22 ms·

Is There Anything Good About Men?

333 points by simonsarris 15y ago

yread 15y ago
Previous submission with a lot of comments and interesting discussion http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1634955 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1634955
nhangen 15y ago
This is a really, really good piece.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
JonnieCache 15y ago
The problem with this essay is that is paints us as slaves to our genes. Since Dawkins became fashionable, it is now normal to portray human beings as nothing more than meat-based mechanisms for storing and transporting DNA. This idea is dangerously embedded in society now, and it risks creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of barbarism. What possible motivation does one have for behaving in a manner other than that of an animal, if society is telling me that I cannot do so, and that any internal experience I might have of doing so is an illusion? How is it even possible to behave in a non-animalistic manner once you have internalised these ideas? Look into the history of George Price, one of the key figures in actually developing a lot of the stuff that Dawkins popularised: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/George_R._Price https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/George_R._Pri... The interesting part is how he spent the latter part of his life systematically giving away all his possessions to the poor in a guilt-ridden attempt to deny his own theories and to act against the interests of his genes. He eventually killed himself. The graphic method he chose to do so also comes across as an attempt to visibly deny his own ideas. On an entirely separate note, all this talk of inter-gender differences is useless without some consideration of their scale relative to intra-gender differences. Once you realise that the range in behaviour between members of the same gender is bigger than the difference in behaviour between members of different genders, by quite some way, this whole argument becomes a lot less compelling.
- 6ren 15y ago
  A question on his genetic theory of altruism: although it is to do with allele frequency (interchangeable alternatives) in a specific population, is the argument applicable to a wider conception of a population? This is getting new-agey, but selfish promotion of our genes would logically include helping all mankind, since we share many genes (of course, we'd have more reason to help those more closely related); then, to similar species such as apes, then to mammals, then animals in general, then plants - which we'd prefer over rocks. All based on genetic similarity, of ones own genes helping other instances of itself. Which does seem to fit in which the attitudes of most people.
- onemoreact 15y ago
  That's an overly simplistic view of animal behavior. Spend some time studding game theory and you will find cooperation is natural in all but the most ruthless environments. Aka 3 man enter 1 man leave suggests creating a temporary alliance. Shure animals may posture 1v1 but both competitors are trying to avoid injury.
  - JonnieCache 15y ago
    The highly questionable practice of applying game theory to human psychology is also dangerous IMO. It didn't get anyone anywhere in the cuban missile crisis, and it won't help us understand the "problem of altruism" either. People are not rational! This is demonstrably true. Even if they were uber-rational, they never have enough data about the world to make useful rational decisions WRT maximising gene propagation through strategic altruism. It is very telling that this modern notion whereby every time someone acts selflessly towards another they are in fact acting with laser-precise logic in their own interests was developed by the RAND corporation at the height of 1950s/60s cold-war paranoia.
    - onemoreact 15y ago
      Umm, I was not talking about human behavior. Bird flocks are often a great demonstration of emergent and cooperative behavior in the animal kingdom. As to your point, while I would not assume people are strictly rational it’s important to understand the transition points where rational behavior becomes destructive for society. Not because everyone acts in a strictly rational fashion but rather because there is a tendency for the average individual to do so. for example corruption often links to both the benefit and the risk of being corrupt and enforcement is far more important than what's in the books. IMO, the most important insight is given a large population there are usually several productive approaches that tend to balance over time. PS: If you think about it Sociology and Psychology are considered separate disciplines for obvious reasons. But economics is plenty complex to avoid being merged with Sociology because how you exit a burning building is only peripherally related to which brand of soda you buy.
orofino 15y ago
Readability link: http://www.readability.com/articles/cdiekyuv http://www.readability.com/articles/cdiekyuv The typesetting makes this terrible to read.
Joeboy 15y ago
> Recent research using DNA analysis answered this question about two years ago. Today’s human population is descended from twice as many women as men. Does anyone know what research he's referring to?
- simonsarris 15y ago
  He is almost certainly referring to research based on Mitochondrial Eve being far, far older than Mitochondrial Adam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve#Not_a_contemporary_of_.22Adam.22 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve#Not_a_contemp... Initial studies, such as Thomson et al. 2000[7] proposed that Y-chromosome Adam lived about 59,000 years ago. This date suggested that Y chromosome Adam lived tens of thousands of years after his female counterpart Mitochondrial Eve, who lived 150,000-200,000 years ago[8]. This date also meant that Y-chromosome Adam lived at a time very close to, and possibly after, the out of Africa migration which is believed to have taken place 50,000-80,000 years ago. One explanation given for this discrepancy in the dates of Adam and Eve was that females have a better chance of reproducing than males due to the practice of polygyny. When a male individual has several wives, he has effectively prevented other males in the community from reproducing and passing on their y-chromosomes to subsequent generations. On the other hand, polygyny doesn't prevent most females in a community from passing on their mitochondrial DNA to subsequent generations. This differential reproductive success of males and females can lead to fewer male lineages relative to female lineages persisting into the future. These fewer male lineages are more sensitive to drift and would most likely coalesce on a more recent common ancestor. This would potentially explain the more recent dates associated with Y-chromosome Adam.[9][10] From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Adam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Adam
