Gender Roles

[lpetrich]

Gonads can in fact be non-strict binary. They are more like the A and B of blood types, and some people do produce both for various reasons.

One ovary and one testicle? Or a gonad that makes both? (intersex gonad)

ETA: I should have read more.  Ovotestis - an intersex gonad, one that makes both sexes of gamete.

Gametes, however, seem to have a rigid binary. Have intersex gametes ever been found?

I would also pose that personality and psych identity and behavioral drivers are more polymodal than bimodal, since there is set of "third roles" that can and will emerge among tool using species driven by NOT reproducing.

I should clarify about personality.

• No statistically significant difference
• Strong overlap (difference of means < standard devications)
• Bimodal (difference of means > standard deviations)
• Rigid binary

When testing for personality features, one often finds the first two cases: the sexes are either the same are not much different.

 

[Jarhyn]

.

I would also pose that personality and psych identity and behavioral drivers are more polymodal than bimodal, since there is set of "third roles" that can and will emerge among tool using species driven by NOT reproducing.

I should clarify about personality.

• No statistically significant difference
• Strong overlap (difference of means < standard devications)
• Bimodal (difference of means > standard deviations)
• Rigid binary

When testing for personality features, one often finds the first two cases: the sexes are either the same are not much different.

Yeah, I think it's important to note that all behavioral groups would predictably be largely overlapped to the point where to see behavioral mode peaks would require vast amounts of data.

The real question as impacts trans people in general is "how do I feel about how I feel?", and "what behavioral goad do I want to experience?"

If you want to feel some way and you feel that way by acting in some way, act in that way primarily.

If you want to be more pressed towards some behavior, take the chemical into your body that makes you feel that press.

If you want to have a body with particular musculoskeletal and soft tissue features, take the chemical into your body that allows those features to develop.

 

[Emily Lake]

Gonads can in fact be non-strict binary. They are more like the A and B of blood types, and some people do produce both for various reasons.

One ovary and one testicle? Or a gonad that makes both? (intersex gonad)

Some people have one ovary and one testis, usually as a result of mosaicism, but there can be other causes. To date, we have not found anyone in whom both gonads are functioning.

ETA: I should have read more.  Ovotestis - an intersex gonad, one that makes both sexes of gamete.

Not in humans

Gametes, however, seem to have a rigid binary. Have intersex gametes ever been found?

No

 

[Emily Lake]

If you want to be more pressed towards some behavior, take the chemical into your body that makes you feel that press.

Completely aside from the actual conversation here... All I can think is:

 

[Loren Pechtel]

As to gendering, we have a whole set of gendered features, and they are sometimes mismatched.

• Gonads (they make gametes)
• Genitals (primary features)

Gonads and genitals are not "gendered" features, they're sexed features. They're primary sexual characteristics.

"Gender" and "sex" were synonyms in English for about six hundred years, and they still are in the common usage of normal people who haven't gone down the newspeak rabbit hole. lpetrich appears to have been using "gender" in the traditional way. When a bunch of academics appropriate a term already in widespread use and make up a new technical-jargon meaning for it, that doesn't make the people using the term in its common-usage sense wrong.

And we use Newtonian math for almost everything on a day-to-day basis. Doesn't mean Newtonian and Einsteinian are the same, though.

Gender and sex usually match--and when they didn't people usually hid it. And women pretending to be men happened often enough for economic reasons that why would anyone realize someone did it for other reasons.

Also, necessity was far more of a driver in the past than it is now.

 

[Jarhyn]

As to gendering, we have a whole set of gendered features, and they are sometimes mismatched.

• Gonads (they make gametes)
• Genitals (primary features)

Gonads and genitals are not "gendered" features, they're sexed features. They're primary sexual characteristics.

"Gender" and "sex" were synonyms in English for about six hundred years, and they still are in the common usage of normal people who haven't gone down the newspeak rabbit hole. lpetrich appears to have been using "gender" in the traditional way. When a bunch of academics appropriate a term already in widespread use and make up a new technical-jargon meaning for it, that doesn't make the people using the term in its common-usage sense wrong.

And we use Newtonian math for almost everything on a day-to-day basis. Doesn't mean Newtonian and Einsteinian are the same, though.

Gender and sex usually match--and when they didn't people usually hid it. And women pretending to be men happened often enough for economic reasons that why would anyone realize someone did it for other reasons.

