Gender Roles

[Bomb#20]

The existence of the condition isn't a cultural concept. Classifying it as a disorder is. Ignoring its existence in a description of the human condition overall is both a cultural concept and unscientific. You won't find a biology textbook saying that human females give birth to no more than one child a time with a separation of at least 2 years because twins and getting pregnant while nursing are "disorders" of the reproductive mechanism and not breastfeeding for at least a year is creating an artificial environment.

In the words of the master, you really think that's a useful analogy, don't you? If there's some place you've seen Emily claim DSDs qualify as disorders because they're outliers on distributions, by all means point the place out.

By all means, point out where what I said implies that she made such a claim. I for one don't believe she did. From what I gather, she claims that they qualify as disorders because they are not what we evolved "for", and believes that allows, if not forces, us to ignore them in any objective description of the species. Because they are maladaptive mishaps of an error-prone biological mechanism that doesn't always end up with what was "intended" for us. Apart from the reek of teleology, the very same could be said about twins. If evolution had "intended" us to have 2 kids every year rather than one every two years, it wouldn't have made our infants so dependent.

Oh, I see why you think it's analogous. Sorry to misunderstand and thanks for explaining.

I'm positive throughout human prehistory and most of history, having twins was clearly maladaptive. I'm willing to bet the high chance of both twins dying (above the background high infant mortality) and increased maternal mortality far outweighed the slim chance of both surviving almost in almost every culture and every environment the genus homo ever inhabited. Yet we still get (fraternal) twin pregnancies because the biochemical mechanisms that sometimes cause women's bodies to bring two ova to maturation at the same time are but a slight "misfunction" of the mechanisms that ensure they bring *one* to maturation on a regular schedule.

So twin births are, in the environment in which homo sapiens evolved, as much of a "malfunction" in the evolved biochemical pathways that ensure the development and operation of our species' reproductory apparatus as are intermediate genitals that have a hard time getting the gametes to where they're "meant" to be.

I don't think it's reasonable to consider those malfunctions in the same sense. Having genitals that have a hard time getting the gametes to where they're "meant" to be wasn't an adaptation. Multiple births was -- bearing litters is the normal mode of reproduction in mammals. Typical litter size varies from species to species and natural selection tunes it, but it would be silly to calculate that cats' optimal litter size is three and deduce from this that my quads' mom malfunctioned. A cat having four babies just means the selection pressure to reduce the size to three can't have been all that strong and the species hasn't finished evolving to the new optimum. Likewise, if having twins really is as maladaptive in humans as you say, that just means evolution isn't finished tuning our average litter size from a lemur-like two or three to a chimp-like one. (And all that's assuming evolution isn't cleverer than you, and the current average human litter size of 1.01 isn't optimal!)

Be that as it may, your line of reasoning makes assumptions about what Emily's criterion for a disorder is that I suspect are inaccurate; hopefully at some point she'll offer a fuller explanation.

 

[Jarhyn]

Bomb, I described something and I called them fascists. You were the one who said that included and was exclusively "people who disagree with me". If the people I described, those fundamentally concerned with being selfish as a pure individual without respect to the needs of others, are "Nazis", then I'm glad that the people I disagree with are exactly "Nazis".

Your argument every time boils down to "how dare you tell me to not be selfish to my individual person above all other concerns!"

Nope.
Bomb did not say that.

I understand that you don't understand what he said, but he did not say anything like that.
Tom

Well it seems you're not interested in talking about what I said, but I fact want to talk about what bomb said about what I said, fully abandoning actual discussion about the statement and going into pure bullshit land.

 

[TomC]

Well it seems you're not interested in talking about what I said, but I fact want to talk about what bomb said about what I said, fully abandoning actual discussion about the statement and going into pure bullshit land.

I stopped finding your ideological poo flinging worth discussing a while back.

Bullshit land, to use your language.
Tom

 

[Jarhyn]

Well it seems you're not interested in talking about what I said, but I fact want to talk about what bomb said about what I said, fully abandoning actual discussion about the statement and going into pure bullshit land.

I stopped finding your ideological poo flinging worth discussing a while back.

Bullshit land, to use your language.
Tom

Well, I invited you to discuss it and you won't, so maybe you can shut the fuck up about what is and isn't word salad.

I offered three times to discuss it and you spurned it every time.

You could have discussed what I actually said, but you didn't.

 

[Bomb#20]

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.

But Darwin standards are all about reproductive success for the individual. When did Darwin ever say the way evolution works is by selecting what's positive for the species as a whole? That interpretation of evolution appears to have been thought up later by people who were put off by the whole 19th-century "Nature red in tooth and claw" picture and wanted to restore 18th-century "Harmony of Nature" ideas.

Not quite: Darwin standards are about individuals passing along their traits successfully but also about traits being passed along being beneficial to the species as a whole.

