5 ms·

The language usage is a bit weird. It seems that caring at all if your child is yours is "obsession" and "fixation". Quite judgemental word choice for somethin

The language usage is a bit weird. It seems that caring at all if your child is yours is "obsession" and "fixation". Quite judgemental word choice for something rather normal.

FirmwareBurner 2y ago
[flagged]
cess11 2y ago
What's "normal" for you isn't for others. Compared to these others those labels are quite appropriate.
- BiteCode_dev 2y ago
  The selfish gene states quite well why this happens and is normal in the statistical sense. I don't think a lot of people today would challenge dawkins on that.
  - cess11 2y ago
    Are you kidding? It's a political pamphlet, many scientists have aimed criticism at it.
    - cess11 2y ago
      In my headcanon the downvotes are from dudes that read The Selfish Gene in high school and got some feeling of epiphany, and now did a bit of web searching that angered them. Dawkins is a radical genetic reductionist, this book is his defense of this position. In the face of criticism he has moved on from the conclusions he presents in it towards a focus on phenotype reminiscent of older biological paradigms. One obvious critique is that if he was correct in the book, evolution would have played out much differently and most likely not moved on from single cell organisms. This is why his loyalists over time has moved from studying animals to find something that seems like evidence to preserve the conclusions, to studying bacteria. Another is that the most well known expression of genetic selfishness in humans would be cancer, which is clearly not the dominant mode of cellular reproduction. There are more cleanly scientific objections, famously locusts, i.e. epigenetics. He wrote at a time when the last remnants of aristotelian views of animals withered away, leaving an ideological vacuum. Previously the entire animal was thought to be the evolutionary atom, similar to an aristotelian form, against which Dawkins proposed his radical genetic reductionism. The main reason that the book has been as influential as it has, is that it is aimed at laypeople and cherrypicks and frames things to drive home a political view that is much easier to understand and accept than the mess we're actually in.
      - dang 2y ago
        Can you please edit out swipes and putdowns from your posts here? Your comment contains some interesting information and would be much better without that first sentence. We've had to ask you this more than once recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42605019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42605019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42554816 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42554816 If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
        cess11 2y ago
        No, I can't, I'm not allowed to edit the post.
        dang 2y ago
        The request is to edit them out of your future posts. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
        cess11 2y ago
        Right, I'll do my best to keep that in mind.
rachofsunshine 2y ago
I think it's fair to say that there is a subset of people for whom this kind of thing does border on obsession. By analogy, it's normal to care about your weight, but it's still possible for that normal concern to become an anxious obsession that gets blown way out of proportion.
- londons_explore 2y ago
  In the modern world, I don't see how one can be obsessed about such a thing... Do a DNA test, get answer. Obsession over.
  - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
    >In the modern world, I don't see how one can be obsessed about such a thing... Theres no obsession here, the author was being needlessly hyperbolical to twist the narrative as if the normal behavior of thinking about paternity makes one "obsessive". The way he phrased it makes it sound like it's normal for the paternal side not to care if he's raising his own kin or not. >Do a DNA test, get answer. Obsession over. DAN tests without your partner's consent or a court order, are not legal in several countries, like France for example. So you might never know if your partner doesn't want you to know or you don't have proof of adultery to show the court.
    - londons_explore 2y ago
      Those who would be obsessed would totally grab a bit of hair and mail it off to some country where such things are legal and get the answer in an email...
      - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
        Of course you can, but how many courts will side with you based on unlawfully obtained evidence?
        2y ago
zombot 2y ago
It may be normal, but is it productive? What will you do? Stop loving your child, punish the mother? You may be better off not knowing the answer and being OK with that.
- Zealotux 2y ago
  It is reasonable to know if your partner can be trusted, yes.
- 123yawaworht456 2y ago
  there's a four letter word to describe this mentality. I'm not going to say it, but you know what it is.
  - zombot 2y ago
    As a matter of fact, I don't. Spell it out if you dare.
    - 123yawaworht456 2y ago
      it's "cuck".
      - AlexeyBelov 2y ago
        This is not what this word means.
- krisoft 2y ago
  > Stop loving your child They are not your child. They are someone else's child. Maybe you keep loving them the same. Maybe you don't. > punish the mother? That would be barbaric. You wish your former partner all the best, and you part ways. Or you don't. But if people can divorce over "nothing" then that level of dishonesty certainly qualifies for one.
- thefz 2y ago
  > What will you do? Stop loving your child, Not your child.
failingslowly 2y ago
I agree with you. The article also attempts to minimize the importance of the issue, saying "stop panicking [...] it’s not the problem you think it is". Let's assume that their figure of 1% is correct. In the UK in 2021 alone there were 694,685 live births according to Google. That means in one year alone nearly 7,000 children were from "EPP". That's an enormous number of people, mostly men, potentially wrongly pursued for child support, or battling through the courts to be given access to a child that's not theirs, etc. That strikes me as a hugely important issue.
- Two4 2y ago
  In the grand scheme of all social issues the UK is beset with, this is small potatoes. It's not hugely important, it's just hugely important to you because it's an emotional issue.
  - failingslowly 2y ago
    Fair point, but then who are either of us to make that judgement? Who are you to say that it's small potatoes? In my defense, I'd say that the suicide rate for men is 4x that for women, and that a large proportion of suicides come after divorce and loss of access to children. (Sorry for being hand-wavey, but I can't search for the research to back these claims from where I am currently.) That alone at least backs the case for more research in this area.
- crossroadsguy 2y ago
  In some countries even if the child is biologically not yours you are still supposed to foot the bills.
123yawaworht456 2y ago
to those people, "normal" is abhorrent. desiring normalcy means you are a (insert an appropriate accusatory pejorative). expressing opposition to any degenerate behavior inevitably draws ire from the bourgeois folx.
- benterix 2y ago
  I understand what you mean but there are multiple issues with that statement: it assumes there is a homogenous group of "those people", that they all react in this way (I find this vocal always-offended-by-anything minority equally irritating), that "normalcy" is something defined or even defineable, and that it is static. These all are important issues but need e very balanced approach. Skewing things both left and right will have negative consequences to the society as a whole.

The language usage is a bit weird. It seems that caring at all if your child is yours is "obsession" and "fixation". Quite judgemental word choice for something rather normal.

FirmwareBurner 2y ago

[flagged]

cess11 2y ago

What's "normal" for you isn't for others. Compared to these others those labels are quite appropriate.

BiteCode_dev 2y ago
The selfish gene states quite well why this happens and is normal in the statistical sense. I don't think a lot of people today would challenge dawkins on that.
- cess11 2y ago
  Are you kidding? It's a political pamphlet, many scientists have aimed criticism at it.
  - cess11 2y ago
    In my headcanon the downvotes are from dudes that read The Selfish Gene in high school and got some feeling of epiphany, and now did a bit of web searching that angered them. Dawkins is a radical genetic reductionist, this book is his defense of this position. In the face of criticism he has moved on from the conclusions he presents in it towards a focus on phenotype reminiscent of older biological paradigms. One obvious critique is that if he was correct in the book, evolution would have played out much differently and most likely not moved on from single cell organisms. This is why his loyalists over time has moved from studying animals to find something that seems like evidence to preserve the conclusions, to studying bacteria. Another is that the most well known expression of genetic selfishness in humans would be cancer, which is clearly not the dominant mode of cellular reproduction. There are more cleanly scientific objections, famously locusts, i.e. epigenetics. He wrote at a time when the last remnants of aristotelian views of animals withered away, leaving an ideological vacuum. Previously the entire animal was thought to be the evolutionary atom, similar to an aristotelian form, against which Dawkins proposed his radical genetic reductionism. The main reason that the book has been as influential as it has, is that it is aimed at laypeople and cherrypicks and frames things to drive home a political view that is much easier to understand and accept than the mess we're actually in.
    - dang 2y ago
      Can you please edit out swipes and putdowns from your posts here? Your comment contains some interesting information and would be much better without that first sentence. We've had to ask you this more than once recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42605019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42605019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42554816 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42554816 If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
      - cess11 2y ago
        No, I can't, I'm not allowed to edit the post.
        dang 2y ago
        The request is to edit them out of your future posts. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
        cess11 2y ago
        Right, I'll do my best to keep that in mind.

