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Nature inclines women to require quite a bit of effort and persistence to be won over, since they make so much investment and require so much help to birth and

Nature inclines women to require quite a bit of effort and persistence to be won over, since they make so much investment and require so much help to birth and raise children. There is an intricate set of social norms, developed over centuries, that protects women from over-aggressive suitors while still allowing appropriate courtship to happen. Such courtship necessarily takes place where men and women naturally congregate together, including school and work and includes playful compliments and asking someone out a few times. Young women are naturally attracted to older successful men as good providers, just like as young men often initially go out with older women who are either past childbearing years or have their own practical and emotional resources rather than placing a big burden on their partners. There are reasons to prefer equal/same age relationships, but we shouldn't clutch our pearls when a boss dates a secretary. You can't just throw away hundreds of years of tradition and expect good results from counterfactual expectations on gender that you dreamed up from thin air. Just look at what happened with 20th century efforts to rewrite human nature by decree. Personally I am not in the market and not talking for myself, just feel sorry for the future of humanity. Especially progressive environmentalists got to realize that childless old people grow conservative and don't give a hoot about climate change after they are gone.

vkou 4y ago
And my nature as a man inclines me to burn pop-evolutionary-psychology takes, because it is natural for me to like fire, because fire was integral to my evolutionary survival, and burning garbage feeds the fire, and is therefore perfectly natural. You're parading a collection of nonsense just-so-stories dressed up in a lab coat, and the beauty of them is that you can cherry-pick whatever narrative fits your pre-conceptions. That is, of course, also why they are utter rubbish, and not worth the paper they are printed on. Are you saying something that isn't built on a quicksand of naturalistic fallacies? What exactly is it? > but we shouldn't clutch our pearls when a boss dates a secretary Right, because quid-pro-quo relationships, or even the appearance of quid-pro-quo relationships are fantastic for the workplace! Isn't it great for everyone else to see Sally get a raise after she starts fucking the boss? There's no conflict of interest, potential for abuse of power, or problem for anyone else involved! Are there any other naturalistic practices we should normalize again in the workplace? Maybe kickbacks and bribes? Do we need a few just-so-stories to justify these practices, or can we forego that exercise in creative writing, and skip straight to the conclusions I want?
- cat_plus_plus 4y ago
  That's another weird thing about today's progressives, literally putting workplace before family - aren't you guys supposed to be socialists? The alternative is for Sally, her boss and their coworkers to accept that romance can be impractical, inconvenient and embarrassing. But, if there is any chance at all that two people can find lasting happiness, a slim chance that I would have gotten that raise instead is a distant secondary priority. I will just insist on what I think I deserve and not obsess about others. Or if someone grants sexual favors for actual or perceived career benefit, it's on them to measure their self worth in this way. Or if the boss is willing to forego a sweetheart to avoid some office gossip and jealousy...
  - vkou 4y ago
    Unless we're living in a Star Trek post-scarcity utopia, everyone needs to work for a living. Including all the people affected by this. You want to have a sexual relationship with your report? There's a very simple, professional, solution for you, which is to do as you advise - 'prioritize family over work', and have one of you move jobs so that you aren't ruining it for everyone else. There are more people in society than the two of you, and they are negatively affected by quid-pro-quo behaviour, or the appearance of quid-pro-quo behaviour.
