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Man, I've always actually kinda wondered about this. I know it's macabre, but I think about human migratory routines and when different groups clashed back whe

Man, I've always actually kinda wondered about this. I know it's macabre, but I think about human migratory routines and when different groups clashed back when life was so primitive and brutish, they're must've been those tendencies to rape and sexually conquer the opposition. Surely that is reflected in the genetic ledger of time. What a crazy insight. Genetics is such an interesting field. It's bonkers there's just strings of data that we can read the past through.

ves 6y ago
You don’t even have to go back that far; the, uh, productivity of Ghengis Khan and the mongols generally is widely discussed.
- adenozine 6y ago
  Oh well I mean sure, there's a similar case with colonists and slaves too, right? I think at some point in the far past though there might have been a wider gap, genetically, between the two forces meeting. I haven't had time to read the whole article in detail, just skimmed it. Anyhow, thanks. You're right, there's definitely been plenty of mandatory diversification before.
carabiner 6y ago
All mammals rape. And murder, and steal. Dolphins torture each other. You don't think it's all sunshine and rainbows in the wilderness, do you?
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > All mammals rape 2. John does not rape. 3. Therefore, John is not a mammal.
  - shard 6y ago
    1. ∀ Species ∈ Mammal, ∃ at least 1 member of Species that rapes 2. John does not rape 3. ∴ John is not the raping member of a Species of Mammals Pardon any misuse of symbols, it's been a while.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      So, the first member of any mammal species must, ipso facto, be a rapist?
      - bigbubba 6y ago
        What would the 'first' of a species be, in an objective sense? As I understand it, speciation is a gradual process. Trying to pin down exactly where the change occurs is like trying to pin down precisely where a rainbow gradient shifts from green to yellow. You can pick a point and declare that to be the demarcation line, but discrete categorization in this way seems inherently arbitrary. Even seeming straight forward metrics like "can they produce viable offspring" isn't so black and white, since between 'yes' and 'no' exists a continuum of 'maybe's. In very rare cases even horses and donkeys can have fertile offspring, e.g. mules that aren't mules (the typical infertility of mules has lead to the occasional use of the term to describe any infertile hybrid.)
abathur 6y ago
Humans and proto-humans have presumably done most of the fundamental things we do for a very long time. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/colored-pigments-and-complex-tools-suggest-human-trade-100000-years-earlier-previously-believed-180968499/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/colored-pigmen... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earliest_findings_for_hominid_art https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earliest_findings_for_hominid_... There was inevitably conflict, but I'm skeptical of the "tendencies to rape and sexually conquer the opposition" framing. AFAIK there isn't much evidence for large amounts of inter-group violence. A paper like https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajpa.23751 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajpa.23751 lays out a contra case that the absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence--but I think it is a reason to be cautious about what we project back on those populations.
gen220 6y ago
I encourage you to explore the early history of the pre-Roman Empire peoples. These were largely mythologies that the romans retroactively constructed for themselves (i.e. they had the opportunity to omit the raping and kidnapping in retellings, but chose not to). It’s full of “and then tribe X invaded and the land of Y, took their women and enslaved their men”. Back and forth for centuries. This behavior was cyclical, inevitable, and universal, until violence was monopolized and institutionalized. We’ve come a long way, I guess. Still have work to do.
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  I think GP was thinking about early humans, back when other species of humans still existed. From what I understand, the most common view is that in hunter-gatherer times there was much less inter-group violence than there was after the advent of agriculture, simply because there was much less of a notion of territory and any need to defend it before agriculture was a thing.
- lebuffon 6y ago
  "pre-Roman Empire peoples" Do you mean the Bible? "Only in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes. But you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, as the LORD your God has commanded you,...? Deut. 20:16..
  - adenozine 6y ago
    That's an interesting scripture for this situation! Very insightful. I was thinking actually quite a bit earlier than a lot of the Hebrew historical times, like species that were more apelike.
082349872349872 6y ago
We're told that when Ghengis Khan said Ahnold's famous Conan line, he wasn't just interested in "hearing the lamentations" of their women... https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/23975/what-was-the-context-of-this-famous-genghis-khan-quote https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/23975/what-was-t...
m463 6y ago
You know, the title of this article puts a slant on this investigation by choosing the word tryst. Why couldn't they have been meaningful relationships?