isomorph 15y ago
For people interested in this, learn about "stereotype threat"
credo 15y ago
Previous submissions and interesting discussions at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=589346 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=589346 and http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1634955 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1634955 The first submission points to http://denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm http://denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm (which has the same post with better formatting than this submission)
- Aloisius 15y ago
  Much better formatting on that one. Thanks!
  - MatthewPhillips 15y ago
    The link to this post is a word document exported to html. <meta name=ProgId content=Word.Document> <meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 12"> <meta name=Originator content="Microsoft Word 12">
gte910h 15y ago
Lots of positions, but very little citations to research, etc that backs it up. I'm curious how many of his contentions are borne up by science (other than the outlier study).
- sandstrom 15y ago
  I think the main reason is that this is a speech (transcribed). Hence the lack of citation and references, together with rhetorical questions and phrasings more suitable for verbal performance.
  - gte910h 15y ago
    Now that I go back, I see that it's a transcription. I missed the transcription bit the first time around.
JairusKhan 15y ago
"In the 19th century in America, middle-class girls and women played piano far more than men. Yet all that piano playing failed to result in any creative output." Well, I'm convinced!
- bonch 15y ago
  That's an awesome tactic. Take one statement out of an entire essay without context and just sarcastically reply to it to dismiss the whole essay.
- btcoal 15y ago
  The sub-point he was making that aptitude or talent does not imply creative output. So he gave an example of a group that had extremely high ability in an area but did not produce in that area. With the bigger point being that differences in achievement in certain areas between women and men may come down to interest more than ability. The logical counter-response to this would be "well there were so many social barriers (de-facto and de-jure) preventing women from producing creative output" He then gives an example of a similarly or more repressed group with extreme ability in an area (Black jazz musicians) that managed to be extremely prolific in that area. It is actually pretty convincing. Or at least thought-provoking. That is, if you do in fact think.
scythe 15y ago
Obvious problem: Genghis Khan is dead. The fact that a full third of Asia and consequently a sixth of the whole world has some genetic similarity to Genghis Khan does not make him any less dead. Evolution is not teleological and genes do not "want". Genes just happen; they're chemicals. Working to ensure the continuation of your genes is not mandated or valuable -- it is likely. Your parents probably did, because you exist, and most people are like their parents; modus ponens you probably will. It's not a command or an idea or a system of value, it's a description. The other obvious problem is that societies which played into the competitive heirarchy were only successful for some weird definitions of successful. If the Mongol empire is your idea of success, you have some crazy ideas about success, because the empire flared up and disappeared within 100 years, leaving Asia in ruins. On the other hand, the British and their methodical boringness not only conquered the world but lived to tell of it, and they did so largely by exploiting the willingness of less organized and "fair" societies to turn on each other -- how, precisely, did the tiny island of Britain conquer all of India (which had 20 times as many people)? Mostly because the Indians of the 19th century were backstabbing assholes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_and_Rule http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_and_Rule And how were the British kicked out of India? Well, by none other than some pacifist self-sacrificing guy named Mohandas Gandhi.
- lionhearted 15y ago
  Some good points, but the parts about the British Empire are off. I'd strongly recommend "Heaven's Command: An Imperial Progress" by Jan Morris for a piece that looks at all the good and bad that the British Empire did under Victoria. To make a long story really short, the British did ridiculous amounts of good in their colonies. For instance, eliminating the Thugee strangling cult: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuggee#The_practice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuggee#The_practice They also ended a lot of cannibalism, human sacrifices, completely ended the worldwide slave trade, eliminated piracy, brought rule of law, built infrastructure, brought science and the scientific method, eliminated cults, ended rituals of widows burning themselves on their husband's funeral pyre, eliminated kidnap/rape/murder cycles in many of their possessions, brought sanitation and education, and... just tons of good. Overwhelming amounts of good. The Empire was lost largely out of a sense of guilt and an unwillingness to take the actions that would have preserved it - pretty much any individual uprising could have been crushed if they'd decided to (including the American Revolution - see Ron Chernow's "Washington - A Life" for just how easy it would been for the British to end the whole thing at Boston, New York, or Valley Forge at various times).
reasonattlm 15y ago
Apparently the existence of men, or more accurately some portions of the male genome coupled with the processes of epigenetic imprinting, is shortening everyone's lifespan. See: http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/07/continued-investigations-of-rasgrf1-and-longevity.php http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/07/continued-investi... http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2010/12/an-update-on-mice-from-two-female-genomes.php http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2010/12/an-update-on-mice... http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/03/rasgrf1-deficiency-in-mice-causes-a-20-increase-in-maximum-life-span.php http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/03/rasgrf1-deficienc... For what it's worth.
mitcheme 15y ago
