This is why anti-sodomy, anti-homosexuality, anti-masturbation, and even anti-birth-control are extremely popular memes both in established religions and in many societies. Until quite recently the US was one such society, and we are still dealing with attitudes and policies borne of these memes. That is what I meant by "Society hasn't fully caught up to this yet". Not that I am not passing any value judgements on the morality or immorality of such policies; I am just stating historical fact.
- jazzyk 10y agoI hope that one day you will find someone who will take your breath away and make you simply enjoy interacting with another human being.