ves 6y ago

You don’t even have to go back that far; the, uh, productivity of Ghengis Khan and the mongols generally is widely discussed.

adenozine 6y ago
Oh well I mean sure, there's a similar case with colonists and slaves too, right? I think at some point in the far past though there might have been a wider gap, genetically, between the two forces meeting. I haven't had time to read the whole article in detail, just skimmed it. Anyhow, thanks. You're right, there's definitely been plenty of mandatory diversification before.

carabiner 6y ago

All mammals rape. And murder, and steal. Dolphins torture each other. You don't think it's all sunshine and rainbows in the wilderness, do you?

dragonwriter 6y ago
> All mammals rape 2. John does not rape. 3. Therefore, John is not a mammal.
- shard 6y ago
  1. ∀ Species ∈ Mammal, ∃ at least 1 member of Species that rapes 2. John does not rape 3. ∴ John is not the raping member of a Species of Mammals Pardon any misuse of symbols, it's been a while.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    So, the first member of any mammal species must, ipso facto, be a rapist?
    - bigbubba 6y ago
      What would the 'first' of a species be, in an objective sense? As I understand it, speciation is a gradual process. Trying to pin down exactly where the change occurs is like trying to pin down precisely where a rainbow gradient shifts from green to yellow. You can pick a point and declare that to be the demarcation line, but discrete categorization in this way seems inherently arbitrary. Even seeming straight forward metrics like "can they produce viable offspring" isn't so black and white, since between 'yes' and 'no' exists a continuum of 'maybe's. In very rare cases even horses and donkeys can have fertile offspring, e.g. mules that aren't mules (the typical infertility of mules has lead to the occasional use of the term to describe any infertile hybrid.)

abathur 6y ago

Humans and proto-humans have presumably done most of the fundamental things we do for a very long time. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/colored-pigments-and-complex-tools-suggest-human-trade-100000-years-earlier-previously-believed-180968499/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/colored-pigmen... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earliest_findings_for_hominid_art https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earliest_findings_for_hominid_... There was inevitably conflict, but I'm skeptical of the "tendencies to rape and sexually conquer the opposition" framing. AFAIK there isn't much evidence for large amounts of inter-group violence. A paper like https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajpa.23751 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajpa.23751 lays out a contra case that the absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence--but I think it is a reason to be cautious about what we project back on those populations.

gen220 6y ago

I encourage you to explore the early history of the pre-Roman Empire peoples. These were largely mythologies that the romans retroactively constructed for themselves (i.e. they had the opportunity to omit the raping and kidnapping in retellings, but chose not to). It’s full of “and then tribe X invaded and the land of Y, took their women and enslaved their men”. Back and forth for centuries. This behavior was cyclical, inevitable, and universal, until violence was monopolized and institutionalized. We’ve come a long way, I guess. Still have work to do.

tsimionescu 6y ago
I think GP was thinking about early humans, back when other species of humans still existed. From what I understand, the most common view is that in hunter-gatherer times there was much less inter-group violence than there was after the advent of agriculture, simply because there was much less of a notion of territory and any need to defend it before agriculture was a thing.
lebuffon 6y ago
"pre-Roman Empire peoples" Do you mean the Bible? "Only in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes. But you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, as the LORD your God has commanded you,...? Deut. 20:16..
- adenozine 6y ago
  That's an interesting scripture for this situation! Very insightful. I was thinking actually quite a bit earlier than a lot of the Hebrew historical times, like species that were more apelike.

082349872349872 6y ago

We're told that when Ghengis Khan said Ahnold's famous Conan line, he wasn't just interested in "hearing the lamentations" of their women... https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/23975/what-was-the-context-of-this-famous-genghis-khan-quote https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/23975/what-was-t...

m463 6y ago

You know, the title of this article puts a slant on this investigation by choosing the word tryst. Why couldn't they have been meaningful relationships?