What I dislike about these kinds of "evolutionary" arguments is that they tend to assume that the differences between the genders are genetic, even when there's no evidence for that. Even as late as the Victorian ages, several of the traits we now think of as immutable part of being male or female were swapped around. For the Victorians, blue was for girls and pink was for boys, and all women had the potential to become insatiable, incurable beasts for sex, one reason it was so important to keep chaste. This model of sexuality fit what the people experienced in their daily lives, just as ours does to us, and they had their studies that revealed women who enjoyed sex far more than was proper. Compare the here-and-now with every other culture in the history of the planet, and most of our "innate" traits turn out not to be. It makes it very difficult to take the "innate" people seriously. I don't think it's that surprising that so many women are opposed to the idea that we're essentially designed to live out our whole lives hidden in the private sphere. Especially when you consider the 1950s, when (white, middle-to-upper class) women were "free" to do just that. They were miserable. I know I would have been miserable too. There's a reason the Feminine Mystique exists, and the 50s housewife who drowns herself in a bottle of booze is a cliche. For most people, that's just not enough to make a fulfilling life by itself. Even women today who are SAHMs have other things going on than taking care of their household, husband, and kids. He implies that it's somehow detrimental to our survival if women like me are free to create lives that don't make us deeply unhappy. If this arrangement had been as cooperative and nice as the author claims, how does feminism fit in? If we were happy inside the home, why did women look up and think, "I want to be a CEO" in the first place? Why did they not all look up and say, "I'm glad I don't have to do that, it looks stressful"? Given that it was their job to take care of the CEOs and other assorted businessmen after they came home stressed from work, it's not as though they didn't realize the drawbacks. Vacuuming is just not meaningful work. Guys, if you lived in a time where your choices were to latch onto a woman for financial support or pick a low-paying unskilled job, because everyone believed you were genetically incapable of doing anything better, would that be OK with you? Or would you find it personally offensive? What if they said you were incapable of making art, and labelled any creative work made by men as not art in order to reinforce that? (In the case of women, that's tapestries, embroideries, and pottery, for a start.) What if our default model of "real" sex was stuff women liked more than men (random, probably inaccurate example: doll up for us, dance for us, an hour of groping, grinding, and oral, PIV at the end optional), and "all men were frigid" because for some reason they found it less interesting than women? Come on. Women are people, like you; empathy applies. The old ways were awful.
Hisoka 15y ago
Moral of the story: Next time you're in an elevator, don't hold the doors for the females. get off first... unless you're holding it for a possible mate
kqr2 15y ago
The author expanded his original essay into a book: http://www.amazon.com/There-Anything-Good-About-Men/dp/019537410X/ http://www.amazon.com/There-Anything-Good-About-Men/dp/01953...
Aloisius 15y ago
I had no idea that the dominant view today was that women are better than men. It is my view and I haven't dissected all the reasons why I think that, but a lot of it comes from seeing so many men at the bottom. Biology wasn't kind to a huge percentage of men. I do find it true that men seem to try harder to be different, to entertain, to exceed and to impress. The top is dominated by cocky people and there aren't a lot of cocky women. Now is that biology or society? I have no idea. Is there a society on the planet where women have to impress men to get any attention? Do lesbians rise higher than straight women because they have to impress other women to stand out?
- Produce 15y ago
  Perhaps it's simple economics at work, with a physical foundation - men make many low risk investments whereas women make a handful of extremely high risk ones (bearing a child is physically very costly). Thus, men will be more inclined to approach and, therefore, lower their market value by increasing supply, while women will be more inclined to shoot down offers, since they are in great demand. I think that the society you're talking about would either have to be one where men have mutated into childbearing creatures or one where women have mutated to have very short and early pregnancies. An alternative might be a society where men take the brunt of the work of raising kids, though this is unlikely because women are more socially inclined due to their neurochemistry and, therefore, better at providing the emotional support a child needs, not to mention that they need to breast feed and physically recover after delivery which makes them less able to actively find food and shelter.
- ebaysucks 15y ago
  You will find more men at the bottom and more men at the top - an outcome that is explained well in the essay. I believe men are better at creating civilization and seeing more men who failed fits exactly in that worldview.
tariqk 15y ago
First off, the author misrepresents the idea of patriarchy as a "conspiracy of men to subjugate women". That's not how I've heard how it's been defined. Patriarchy/kyriarchy, roughly put, is a series of assumptions and privileges provided to a segment of the population, often at the expense of everyone else. It's not, as far as I can see, a conspiracy -- i.e. a secret plan hatched by a clandestine group that goes against a larger society's interests. You can have a pat/kyriarchy where each member acts on their own best interests, and yet the results of that unfairly disadvantage certain groups. A good example of the kind of decentralised, mass-action that disenfranchises a particular social group or class can be found in Michael Young's coining of the word "meritocracy", and how, through the collective action of a group of self-interested actors, a particular social group can be disenfranchised or demoralised. It doesn't require secrets, it doesn't require conspiracies, as a matter of fact it just requires everyone acting to their own best interests. Secondly, the author doesn't make a convincing argument that the fact that the reason why men get all the risk and all the reward is because of something innate, instead of a self-perpetuating social system that actively encourages one gender to risk it all and reap the rewards, while holding back the other gender to mediocrity and risk-free existences. The possibility is raised for a few sentences, and discarded, as if it's ridiculous, and it's obvious that the reasons are inherent. Since the arguments in the rest of the post requires me to buy the above premise without conclusively eliminating social mores and non-innate possibilities, I didn't bother reading the rest of the article. Incidentally, as a member of a nation that was born out of British Colonialism, the statement "the British Empire did a lot more good than harm" is a disgusting, privileged statement that really doesn't elicit much more than pitying contempt from me. Since of course we wouldn't have known what our lives would have been without John Company coming down to "civilise" our barbarian asses, obviously the only feelings we should be having is gratitude, especially since we owe our broken conception of race and ethnicity, our de-facto one-party rule since we gained independence from our Magnanimous Masters, our police force, more intent in beating down dissent and enforcing "public order" that is beneficial to only the ruling class and no one else, to organisations, concepts and social structures derived from British rule. That's right; it was this or barbarism. Yeah, I hope it helps you sleep at night too, jerk.
- nocipher 15y ago
maxharris 15y ago
Is there anything bad? Neither men nor women are born with anything anything to atone for.
munificent 15y ago
> Women specialize in the narrow sphere of intimate relationships. Men specialize in the larger group. If you make a list of activities that are done in large groups, you are likely to have a list of things that men do and enjoy more than women: team sports, politics, large corporations, economic networks, and so forth. ...open source?
dreww 15y ago
citations needed
- roundsquare 15y ago
  To quote from the article: "Media Transcript Full Version"
frankus 15y ago
The question this article raises for me is whether the strategy of out-breeding every other culture is going to continue to be a successful one at cultural level in the near future. The article suggests that it was, at least in the distant past. It seems like the most successful cultures today (measured by standard of living, anyway) are no longer those with the fastest-growing populations. China (strictly speaking a nation and not a culture) explicitly embraced a policy of slowing population growth, but I'm not knowledgable enough to have an opinion on how complete a success it has been. The interesting thing about culture in the modern age is that it is increasingly divorced from the genetic makeup of its members. If someone who is genetically foreign (to the extent that such a thing is possible) moves to the US and assimilates, their "home culture" has lost a member and "American culture" has gained one (leaving aside the plausibility of this scenario the current insanity of the US immigration system). If this "cultural switcher" phenomenon is large enough to overwhelm birthrate effects we could see culture shaped by some very different forces than in the past.
bukavu 15y ago
A very powerful and in depth argument, not sure I agree though. A little bit hate filledttp://beststand-mixer.com/kitchenaid-600/kitchenaid-60
olalonde 15y ago
Anyone else felt a sudden urge to reproduce after reading this?
jongraehl 15y ago
The author, Roy Baumeister, is behind the best-known research in willpower training/depletion - see http://jonathan.graehl.org/mitigating-ego-depletion http://jonathan.graehl.org/mitigating-ego-depletion and http://jonathan.graehl.org/evidence-that-self-control-can-be-trained-lik http://jonathan.graehl.org/evidence-that-self-control-can-be...
reirob 15y ago
Very nice article. It is centred about observing the past. But as evolution is going on, things change and I think that we are living in an era where things are changing and society will less favour the capability to compete but more to cope together. Think about the globalization, about global political institutions like UN, IWF, etc. Think about the fact that mankind is reaching limits of resources - oil, water, soil. I tend to think that these changes will actually change the roles and favour women, because it will be more important to share equally - that's just my personal opinion and I am actually in favour for it. I think we had enough wars and at least on this planet there is not that much territory to be conquered. What do you think?
- jkic47 15y ago
  As resources get scarcer, societies that do not share are more likely to survive. Either it, or the competitor that overcomes it will survive to the exclusion of others. Either way, the victor will likely not share hard won spoils.
maren 15y ago
"His misdeed was to think thoughts that are not allowed to be thought" << could not agree w/ this more, people are WAY too sensitive on both sides & fail to realize what really matters in life (including freedom of thought).
sandstrom 15y ago
Transcript of Lawrence Summers talk, should anyone be interested to read it: http://www.readability.com/articles/yvvvvlgv http://www.readability.com/articles/yvvvvlgv http://web.archive.org/web/20081212070850/http://www.president.harvard.edu/speeches/2005/nber.html http://web.archive.org/web/20081212070850/http://www.preside...
madaxe 15y ago
" we may need to legislate the principle of equal pay for less work. Personally, I support that principle." There has never been a more revulsive "principle".
k_kisiel 15y ago
Hi all, earth rotated, greetings from another side of the globe. There are many good points in the article, but not this one: "Communal (including communist) countries remain primitive and poor, whereas the rich, advanced nations have gotten where they are by means of economic exchange." From European (continental) perspective, that statement is false. Rich countries in Europe (Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway etc.) are observably more communal than poorer countries. Division is not between the former Communist countries vs. other countries. Among the former the more communal, bourgeois-oriented Czech Republic has bigger GDP per capita than more individualistic, nobility-oriented Hungary or Poland. More communal means richer, how weird! Why is that? My favorite theory explaining it is based on historical military considerations - countries in mainland Europe have long land borders other countries of approximately equal size and development level. In order to maintain sovereignty a country (or other "culture" as defined in the article, say independent city) needs as many soldiers as possible. So it pays to offer free medical care and welfare to the population so that all citizens are stay in good health and can, if necessary, defend the country and it's culture. So it was beneficial to the country to divide resources more equally rather than based on equity. Prime example is Switzerland which was founded in exactly these circumstances and look where they are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_....
phektus 15y ago
Try to name at least two inventions by women in under 5 seconds.

333 points by simonsarris 15y ago

yread 15y ago

Previous submission with a lot of comments and interesting discussion http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1634955 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1634955

nhangen 15y ago

This is a really, really good piece.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

JonnieCache 15y ago

The problem with this essay is that is paints us as slaves to our genes. Since Dawkins became fashionable, it is now normal to portray human beings as nothing more than meat-based mechanisms for storing and transporting DNA. This idea is dangerously embedded in society now, and it risks creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of barbarism. What possible motivation does one have for behaving in a manner other than that of an animal, if society is telling me that I cannot do so, and that any internal experience I might have of doing so is an illusion? How is it even possible to behave in a non-animalistic manner once you have internalised these ideas? Look into the history of George Price, one of the key figures in actually developing a lot of the stuff that Dawkins popularised: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/George_R._Price https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/George_R._Pri... The interesting part is how he spent the latter part of his life systematically giving away all his possessions to the poor in a guilt-ridden attempt to deny his own theories and to act against the interests of his genes. He eventually killed himself. The graphic method he chose to do so also comes across as an attempt to visibly deny his own ideas. On an entirely separate note, all this talk of inter-gender differences is useless without some consideration of their scale relative to intra-gender differences. Once you realise that the range in behaviour between members of the same gender is bigger than the difference in behaviour between members of different genders, by quite some way, this whole argument becomes a lot less compelling.

6ren 15y ago
A question on his genetic theory of altruism: although it is to do with allele frequency (interchangeable alternatives) in a specific population, is the argument applicable to a wider conception of a population? This is getting new-agey, but selfish promotion of our genes would logically include helping all mankind, since we share many genes (of course, we'd have more reason to help those more closely related); then, to similar species such as apes, then to mammals, then animals in general, then plants - which we'd prefer over rocks. All based on genetic similarity, of ones own genes helping other instances of itself. Which does seem to fit in which the attitudes of most people.
onemoreact 15y ago
That's an overly simplistic view of animal behavior. Spend some time studding game theory and you will find cooperation is natural in all but the most ruthless environments. Aka 3 man enter 1 man leave suggests creating a temporary alliance. Shure animals may posture 1v1 but both competitors are trying to avoid injury.
- JonnieCache 15y ago
  The highly questionable practice of applying game theory to human psychology is also dangerous IMO. It didn't get anyone anywhere in the cuban missile crisis, and it won't help us understand the "problem of altruism" either. People are not rational! This is demonstrably true. Even if they were uber-rational, they never have enough data about the world to make useful rational decisions WRT maximising gene propagation through strategic altruism. It is very telling that this modern notion whereby every time someone acts selflessly towards another they are in fact acting with laser-precise logic in their own interests was developed by the RAND corporation at the height of 1950s/60s cold-war paranoia.
  - onemoreact 15y ago
    Umm, I was not talking about human behavior. Bird flocks are often a great demonstration of emergent and cooperative behavior in the animal kingdom. As to your point, while I would not assume people are strictly rational it’s important to understand the transition points where rational behavior becomes destructive for society. Not because everyone acts in a strictly rational fashion but rather because there is a tendency for the average individual to do so. for example corruption often links to both the benefit and the risk of being corrupt and enforcement is far more important than what's in the books. IMO, the most important insight is given a large population there are usually several productive approaches that tend to balance over time. PS: If you think about it Sociology and Psychology are considered separate disciplines for obvious reasons. But economics is plenty complex to avoid being merged with Sociology because how you exit a burning building is only peripherally related to which brand of soda you buy.

orofino 15y ago

Readability link: http://www.readability.com/articles/cdiekyuv http://www.readability.com/articles/cdiekyuv The typesetting makes this terrible to read.

Joeboy 15y ago

> Recent research using DNA analysis answered this question about two years ago. Today’s human population is descended from twice as many women as men. Does anyone know what research he's referring to?

simonsarris 15y ago
He is almost certainly referring to research based on Mitochondrial Eve being far, far older than Mitochondrial Adam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve#Not_a_contemporary_of_.22Adam.22 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve#Not_a_contemp... Initial studies, such as Thomson et al. 2000[7] proposed that Y-chromosome Adam lived about 59,000 years ago. This date suggested that Y chromosome Adam lived tens of thousands of years after his female counterpart Mitochondrial Eve, who lived 150,000-200,000 years ago[8]. This date also meant that Y-chromosome Adam lived at a time very close to, and possibly after, the out of Africa migration which is believed to have taken place 50,000-80,000 years ago. One explanation given for this discrepancy in the dates of Adam and Eve was that females have a better chance of reproducing than males due to the practice of polygyny. When a male individual has several wives, he has effectively prevented other males in the community from reproducing and passing on their y-chromosomes to subsequent generations. On the other hand, polygyny doesn't prevent most females in a community from passing on their mitochondrial DNA to subsequent generations. This differential reproductive success of males and females can lead to fewer male lineages relative to female lineages persisting into the future. These fewer male lineages are more sensitive to drift and would most likely coalesce on a more recent common ancestor. This would potentially explain the more recent dates associated with Y-chromosome Adam.[9][10] From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Adam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Adam

isomorph 15y ago

For people interested in this, learn about "stereotype threat"

credo 15y ago

Previous submissions and interesting discussions at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=589346 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=589346 and http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1634955 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1634955 The first submission points to http://denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm http://denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm (which has the same post with better formatting than this submission)

Aloisius 15y ago
Much better formatting on that one. Thanks!
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  The link to this post is a word document exported to html. <meta name=ProgId content=Word.Document> <meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 12"> <meta name=Originator content="Microsoft Word 12">

gte910h 15y ago

Lots of positions, but very little citations to research, etc that backs it up. I'm curious how many of his contentions are borne up by science (other than the outlier study).

sandstrom 15y ago
I think the main reason is that this is a speech (transcribed). Hence the lack of citation and references, together with rhetorical questions and phrasings more suitable for verbal performance.
- gte910h 15y ago
  Now that I go back, I see that it's a transcription. I missed the transcription bit the first time around.

JairusKhan 15y ago

"In the 19th century in America, middle-class girls and women played piano far more than men. Yet all that piano playing failed to result in any creative output." Well, I'm convinced!

bonch 15y ago
That's an awesome tactic. Take one statement out of an entire essay without context and just sarcastically reply to it to dismiss the whole essay.
btcoal 15y ago
The sub-point he was making that aptitude or talent does not imply creative output. So he gave an example of a group that had extremely high ability in an area but did not produce in that area. With the bigger point being that differences in achievement in certain areas between women and men may come down to interest more than ability. The logical counter-response to this would be "well there were so many social barriers (de-facto and de-jure) preventing women from producing creative output" He then gives an example of a similarly or more repressed group with extreme ability in an area (Black jazz musicians) that managed to be extremely prolific in that area. It is actually pretty convincing. Or at least thought-provoking. That is, if you do in fact think.

scythe 15y ago

Obvious problem: Genghis Khan is dead. The fact that a full third of Asia and consequently a sixth of the whole world has some genetic similarity to Genghis Khan does not make him any less dead. Evolution is not teleological and genes do not "want". Genes just happen; they're chemicals. Working to ensure the continuation of your genes is not mandated or valuable -- it is likely. Your parents probably did, because you exist, and most people are like their parents; modus ponens you probably will. It's not a command or an idea or a system of value, it's a description. The other obvious problem is that societies which played into the competitive heirarchy were only successful for some weird definitions of successful. If the Mongol empire is your idea of success, you have some crazy ideas about success, because the empire flared up and disappeared within 100 years, leaving Asia in ruins. On the other hand, the British and their methodical boringness not only conquered the world but lived to tell of it, and they did so largely by exploiting the willingness of less organized and "fair" societies to turn on each other -- how, precisely, did the tiny island of Britain conquer all of India (which had 20 times as many people)? Mostly because the Indians of the 19th century were backstabbing assholes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_and_Rule http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_and_Rule And how were the British kicked out of India? Well, by none other than some pacifist self-sacrificing guy named Mohandas Gandhi.

lionhearted 15y ago
Some good points, but the parts about the British Empire are off. I'd strongly recommend "Heaven's Command: An Imperial Progress" by Jan Morris for a piece that looks at all the good and bad that the British Empire did under Victoria. To make a long story really short, the British did ridiculous amounts of good in their colonies. For instance, eliminating the Thugee strangling cult: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuggee#The_practice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuggee#The_practice They also ended a lot of cannibalism, human sacrifices, completely ended the worldwide slave trade, eliminated piracy, brought rule of law, built infrastructure, brought science and the scientific method, eliminated cults, ended rituals of widows burning themselves on their husband's funeral pyre, eliminated kidnap/rape/murder cycles in many of their possessions, brought sanitation and education, and... just tons of good. Overwhelming amounts of good. The Empire was lost largely out of a sense of guilt and an unwillingness to take the actions that would have preserved it - pretty much any individual uprising could have been crushed if they'd decided to (including the American Revolution - see Ron Chernow's "Washington - A Life" for just how easy it would been for the British to end the whole thing at Boston, New York, or Valley Forge at various times).

reasonattlm 15y ago

Apparently the existence of men, or more accurately some portions of the male genome coupled with the processes of epigenetic imprinting, is shortening everyone's lifespan. See: http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/07/continued-investigations-of-rasgrf1-and-longevity.php http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/07/continued-investi... http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2010/12/an-update-on-mice-from-two-female-genomes.php http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2010/12/an-update-on-mice... http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/03/rasgrf1-deficiency-in-mice-causes-a-20-increase-in-maximum-life-span.php http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/03/rasgrf1-deficienc... For what it's worth.