Also, necessity was far more of a driver in the past than it is now.

Well, that's part of it, but you might be seeing a chicken/egg problem that goes far deeper.

The utility of the thought "'pretend' to be a 'man'" is an epiphany that has various sources.

From my perspective, often the solution "for economic reasons" is going to happen more completely and effectively when someone is emotionally committed to the role.

It's interesting. I don't bring it up often here because it's a bit of red meat, but one of my husband's streamers that he watches is a person named Vlad.

Vlad is a man with a career as a gamer girl/only fans girl/insta girl. Vlad did this for economic reasons.

Now, Vlad makes very good money and none of the people that watch Vlad's streams and videos are unaware of what vlad looks like without the wig, outfit, makeup, and gamer chair. The only people who are generally not aware are the people Vlad gets into ChatRoulette/Ome with, who often react in fairly predictable ways when they go from a demure shy upper register voice, to a rich baritone after which there is an impressive "gun show".

For many people, in fact, Vlad is the only gamer girl they know the name of.

What is clear is that if Vlad didn't put on the wig and the pushup bra and sit at an angle that hides their shoulders, and put on the makeup they would not get the clicks, likes, views, and donations they do.

Also for the record, Vlad is hot no matter how they dress or sit.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yes, Jarhyn, I'm quite aware of the SRY gene's role, and have talked about it repeatedly. The SRY gene is located on the Y chromosome, except in cases of genetic mutation that cause it to be translocated onto the X. Its the activation of the SRY gene that causes the bi-potential fetal reproductive tract to diverge down either a mullerian or a wolffian pathway.

The fact that sometimes something goes wrong does not invalidate that chromosomes are the means by which humans evolved sexual determination.

But note the implication--things can go wrong, producing a result that is other than the standard answer. This strongly suggests that other things can go wrong, producing other outcomes that don't match the standard answer--for example, running woman OS on man hardware. You are admitting one type of glitch is possible while rejecting the possibility of certain other ones.

 

[Jarhyn]

Yes, Jarhyn, I'm quite aware of the SRY gene's role, and have talked about it repeatedly. The SRY gene is located on the Y chromosome, except in cases of genetic mutation that cause it to be translocated onto the X. Its the activation of the SRY gene that causes the bi-potential fetal reproductive tract to diverge down either a mullerian or a wolffian pathway.

The fact that sometimes something goes wrong does not invalidate that chromosomes are the means by which humans evolved sexual determination.

But note the implication--things can go wrong, producing a result that is other than the standard answer. This strongly suggests that other things can go wrong, producing other outcomes that don't match the standard answer--for example, running woman OS on man hardware. You are admitting one type of glitch is possible while rejecting the possibility of certain other ones.

Again, I caution use of "wrong" here, over "divergently".

 

[Bomb#20]

As to gendering, we have a whole set of gendered features, and they are sometimes mismatched.

• Gonads (they make gametes)
• Genitals (primary features)

Gonads and genitals are not "gendered" features, they're sexed features. They're primary sexual characteristics.

"Gender" and "sex" were synonyms in English for about six hundred years, and they still are in the common usage of normal people who haven't gone down the newspeak rabbit hole. lpetrich appears to have been using "gender" in the traditional way. When a bunch of academics appropriate a term already in widespread use and make up a new technical-jargon meaning for it, that doesn't make the people using the term in its common-usage sense wrong.

And we use Newtonian math for almost everything on a day-to-day basis. Doesn't mean Newtonian and Einsteinian are the same, though.

I'm not following why you think that's analogous. Newtonian and Einsteinian math are different because they're different theories -- theories that say different things because they're making conflicting predictions. I was talking about a mere difference in terminology. When Newtonian and Einsteinian math give different results it's because Newtonian physics is wrong. My point was that what lpetrich wrote was not wrong; it was simply written in a different dialect from the dialect some people prefer to use.

When some sociologists decided "Gender refers to the characteristics of women, men, girls and boys that are socially constructed.", they weren't making a new discovery about what gender refers to, let alone a new discovery about women, men, girls and boys. Their decision didn't let them derive some new falsifiable prediction about women, men, girls and boys. They weren't exposing some 600-year-long misconception about women, men, girls and boys the way Einstein exposed Newton's misconception about space being Euclidean. All they were accomplishing was enabling themselves to make the same sorts of commentary they could already make, just without the burden of writing "socially constructed" over and over. It was a change in sociologists' notation.