In multiple cultures, historically individuals who are gay, trans, two spirited, etc. were venerated and were seen as valuable members of the tribe/group. One clearly beneficial way that having someone who is physically and mentally very fit but unlikely to reproduce is that such individuals provide additional support to offspring of others and the group/society ---and therefore, that niche of species as a whole. A man and a woman produce a child/children. Living is very labor intensive: hunting, gathering, farming, building homes, making clothing and vessels for preparing food, cooking, etc. are still labor/resource intensive... It is an obvious advantage to have non-reproducing individuals around to help with those tasks and to continue to care for/provide for/teach, etc. babies and children if/when one parent or the other was either busy hunting/farming/gathering/doing something labor intensive as all life tasks were, much more than today or if one or both biological parents was temporarily ill, temporarily disabled or died. Given life expectancies thousands of years ago, life expectancies were quite short, childbirth was even more dangerous than it is today. It indeed took a village and it was much better if some of the village was engaged in helping support other people's children or other people who needed to devote their resources to the care and feeding of offspring.

Yes, yes, I get why you think evolution works that way; that isn't the point. The point is, where did Darwin ever say anything like that? You're channeling Kropotkin. (Who was not just a revolutionary anarchist but also a scientist.) Are you using "Darwin" as a synonym for "evolution"?

 

[Toni]

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.

But Darwin standards are all about reproductive success for the individual. When did Darwin ever say the way evolution works is by selecting what's positive for the species as a whole? That interpretation of evolution appears to have been thought up later by people who were put off by the whole 19th-century "Nature red in tooth and claw" picture and wanted to restore 18th-century "Harmony of Nature" ideas.

Not quite: Darwin standards are about individuals passing along their traits successfully but also about traits being passed along being beneficial to the species as a whole.

In multiple cultures, historically individuals who are gay, trans, two spirited, etc. were venerated and were seen as valuable members of the tribe/group. One clearly beneficial way that having someone who is physically and mentally very fit but unlikely to reproduce is that such individuals provide additional support to offspring of others and the group/society ---and therefore, that niche of species as a whole. A man and a woman produce a child/children. Living is very labor intensive: hunting, gathering, farming, building homes, making clothing and vessels for preparing food, cooking, etc. are still labor/resource intensive... It is an obvious advantage to have non-reproducing individuals around to help with those tasks and to continue to care for/provide for/teach, etc. babies and children if/when one parent or the other was either busy hunting/farming/gathering/doing something labor intensive as all life tasks were, much more than today or if one or both biological parents was temporarily ill, temporarily disabled or died. Given life expectancies thousands of years ago, life expectancies were quite short, childbirth was even more dangerous than it is today. It indeed took a village and it was much better if some of the village was engaged in helping support other people's children or other people who needed to devote their resources to the care and feeding of offspring.

Yes, yes, I get why you think evolution works that way; that isn't the point. The point is, where did Darwin ever say anything like that? You're channeling Kropotkin. (Who was not just a revolutionary anarchist but also a scientist.) Are you using "Darwin" as a synonym for "evolution"?

I do not conflate Darwin with evolution.

I actually have never heard of Kropotkin. Will have to look him( I assume) up.

 

[Toni]

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.

But Darwin standards are all about reproductive success for the individual. When did Darwin ever say the way evolution works is by selecting what's positive for the species as a whole? That interpretation of evolution appears to have been thought up later by people who were put off by the whole 19th-century "Nature red in tooth and claw" picture and wanted to restore 18th-century "Harmony of Nature" ideas.

Not quite: Darwin standards are about individuals passing along their traits successfully but also about traits being passed along being beneficial to the species as a whole.

In multiple cultures, historically individuals who are gay, trans, two spirited, etc. were venerated and were seen as valuable members of the tribe/group. One clearly beneficial way that having someone who is physically and mentally very fit but unlikely to reproduce is that such individuals provide additional support to offspring of others and the group/society ---and therefore, that niche of species as a whole. A man and a woman produce a child/children. Living is very labor intensive: hunting, gathering, farming, building homes, making clothing and vessels for preparing food, cooking, etc. are still labor/resource intensive... It is an obvious advantage to have non-reproducing individuals around to help with those tasks and to continue to care for/provide for/teach, etc. babies and children if/when one parent or the other was either busy hunting/farming/gathering/doing something labor intensive as all life tasks were, much more than today or if one or both biological parents was temporarily ill, temporarily disabled or died. Given life expectancies thousands of years ago, life expectancies were quite short, childbirth was even more dangerous than it is today. It indeed took a village and it was much better if some of the village was engaged in helping support other people's children or other people who needed to devote their resources to the care and feeding of offspring.

Yes, yes, I get why you think evolution works that way; that isn't the point. The point is, where did Darwin ever say anything like that? You're channeling Kropotkin. (Who was not just a revolutionary anarchist but also a scientist.) Are you using "Darwin" as a synonym for "evolution"?