mitcheme 15y ago

What I dislike about these kinds of "evolutionary" arguments is that they tend to assume that the differences between the genders are genetic, even when there's no evidence for that. Even as late as the Victorian ages, several of the traits we now think of as immutable part of being male or female were swapped around. For the Victorians, blue was for girls and pink was for boys, and all women had the potential to become insatiable, incurable beasts for sex, one reason it was so important to keep chaste. This model of sexuality fit what the people experienced in their daily lives, just as ours does to us, and they had their studies that revealed women who enjoyed sex far more than was proper. Compare the here-and-now with every other culture in the history of the planet, and most of our "innate" traits turn out not to be. It makes it very difficult to take the "innate" people seriously. I don't think it's that surprising that so many women are opposed to the idea that we're essentially designed to live out our whole lives hidden in the private sphere. Especially when you consider the 1950s, when (white, middle-to-upper class) women were "free" to do just that. They were miserable. I know I would have been miserable too. There's a reason the Feminine Mystique exists, and the 50s housewife who drowns herself in a bottle of booze is a cliche. For most people, that's just not enough to make a fulfilling life by itself. Even women today who are SAHMs have other things going on than taking care of their household, husband, and kids. He implies that it's somehow detrimental to our survival if women like me are free to create lives that don't make us deeply unhappy. If this arrangement had been as cooperative and nice as the author claims, how does feminism fit in? If we were happy inside the home, why did women look up and think, "I want to be a CEO" in the first place? Why did they not all look up and say, "I'm glad I don't have to do that, it looks stressful"? Given that it was their job to take care of the CEOs and other assorted businessmen after they came home stressed from work, it's not as though they didn't realize the drawbacks. Vacuuming is just not meaningful work. Guys, if you lived in a time where your choices were to latch onto a woman for financial support or pick a low-paying unskilled job, because everyone believed you were genetically incapable of doing anything better, would that be OK with you? Or would you find it personally offensive? What if they said you were incapable of making art, and labelled any creative work made by men as not art in order to reinforce that? (In the case of women, that's tapestries, embroideries, and pottery, for a start.) What if our default model of "real" sex was stuff women liked more than men (random, probably inaccurate example: doll up for us, dance for us, an hour of groping, grinding, and oral, PIV at the end optional), and "all men were frigid" because for some reason they found it less interesting than women? Come on. Women are people, like you; empathy applies. The old ways were awful.

Hisoka 15y ago

Moral of the story: Next time you're in an elevator, don't hold the doors for the females. get off first... unless you're holding it for a possible mate

kqr2 15y ago

The author expanded his original essay into a book: http://www.amazon.com/There-Anything-Good-About-Men/dp/019537410X/ http://www.amazon.com/There-Anything-Good-About-Men/dp/01953...

Aloisius 15y ago

I had no idea that the dominant view today was that women are better than men. It is my view and I haven't dissected all the reasons why I think that, but a lot of it comes from seeing so many men at the bottom. Biology wasn't kind to a huge percentage of men. I do find it true that men seem to try harder to be different, to entertain, to exceed and to impress. The top is dominated by cocky people and there aren't a lot of cocky women. Now is that biology or society? I have no idea. Is there a society on the planet where women have to impress men to get any attention? Do lesbians rise higher than straight women because they have to impress other women to stand out?

Produce 15y ago
Perhaps it's simple economics at work, with a physical foundation - men make many low risk investments whereas women make a handful of extremely high risk ones (bearing a child is physically very costly). Thus, men will be more inclined to approach and, therefore, lower their market value by increasing supply, while women will be more inclined to shoot down offers, since they are in great demand. I think that the society you're talking about would either have to be one where men have mutated into childbearing creatures or one where women have mutated to have very short and early pregnancies. An alternative might be a society where men take the brunt of the work of raising kids, though this is unlikely because women are more socially inclined due to their neurochemistry and, therefore, better at providing the emotional support a child needs, not to mention that they need to breast feed and physically recover after delivery which makes them less able to actively find food and shelter.
ebaysucks 15y ago
You will find more men at the bottom and more men at the top - an outcome that is explained well in the essay. I believe men are better at creating civilization and seeing more men who failed fits exactly in that worldview.

tariqk 15y ago

First off, the author misrepresents the idea of patriarchy as a "conspiracy of men to subjugate women". That's not how I've heard how it's been defined. Patriarchy/kyriarchy, roughly put, is a series of assumptions and privileges provided to a segment of the population, often at the expense of everyone else. It's not, as far as I can see, a conspiracy -- i.e. a secret plan hatched by a clandestine group that goes against a larger society's interests. You can have a pat/kyriarchy where each member acts on their own best interests, and yet the results of that unfairly disadvantage certain groups. A good example of the kind of decentralised, mass-action that disenfranchises a particular social group or class can be found in Michael Young's coining of the word "meritocracy", and how, through the collective action of a group of self-interested actors, a particular social group can be disenfranchised or demoralised. It doesn't require secrets, it doesn't require conspiracies, as a matter of fact it just requires everyone acting to their own best interests. Secondly, the author doesn't make a convincing argument that the fact that the reason why men get all the risk and all the reward is because of something innate, instead of a self-perpetuating social system that actively encourages one gender to risk it all and reap the rewards, while holding back the other gender to mediocrity and risk-free existences. The possibility is raised for a few sentences, and discarded, as if it's ridiculous, and it's obvious that the reasons are inherent. Since the arguments in the rest of the post requires me to buy the above premise without conclusively eliminating social mores and non-innate possibilities, I didn't bother reading the rest of the article. Incidentally, as a member of a nation that was born out of British Colonialism, the statement "the British Empire did a lot more good than harm" is a disgusting, privileged statement that really doesn't elicit much more than pitying contempt from me. Since of course we wouldn't have known what our lives would have been without John Company coming down to "civilise" our barbarian asses, obviously the only feelings we should be having is gratitude, especially since we owe our broken conception of race and ethnicity, our de-facto one-party rule since we gained independence from our Magnanimous Masters, our police force, more intent in beating down dissent and enforcing "public order" that is beneficial to only the ruling class and no one else, to organisations, concepts and social structures derived from British rule. That's right; it was this or barbarism. Yeah, I hope it helps you sleep at night too, jerk.