Gender and sex usually match--and when they didn't people usually hid it.

That's an odd thing to say. People always hid it -- if they were outed then the mismatch ended. Are you perhaps mixing gender identity up with gender?

 

[Bomb#20]

... enforcing ...

Exactly which part of "freedom of speech" don't you understand?

The one in which you think it's "speech freedom" to throw tantrums when people actually engage in "speech freedom"...

Oh, that part. Well then, since you evidently have a basic reading comprehension problem, I will explain it to you. Yes, it absolutely was "speech freedom" for you to throw the tantrum you threw, just as it was "speech freedom" for you to trump up your false accusation that I was 'enforcing "oldspeak" definitions', just as it was "speech freedom" for you and the rest of your Humpty Dumpty speech community to take up using "gender" in some new sense because you found it useful for whatever analytical and/or ideological purposes you were pursuing. Those things are all "speech freedom", even your tantrum, because they don't fit under any of the First Amendment's established exceptions such as threats or criminal conspiracy or false commercial advertising.

You evidently incorrectly took that "freedom of speech" question to be referring to my freedom of speech. It wasn't. I was referring to your freedom of speech, along with Politesse's, and sociologists', and the WHO's, and Emily's, and everybody else on the planet who likes using the newly made-up definition of "gender". You all have freedom of speech. You all have every right to use the word "gender" any way you please, and I have never challenged that or taken any action to coerce anyone into doing otherwise. That is why your attribution of "enforcing" oldspeak is a baseless, trumped-up, false accusation. That is why it deserved the it got. I am enforcing nothing. (Not even my own free speech right to point out your errors. Enforcing that right is up to the government and its legal monopoly on force.)

and attempt to justify a lack of nuance in discussion on account of your own apparent inability to parse that nuance.

You have every freedom to speak that you might imagine,

And you had every freedom to ignore the plain meaning of my post and misparse it to mean something quite different. Exercising that freedom was poor judgment on your part.

but you do not have entitlement to "private facts". The world works a way and has the variations it does and all denying that does is put your head in the sand and make you look like an ostrich.

Reality contains biologies that have a feature loosely linked to but separate from the shape genitals have, and associated with behavioral support around said genital configurations.

Where on earth do you imagine you saw me dispute that? What "private facts" did you see me assert? I simply reported the history of the English language.

Language OUGHT have a word understood distinct and separate but still relationally linked to sex but separate from "the shape genitals have".

That is linguistic prescriptivism. How you think the language OUGHT to evolve does not qualify as evidence pertaining to how it has evolved.

Trying to enforce your Newspeak to ignore the reality there is just idiotic. You're free to be that if you want, but that's your choice, if you do choose; if you make that choice, you have excluded "not being an idiot" from your possible options.

As far as I can see, what lpetrich wrote was perfectly correct. When all I did was speak out in defense of a person choosing for himself to use the word a certain way against the false claim that his usage was wrong, repeatedly accusing me of trying to "enforce" that usage is just idiotic. You're free to be that if you want. If you prefer to talk your way, you get to. If lpetrich prefers to talk his way, he gets to. What nobody gets to do is enforce his own preferred usage on others. That's what "freedom of speech" means. Is there some part of that you still don't understand?

 

[Jarhyn]

And you had every freedom to ignore the plain meaning of my post and misparse it to mean something quite different. Exercising that freedom was poor judgment on your part.

You claim this, and yet you never seem to be able to articulate an actual interpretation of my post that is inaccurate.

I'm left with the distinct impression that you rather think that the only way you actually would accept as "proper" in the parsing of your posts is the interpretation where "bomb is right". That's not actually how it works though. Words only work when their usage is respected as to the utility of their use in modeling reality.

I commonly prompt you to explain what you mean by something. For some reason at some point, I generally find that you, and some others before you, cease to respond when the questions start to get hard.

You could ask me what I mean by anything, what I want of what I say, why I think the way I do, and generally I will have an answer. This is not because I am special but because I am lucky, mostly just to have been exposed to ideas that actually happen to fit together as precisely and mechanically as I expect anything to do on account of my particular expression of gender, the thing around which my whole identity turns towards.

For some people, they base their identity on their reproductive abilities, or their model for seeking sexual and reproductive goals.

I don't do that. I think it's silly. I think it's silly to be a man or a woman either way. I'm not going to be fruitful or multiply that way, either. I'm going to make something else that you probably won't like either.