I do not conflate Darwin with evolution.

I actually have never heard of Kropotkin. Will have to look him( I assume) up.

Ok, I’m reading the Wikipedia on Kropotkin. I’m not a Marxist or a communist. I believe both in individualism and also the benefits of chosen collectives ( including cities, townships an d towns, states, nations and yes, family, including chosen family. And also in different functions for different levels of government, and other relationships.

But honestly I’m only writing about my opinions, based on lived experience and lots of different reading, virtually none of it history which I find incredibly dull as I was taught it, and not filled with truth.

I grew up in small towns surrounded by farmlands. Farmers were not particularly prosperous but they helped each other during times of need: during planting and harvest time and especially during haying. Back then (50+years ago) a local farmer was killed in a farm accident. Other farmers simply showed up to help bring the crops in. Farmers sent their sons to their neighbors routinely during busy times and the wives fed everyone. I remember a group of farmers went in together to purchase a combine that none could afford on their own. Even as a teen, I was aware that this was a form of, at the very least, collectivism. But it would not have been worth my life or yours to suggest to these god-fearing, fiercely independent, staunchly conservative tough as nails farmers that they were in any way behaving like communists.

Even in large cities, neighborhoods form and people are familiar with their neighbors, or at least the neighborhood grocer and deli, etc. people watch out for each other’s kids everywhere, or did before everyone became enamored with screens. Small towns, suburbs, cities alike.

Only libertarians believe that we all act on our own.

 

[TomC]

Well it seems you're not interested in talking about what I said, but I fact want to talk about what bomb said about what I said, fully abandoning actual discussion about the statement and going into pure bullshit land.

I stopped finding your ideological poo flinging worth discussing a while back.

Bullshit land, to use your language.
Tom

Well, I invited you to discuss it and you won't, so maybe you can shut the fuck up about what is and isn't word salad.

I offered three times to discuss it and you spurned it every time.

You could have discussed what I actually said, but you didn't.

Oh.
I see.

Bullshit.


Tom

 

[Loren Pechtel]

By all means, point out where what I said implies that she made such a claim. I for one don't believe she did. From what I gather, she claims that they qualify as disorders because they are not what we evolved "for", and believes that allows, if not forces, us to ignore them in any objective description of the species. Because they are maladaptive mishaps of an error-prone biological mechanism that doesn't always end up with what was "intended" for us. Apart from the reek of teleology, the very same could be said about twins.

And homosexuals. Using the thinking offered, homosexual genes are errors because they lead to less reproductive success of the individual.

They might not be errors. There's a relationship between birth order and homosexuality--the more kids your mother had before you the more likely you are to be homosexual. Could this be an advantage that's selected for--if they already have a lot of kids having some that don't reproduce means more aunts and uncles to help care for the next generation.? This might be a genetic advantage.

Or, related to that, perhaps it's such a system but with a trigger that doesn't work too well. Think of stuff like sickle-cell and Tay-Sachs--an advantage if you get one copy, a problem if you get two. This sustains the gene in the population at the rate where the one copy saves you from the threat more than the two copies takes you out.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

By all means, point out where what I said implies that she made such a claim. I for one don't believe she did. From what I gather, she claims that they qualify as disorders because they are not what we evolved "for", and believes that allows, if not forces, us to ignore them in any objective description of the species. Because they are maladaptive mishaps of an error-prone biological mechanism that doesn't always end up with what was "intended" for us. Apart from the reek of teleology, the very same could be said about twins.

And homosexuals. Using the thinking offered, homosexual genes are errors because they lead to less reproductive success of the individual.

Teleological arguments about evolution always seem strange to me. If you were doing as evolution did not "want" you to do, wouldn't that problem promptly take care of itself? If you don't understand the adaptiveness of a given trait, especially a common one, the problem is almost certainly your lack of knowledge about the circumstances of that trait's development, not the moral wickedness of the trait.

Or that the trait is the effect of two copies of a gene that's beneficial with one copy.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It depends on whether or not a person has value beyond their ability and willingness to reproduce.

Assume that a person’s value resides solely upon their ability/willingness to continue their genes in offspring. That still does not mean that their genes can only be further propagated by directly producing genetic offspring, i.e. mating. By helping to raise to reproductive age/childbearing age the genetic offspring of closely related family members, an individual actually IS supporting the continuation of their genetic line.

Yup. To truly understand evolution you need to understand humans are the means by which our DNA replicates. Evolution selects for the DNA, not for it's host.

And to add to my previous post about helping care for niblings, there's also the fact they serve as spare parents. Humanity evolved in an environment where there was no welfare system or the like, a kid who loses their parents dies. But looking at modern society people will generally take in their niblings rather than leave them to the foster care system--think they didn't do the same when it was take them in or leave them to die? