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This smacks of so much hubris. What you are doing is attempting to simplify and reduce a set of interactions that are so incredibly complex that you have no ho
by pksebben 6y ago
This smacks of so much hubris. What you are doing is attempting to simplify and reduce a set of interactions that are so incredibly complex that you have no hope of understanding them in their entirety. Can you point out specific differences between the sexes? Of course. The problem lies in attempting to draw conclusions about complex systems (human behavior / interaction) that map neatly to simple concepts (how big are boobs?).
But, you asked me to define terms, so let's do just that.
Truth(1): Something that is verifiable, and by it's nature, falsifiable. If you cannot ever hope to disprove something, then you also cannot prove it.
Toxic: A pattern, substance, or behavior that has a deleterious effect on an organism. In this case, society as a whole.
and to define a term or two I think you might have gotten lost on:
Generalization: A set of conclusions obtained by inference from specific cases (e.g. I am not strong, and she doesn't like me, thus all women want strong men)
Average: A statistical measure equal to the sum of a set of scalar quantities divided by the number of said quantities (e.g. the average height of a male human is 5.7', whereas the average height of a female human is 5.2')
Nobody has all the answers when it comes to systems as complex as human cognition. If they did, there would be no point in things like markets, commerce, advertising, etc. Complex systems often display unintuitive behaviors. If you have women figured out so well, why don't you make a product they'll all buy? You'd be the richest man on earth! But, there's a problem - preferences are not a scalar quantity like height; they are far more complicated.
Something we can observe about people is that expectations can shape perception (2). Given this knowledge, one can quite easily infer that making unverified claims about the motivations of literally half of humanity is probably fairly dangerous - it has a high likelihood of shaping bad patterns out of thin air. Put more bluntly, it makes us all collectively dumber.
I do not have my head in the clouds, nor am I looking at the world with rose tinted glasses. I am merely pointing out that it is harmful to impose your (negative, uninformed, sexist, reductive) worldview on others, as we are all struggling enough to make the most of this difficult and confounding life we have without it.
(1)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:The_Truth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:The_Truth
(2)https://news.mit.edu/2019/how-expectation-influences-perception-0715 https://news.mit.edu/2019/how-expectation-influences-percept...
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- Geminidog 6y agohttps://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2017.1819 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2017.181... https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0146167207303022 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/014616720730302...
- pksebben 6y agoAwesome. We have something to talk about. What these studies show, is that given a set of pictures with faces removed, college age women will point to the pictures of guys who go to the gym when asked to say which one is more attractive to them. Sure, I can get behind that. As a bisexual male, I also kind of get it. People who are in shape are sexier, duh. Without even digging into the pitiful sample sizes (n=61, n=131) or the fact that these studies were conducted on an incredibly limited and not at all random subset of the population (college age, at one particular college). The conclusions this article comes to and the ones that you have come to are fundamentally different. This paper is drawing conclusions about specific, visual sexual attractiveness, fixed for all other concerns - ceterus parabus, if you will. It assumes that all other things are equal. The conclusions you have so quickly come to, are based on the assertion that all other things are equal. They are not. There is a complex system of other sociological cues and interpersonal relationships that signal whether you do or don't want to be with someone. Think of all the other things you, as a male, might find sexy about someone. Are they into video games? Do they like the same music as you? Are they successful in business / art / a particular 'scene'? Are they smart? Are they bold? Are they funny? What you have done, in essence, is to assume that women are simple, and easily understood. I would argue that this is patently ludicrous. Merry christmas.
- Aeolos 6y agoWell said. To add to that, even the preference identified in those studies is influenced by the specific societal context. Generalizing that to “women prefer fit men” is incorrect, because we know sexual preferences are heavily influenced by the societal context. For example: https://www.medievalists.net/2020/06/fatness-thinness-middle-ages/ https://www.medievalists.net/2020/06/fatness-thinness-middle...