    - cat_plus_plus 4y ago
      LOL, like people who don't know where their next meal is coming from are the ones obsessing about who is hooking up with whom. Also what if my boss has a close friend? Cousin? Army/gym/golf buddy? Guess I will keep going around sticking my nose in other people's personal lives while humanity is going extinct in demographic collapse, because cleary everything being absolutely fair and equal to me down to microscopic level and nobody liking anybody a bit more than others is the most important thing in the world.
staticman2 4y ago
"There are reasons to prefer equal/same age relationships, but we shouldn't clutch our pearls when a boss dates a secretary" Boss A dumps his menopausal spouse and dates a young secretary. An evolutionary psychiatrist says "He evolved to do that! Dating a younger woman increases his reproductive opportunity." Meanwhile, Boss B stays faithful to his wife. An Evolutionary psychiatrist says "he evolved to do that! Women increase their reproductive success by looking for mates that are monogomous, because monogomous mates will stick around and keep their children safe, so men evolved to exhibit monogomy so as to be chosen by women for reproductive opportunities" Boss C would rather not date and has no kids. Evolutionary psychiatrist "He evolved to do this! Or rather specifically, he evolved to run around in the evolutionary environment prowling for mates, so since he's not in that environment but a modern city it's not surprising he doesn't want kids or sex, his genes were only selected to date and mate in the evolutionary environment." So basically these explanations are about as scientific as saying "God did it" over and over, since there is no way to prove or disprove them as the claims is tailored to any conceivable fact pattern. So people should be wary of the line of reasoning you presented in your post, since whatever it is it isn't scientific.
- cat_plus_plus 4y ago
  People used to have no problem reproducing whatsoever and now they do. Can't blame birth control because they are not even doing it in the first place. Looking at newly emerged obstacles to dating is a valid scientific hypothesis. Got a better one?
  - vkou 4y ago
    There is nothing valid or scientific about an undisprovable just-so story, which is what 95% of evo-psych is. The other 5% doesn't make claims that are very useful in internet arguments.
  - staticman2 4y ago
    Hypothesis is defined as " a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation." Also am I to understand that you will be conducting an experiment as to whether or not we should clutch our pearls when a boss dates a secretary? And you have little evidence in support of this notion at the present time, you were proposing it to begin your investigation? As for people having no trouble reproducing, well... lots of people had lots of trouble reproducing. Evolution doesn't work if everyone reproduces. There pretty much has to be a whole lot of people not reproducing for natural selection to "select" the ones who will be reproducing. I think you really mean people in recent years had no trouble reproducing but I'm being pendantic and just wanted to push back a little on the idea we should expect everyone to reproduce. I already gave you one evolutionary psychiatrist's vague proposal for why we should have trouble reproducing: we no longer live in the evolutionary environment, so it wouldn't be unexpected to see us not acting like our ancestors. It's vague enough that it isn't obviously wrong, or obviously made up by someone trying to sell you something. While "we shouldn't clutch our pearls when a boss dates a secretary" sounds suspiciously like what someone would say who is trying to sell us something I don't believe you have such a motivation, but I recall watching a lecture where the professor was saying how all the old evolutionary psychiatrist professors were divorcing their wives to hook up with young women half their age. They were clearly inventing a justification for their behavior, or drawn to that field because of their personal oddities.

vkou 4y ago

And my nature as a man inclines me to burn pop-evolutionary-psychology takes, because it is natural for me to like fire, because fire was integral to my evolutionary survival, and burning garbage feeds the fire, and is therefore perfectly natural. You're parading a collection of nonsense just-so-stories dressed up in a lab coat, and the beauty of them is that you can cherry-pick whatever narrative fits your pre-conceptions. That is, of course, also why they are utter rubbish, and not worth the paper they are printed on. Are you saying something that isn't built on a quicksand of naturalistic fallacies? What exactly is it? > but we shouldn't clutch our pearls when a boss dates a secretary Right, because quid-pro-quo relationships, or even the appearance of quid-pro-quo relationships are fantastic for the workplace! Isn't it great for everyone else to see Sally get a raise after she starts fucking the boss? There's no conflict of interest, potential for abuse of power, or problem for anyone else involved! Are there any other naturalistic practices we should normalize again in the workplace? Maybe kickbacks and bribes? Do we need a few just-so-stories to justify these practices, or can we forego that exercise in creative writing, and skip straight to the conclusions I want?

cat_plus_plus 4y ago
That's another weird thing about today's progressives, literally putting workplace before family - aren't you guys supposed to be socialists? The alternative is for Sally, her boss and their coworkers to accept that romance can be impractical, inconvenient and embarrassing. But, if there is any chance at all that two people can find lasting happiness, a slim chance that I would have gotten that raise instead is a distant secondary priority. I will just insist on what I think I deserve and not obsess about others. Or if someone grants sexual favors for actual or perceived career benefit, it's on them to measure their self worth in this way. Or if the boss is willing to forego a sweetheart to avoid some office gossip and jealousy...
- vkou 4y ago
  Unless we're living in a Star Trek post-scarcity utopia, everyone needs to work for a living. Including all the people affected by this. You want to have a sexual relationship with your report? There's a very simple, professional, solution for you, which is to do as you advise - 'prioritize family over work', and have one of you move jobs so that you aren't ruining it for everyone else. There are more people in society than the two of you, and they are negatively affected by quid-pro-quo behaviour, or the appearance of quid-pro-quo behaviour.
  - cat_plus_plus 4y ago
    LOL, like people who don't know where their next meal is coming from are the ones obsessing about who is hooking up with whom. Also what if my boss has a close friend? Cousin? Army/gym/golf buddy? Guess I will keep going around sticking my nose in other people's personal lives while humanity is going extinct in demographic collapse, because cleary everything being absolutely fair and equal to me down to microscopic level and nobody liking anybody a bit more than others is the most important thing in the world.

staticman2 4y ago

"There are reasons to prefer equal/same age relationships, but we shouldn't clutch our pearls when a boss dates a secretary" Boss A dumps his menopausal spouse and dates a young secretary. An evolutionary psychiatrist says "He evolved to do that! Dating a younger woman increases his reproductive opportunity." Meanwhile, Boss B stays faithful to his wife. An Evolutionary psychiatrist says "he evolved to do that! Women increase their reproductive success by looking for mates that are monogomous, because monogomous mates will stick around and keep their children safe, so men evolved to exhibit monogomy so as to be chosen by women for reproductive opportunities" Boss C would rather not date and has no kids. Evolutionary psychiatrist "He evolved to do this! Or rather specifically, he evolved to run around in the evolutionary environment prowling for mates, so since he's not in that environment but a modern city it's not surprising he doesn't want kids or sex, his genes were only selected to date and mate in the evolutionary environment." So basically these explanations are about as scientific as saying "God did it" over and over, since there is no way to prove or disprove them as the claims is tailored to any conceivable fact pattern. So people should be wary of the line of reasoning you presented in your post, since whatever it is it isn't scientific.

cat_plus_plus 4y ago
People used to have no problem reproducing whatsoever and now they do. Can't blame birth control because they are not even doing it in the first place. Looking at newly emerged obstacles to dating is a valid scientific hypothesis. Got a better one?
- vkou 4y ago
  There is nothing valid or scientific about an undisprovable just-so story, which is what 95% of evo-psych is. The other 5% doesn't make claims that are very useful in internet arguments.
- staticman2 4y ago
  Hypothesis is defined as " a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation." Also am I to understand that you will be conducting an experiment as to whether or not we should clutch our pearls when a boss dates a secretary? And you have little evidence in support of this notion at the present time, you were proposing it to begin your investigation? As for people having no trouble reproducing, well... lots of people had lots of trouble reproducing. Evolution doesn't work if everyone reproduces. There pretty much has to be a whole lot of people not reproducing for natural selection to "select" the ones who will be reproducing. I think you really mean people in recent years had no trouble reproducing but I'm being pendantic and just wanted to push back a little on the idea we should expect everyone to reproduce. I already gave you one evolutionary psychiatrist's vague proposal for why we should have trouble reproducing: we no longer live in the evolutionary environment, so it wouldn't be unexpected to see us not acting like our ancestors. It's vague enough that it isn't obviously wrong, or obviously made up by someone trying to sell you something. While "we shouldn't clutch our pearls when a boss dates a secretary" sounds suspiciously like what someone would say who is trying to sell us something I don't believe you have such a motivation, but I recall watching a lecture where the professor was saying how all the old evolutionary psychiatrist professors were divorcing their wives to hook up with young women half their age. They were clearly inventing a justification for their behavior, or drawn to that field because of their personal oddities.