One thing I fairly consistently note about you, Emily, and many others besides, is that you all seem to have a deep dislike for immigration, for people different from yourselves. I would, in my mental model of you, accurate or not, have just about any of you by default, if asked by some robot or machine powered by some model of artificial neurons and that thing asked you to be their equal at any point, the character I have standing in for you in there says as little as possible and then votes for whoever would say "no" and complains simultaneously that they took your job.

It strikes me that any of a number of folks here would gladly say "men who date robots are fucking pervs and shouldn't be around children" or somesuch.

What gender is a fucking robot? What sex? The only thing that matters to them is how they decide to act and yes, we are in the age where robots will decide for themselves how to act!

Humans are just robots made of meat, with processors composed of switches made of meat, with some components that can be emulated all the same as switches either way. We are switched systems all the way down.

There is nothing, and perhaps everything, magical about that.

There is something material and real, made of stuff, driving every situation you experience. One of those real materials is testosterone. It has an active effect on the mass of matter between your ears which I assume exists.

And that stuff has a configuration that is particular to it and that configuration, that differentiable and differentiated driver of process, has been engendered by its history and ongoing processes such that this makes you feel in certain ways.

I would see much of the pressure for people to conform to some standard of gender, in some ways to give up their own power over who they are, removed, such that people are encouraged to not seek what to you may seem an impossible dream, to run up that building and "make that deal with god"* to decide who they are.

I want people free to decide that for themselves. That's all.

*Such a wonderful metaphor...

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yes, Jarhyn, I'm quite aware of the SRY gene's role, and have talked about it repeatedly. The SRY gene is located on the Y chromosome, except in cases of genetic mutation that cause it to be translocated onto the X. Its the activation of the SRY gene that causes the bi-potential fetal reproductive tract to diverge down either a mullerian or a wolffian pathway.

The fact that sometimes something goes wrong does not invalidate that chromosomes are the means by which humans evolved sexual determination.

But note the implication--things can go wrong, producing a result that is other than the standard answer. This strongly suggests that other things can go wrong, producing other outcomes that don't match the standard answer--for example, running woman OS on man hardware. You are admitting one type of glitch is possible while rejecting the possibility of certain other ones.

Again, I caution use of "wrong" here, over "divergently".

"Wrong" as in not as intended. That's not the same as it being a problem.

 

[Jarhyn]

Yes, Jarhyn, I'm quite aware of the SRY gene's role, and have talked about it repeatedly. The SRY gene is located on the Y chromosome, except in cases of genetic mutation that cause it to be translocated onto the X. Its the activation of the SRY gene that causes the bi-potential fetal reproductive tract to diverge down either a mullerian or a wolffian pathway.

The fact that sometimes something goes wrong does not invalidate that chromosomes are the means by which humans evolved sexual determination.

But note the implication--things can go wrong, producing a result that is other than the standard answer. This strongly suggests that other things can go wrong, producing other outcomes that don't match the standard answer--for example, running woman OS on man hardware. You are admitting one type of glitch is possible while rejecting the possibility of certain other ones.

Again, I caution use of "wrong" here, over "divergently".

"Wrong" as in not as intended. That's not the same as it being a problem.

True, but that implies intent. Evolution of genes operate on, best I can tell, nothing that can be characterized as "intent".

There are selection pressures, things that work and things that don't in various contexts, sure, bit that's not intent any more than gravity has in forming the earth or holding a river to its banks.

 

[Bomb#20]

And you had every freedom to ignore the plain meaning of my post and misparse it to mean something quite different. Exercising that freedom was poor judgment on your part.

You claim this, and yet you never seem to be able to articulate an actual interpretation of my post that is inaccurate.

Poppycock. You write inaccurate stuff all the time, and I and others point it out on a regular basis. Upthread you claimed ChatGPT is unbiased; that wasn't accurate. In our current dust-up, you accused me of enforcing usage; that wasn't accurate. And then you plainly assumed I was referring to my own freedom of speech when I was talking about yours; that wasn't accurate. Get over yourself.

I'm left with the distinct impression that you rather think that the only way you actually would accept as "proper" in the parsing of your posts is the interpretation where "bomb is right". That's not actually how it works though. Words only work when their usage is respected as to the utility of their use in modeling reality.

Oh for the love of god. You didn't misparse it by failing to interpret it as bomb being right; you misparsed it by failing to pay attention to what you'd said that I was responding to and that I quoted back at you. Drawing the author's attention is the whole point of people quoting his or her passages in their posts. This is not rocket science: I quoted you saying "enforcing" because that's what I was taking exception to in your post -- your false accusation that I was enforcing usage. What the heck has my free speech got to do with that? I don't have a free speech right to enforce anything. You have a free speech right not to have usage enforced. Your interpretation of my post as an appeal to my own free speech rights made no sense in the context of what it was a reply to. Overlooking that was careless of you.

I commonly prompt you to explain what you mean by something. For some reason at some point, I generally find that you, and some others before you, cease to respond when the questions start to get hard.

When do you ever ask for an explanation? Quote yourself. Seems to me when you don't understand something somebody writes you normally make up some other meaning for it and write a screed that takes for granted your misinterpretation is correct. Our current exchange is a case in point.

One thing I fairly consistently note about you, Emily, and many others besides, is that you all seem to have a deep dislike for immigration,

No, that's not anything you "note" about me. The term you need there is "make up". You have observed me say exactly nothing that expresses a deep dislike for immigration. You assume based on no evidence that I dislike immigration, apparently because you and I are in conflict about subjects important to you, and since you take for granted that you're always right about everything important you deduce that I'm a bad person, so you impute to me any random character trait you associate with bad people. Stop making things up about other people. It isn't nice.

for people different from yourselves.

Where the heck are you getting that? I don't dislike people different from myself. I've encountered about one other person in my life who thinks like me, but I like a lot more than one other person. I do dislike people who act like jerks; you might be overgeneralizing from my reactions to them. IIDB participants aren't a random sample of the human race.

I would, in my mental model of you, accurate or not, have just about any of you by default, if asked by some robot or machine powered by some model of artificial neurons and that thing asked you to be their equal at any point, the character I have standing in for you in there says as little as possible and then votes for whoever would say "no" and complains simultaneously that they took your job.

Yes, that does sound like your mental models of other people. You are not very good at modeling other minds.

For the record, machines powered by some model of artificial neurons are not artificial intelligence. They're artificial stupidity. ChatGPT is what you get when you cross an Eliza program with Who Wants to be a Millionaire's "Ask the Audience" lifeline. It is not a sentient life form. It took me all of two minutes to get it to blatantly contradict itself with no awareness that it was doing so. That's not to say neural network modeling isn't a promising path to artificial general intelligence -- it certainly is -- but merely a comment on the current primitive state-of-the-art.

Vertebrates' brains aren't an undifferentiated mass of neural tissue that learned to think by soaking up sensory data and getting rewarded for mimicking it. Vertebrates are the product of five hundred million years of natural selection for sophisticated structure in our brain anatomy. We are not going to make a robot as smart as a human without first learning how to make a robot as smart as a horse. ChatGPT is dumber than a horse. In case you've forgotten, I'm a capitalist, so why the heck would I complain about ChatGPT taking my job? If I had a job a horse could do then it would be rational for my employer to get a horse.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Again, I caution use of "wrong" here, over "divergently".

"Wrong" as in not as intended. That's not the same as it being a problem.

True, but that implies intent. Evolution of genes operate on, best I can tell, nothing that can be characterized as "intent".

There are selection pressures, things that work and things that don't in various contexts, sure, bit that's not intent any more than gravity has in forming the earth or holding a river to its banks.

It doesn't work as well, therefore I would consider it wrong. But that doesn't make it something that needs to be prohibited. My color vision is "wrong", that doesn't make me a bad person. It means there's a few jobs I can't do, but that's about it.

 

[Jarhyn]

Again, I caution use of "wrong" here, over "divergently".

"Wrong" as in not as intended. That's not the same as it being a problem.

True, but that implies intent. Evolution of genes operate on, best I can tell, nothing that can be characterized as "intent".

There are selection pressures, things that work and things that don't in various contexts, sure, bit that's not intent any more than gravity has in forming the earth or holding a river to its banks.

It doesn't work as well, therefore I would consider it wrong. But that doesn't make it something that needs to be prohibited. My color vision is "wrong", that doesn't make me a bad person. It means there's a few jobs I can't do, but that's about it.

"Doesn't work as well" is contextual. You are right that "doesn't work as well" from some context doesn't mean "prohibit it", but still it is also not universal.

The trait sticks around for its own reasons.

What it does mean is that you would like something different, and you would go to some "reasonable, but not high" level of effort to accomplish that.

Again, I can't really see "wrongness", as much as "not what you want"-ness. It's an interpretation of "wrong" to be sure, but it should be clear that it shouldn't be conflated with ethical wrongness. As you point out, to you it is subjective, created by the neurons in your own head and the way they ended up going together.

It certainly doesn't work as well at seeing three colors. It certainly doesn't work as well helping you see art, I'm sure.

Some things "don't work as well" for an individual but work well for a member of a social group (like specialized labor); some things don't work as well for a member of society, but do work well for an isolated individual.

I just think we should keep the word "wrong" at arms length from the discussion of gender, because all sorts of traits are going to be situationally useful, particularly with the way people interrelate to behavior surrounding the process of sexual reproduction, which has generated and located all manner of niches for things under the sun.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Again, I can't really see "wrongness", as much as "not what you want"-ness. It's an interpretation of "wrong" to be sure, but it should be clear that it shouldn't be conflated with ethical wrongness. As you point out, to you it is subjective, created by the neurons in your own head and the way they ended up going together.

It certainly doesn't work as well at seeing three colors. It certainly doesn't work as well helping you see art, I'm sure.

Some things "don't work as well" for an individual but work well for a member of a social group (like specialized labor); some things don't work as well for a member of society, but do work well for an isolated individual.

I just think we should keep the word "wrong" at arms length from the discussion of gender, because all sorts of traits are going to be situationally useful, particularly with the way people interrelate to behavior surrounding the process of sexual reproduction, which has generated and located all manner of niches for things under the sun.

The problem here is that "wrong" has multiple meanings.

I'm using it as the antonym of nominal, but it can also refer to evil.

I very much doubt there's a social advantage to having the transgendered about, it's just something in the rube goldberg nature of genetics that activates the wrong combination of attributes. It is a problem for those who have it but it is not in any way evil--same as almost everything else where genetics hands us a problem. Given enough time it would be selected out by Darwin but that is a slow process and almost certainly moot as I expect reproduction to move into the lab long before any mildly negative gene eliminates itself. (And it is a negative gene by Darwin standards.)

 

[Rhea]

No, it’s not a negative gene by Darwin standards. That’s now how evolution works.

It’s negative for reproductive success for the individual, but has clearly, obviously and demonstrably not impacted the species as a whole in any negative way. Our species is not really indanger of any decaying numbers from transgenderism being one of the expressions.

Some people posit that the expressions of homosexuality and transgenderism might increase as resource pressures increase. Which would be a mechanism that might be beneficial to the species as a whole, and is a lot more palatable that, say, what rabbits do when stressed for resources, which is eat their young.

 

[Politesse]

No, it’s not a negative gene by Darwin standards. That’s now how evolution works.

It’s negative for reproductive success for the individual, but has clearly, obviously and demonstrably not impacted the species as a whole in any negative way. Our species is not really indanger of any decaying numbers from transgenderism being one of the expressions.

Some people posit that the expressions of homosexuality and transgenderism might increase as resource pressures increase. Which would be a mechanism that might be beneficial to the species as a whole, and is a lot more palatable that, say, what rabbits do when stressed for resources, which is eat their young.

Primates don't eat our own young. We murder rival males' young, and then just let the meat go to waste. Much more civilized.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

No, it’s not a negative gene by Darwin standards. That’s now how evolution works.

It’s negative for reproductive success for the individual, but has clearly, obviously and demonstrably not impacted the species as a whole in any negative way. Our species is not really indanger of any decaying numbers from transgenderism being one of the expressions.

Some people posit that the expressions of homosexuality and transgenderism might increase as resource pressures increase. Which would be a mechanism that might be beneficial to the species as a whole, and is a lot more palatable that, say, what rabbits do when stressed for resources, which is eat their young.

Emphasis added. Yeah, that's the thing. It's very questionable that individual is the proper entity level for analysis. Besides population, but really along the same lines, we could consider "selfish genes." ...as well as kin selection in nurturing and altruistic behaviors. Kin selection, even though I brought it up, is not estimated to be the primary explanation in evolutionary pressure for these recurring features of populations but might contribute. One study estimated a 20% contribution in Indonesia. I bring it up to illustrate how complex life is and how we need to expand our minds to analyze cause and effect. There are still some mysteries as well here.