nocipher 15y ago

maxharris 15y ago

Is there anything bad? Neither men nor women are born with anything anything to atone for.

munificent 15y ago

> Women specialize in the narrow sphere of intimate relationships. Men specialize in the larger group. If you make a list of activities that are done in large groups, you are likely to have a list of things that men do and enjoy more than women: team sports, politics, large corporations, economic networks, and so forth. ...open source?

dreww 15y ago

citations needed

roundsquare 15y ago
To quote from the article: "Media Transcript Full Version"

frankus 15y ago

The question this article raises for me is whether the strategy of out-breeding every other culture is going to continue to be a successful one at cultural level in the near future. The article suggests that it was, at least in the distant past. It seems like the most successful cultures today (measured by standard of living, anyway) are no longer those with the fastest-growing populations. China (strictly speaking a nation and not a culture) explicitly embraced a policy of slowing population growth, but I'm not knowledgable enough to have an opinion on how complete a success it has been. The interesting thing about culture in the modern age is that it is increasingly divorced from the genetic makeup of its members. If someone who is genetically foreign (to the extent that such a thing is possible) moves to the US and assimilates, their "home culture" has lost a member and "American culture" has gained one (leaving aside the plausibility of this scenario the current insanity of the US immigration system). If this "cultural switcher" phenomenon is large enough to overwhelm birthrate effects we could see culture shaped by some very different forces than in the past.

bukavu 15y ago

A very powerful and in depth argument, not sure I agree though. A little bit hate filledttp://beststand-mixer.com/kitchenaid-600/kitchenaid-60

olalonde 15y ago

Anyone else felt a sudden urge to reproduce after reading this?

jongraehl 15y ago

The author, Roy Baumeister, is behind the best-known research in willpower training/depletion - see http://jonathan.graehl.org/mitigating-ego-depletion http://jonathan.graehl.org/mitigating-ego-depletion and http://jonathan.graehl.org/evidence-that-self-control-can-be-trained-lik http://jonathan.graehl.org/evidence-that-self-control-can-be...

reirob 15y ago

Very nice article. It is centred about observing the past. But as evolution is going on, things change and I think that we are living in an era where things are changing and society will less favour the capability to compete but more to cope together. Think about the globalization, about global political institutions like UN, IWF, etc. Think about the fact that mankind is reaching limits of resources - oil, water, soil. I tend to think that these changes will actually change the roles and favour women, because it will be more important to share equally - that's just my personal opinion and I am actually in favour for it. I think we had enough wars and at least on this planet there is not that much territory to be conquered. What do you think?

jkic47 15y ago
As resources get scarcer, societies that do not share are more likely to survive. Either it, or the competitor that overcomes it will survive to the exclusion of others. Either way, the victor will likely not share hard won spoils.

maren 15y ago

"His misdeed was to think thoughts that are not allowed to be thought" << could not agree w/ this more, people are WAY too sensitive on both sides & fail to realize what really matters in life (including freedom of thought).

sandstrom 15y ago

Transcript of Lawrence Summers talk, should anyone be interested to read it: http://www.readability.com/articles/yvvvvlgv http://www.readability.com/articles/yvvvvlgv http://web.archive.org/web/20081212070850/http://www.president.harvard.edu/speeches/2005/nber.html http://web.archive.org/web/20081212070850/http://www.preside...

madaxe 15y ago

" we may need to legislate the principle of equal pay for less work. Personally, I support that principle." There has never been a more revulsive "principle".

k_kisiel 15y ago

Hi all, earth rotated, greetings from another side of the globe. There are many good points in the article, but not this one: "Communal (including communist) countries remain primitive and poor, whereas the rich, advanced nations have gotten where they are by means of economic exchange." From European (continental) perspective, that statement is false. Rich countries in Europe (Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway etc.) are observably more communal than poorer countries. Division is not between the former Communist countries vs. other countries. Among the former the more communal, bourgeois-oriented Czech Republic has bigger GDP per capita than more individualistic, nobility-oriented Hungary or Poland. More communal means richer, how weird! Why is that? My favorite theory explaining it is based on historical military considerations - countries in mainland Europe have long land borders other countries of approximately equal size and development level. In order to maintain sovereignty a country (or other "culture" as defined in the article, say independent city) needs as many soldiers as possible. So it pays to offer free medical care and welfare to the population so that all citizens are stay in good health and can, if necessary, defend the country and it's culture. So it was beneficial to the country to divide resources more equally rather than based on equity. Prime example is Switzerland which was founded in exactly these circumstances and look where they are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_....

phektus 15y ago

Try to name at least two inventions by women in under 5 seconds.