rachofsunshine 2y ago

I think it's fair to say that there is a subset of people for whom this kind of thing does border on obsession. By analogy, it's normal to care about your weight, but it's still possible for that normal concern to become an anxious obsession that gets blown way out of proportion.

londons_explore 2y ago
In the modern world, I don't see how one can be obsessed about such a thing... Do a DNA test, get answer. Obsession over.
- FirmwareBurner 2y ago
  >In the modern world, I don't see how one can be obsessed about such a thing... Theres no obsession here, the author was being needlessly hyperbolical to twist the narrative as if the normal behavior of thinking about paternity makes one "obsessive". The way he phrased it makes it sound like it's normal for the paternal side not to care if he's raising his own kin or not. >Do a DNA test, get answer. Obsession over. DAN tests without your partner's consent or a court order, are not legal in several countries, like France for example. So you might never know if your partner doesn't want you to know or you don't have proof of adultery to show the court.
  - londons_explore 2y ago
    Those who would be obsessed would totally grab a bit of hair and mail it off to some country where such things are legal and get the answer in an email...
    - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
      Of course you can, but how many courts will side with you based on unlawfully obtained evidence?
      - 2y ago

zombot 2y ago

It may be normal, but is it productive? What will you do? Stop loving your child, punish the mother? You may be better off not knowing the answer and being OK with that.

Zealotux 2y ago
It is reasonable to know if your partner can be trusted, yes.
123yawaworht456 2y ago
there's a four letter word to describe this mentality. I'm not going to say it, but you know what it is.
- zombot 2y ago
  As a matter of fact, I don't. Spell it out if you dare.
  - 123yawaworht456 2y ago
    it's "cuck".
    - AlexeyBelov 2y ago
      This is not what this word means.
krisoft 2y ago
> Stop loving your child They are not your child. They are someone else's child. Maybe you keep loving them the same. Maybe you don't. > punish the mother? That would be barbaric. You wish your former partner all the best, and you part ways. Or you don't. But if people can divorce over "nothing" then that level of dishonesty certainly qualifies for one.
thefz 2y ago
> What will you do? Stop loving your child, Not your child.

failingslowly 2y ago

I agree with you. The article also attempts to minimize the importance of the issue, saying "stop panicking [...] it’s not the problem you think it is". Let's assume that their figure of 1% is correct. In the UK in 2021 alone there were 694,685 live births according to Google. That means in one year alone nearly 7,000 children were from "EPP". That's an enormous number of people, mostly men, potentially wrongly pursued for child support, or battling through the courts to be given access to a child that's not theirs, etc. That strikes me as a hugely important issue.

Two4 2y ago
In the grand scheme of all social issues the UK is beset with, this is small potatoes. It's not hugely important, it's just hugely important to you because it's an emotional issue.
- failingslowly 2y ago
  Fair point, but then who are either of us to make that judgement? Who are you to say that it's small potatoes? In my defense, I'd say that the suicide rate for men is 4x that for women, and that a large proportion of suicides come after divorce and loss of access to children. (Sorry for being hand-wavey, but I can't search for the research to back these claims from where I am currently.) That alone at least backs the case for more research in this area.
crossroadsguy 2y ago
In some countries even if the child is biologically not yours you are still supposed to foot the bills.

123yawaworht456 2y ago

to those people, "normal" is abhorrent. desiring normalcy means you are a (insert an appropriate accusatory pejorative). expressing opposition to any degenerate behavior inevitably draws ire from the bourgeois folx.

benterix 2y ago
I understand what you mean but there are multiple issues with that statement: it assumes there is a homogenous group of "those people", that they all react in this way (I find this vocal always-offended-by-anything minority equally irritating), that "normalcy" is something defined or even defineable, and that it is static. These all are important issues but need e very balanced approach. Skewing things both left and right will have negative consequences to the society as a whole.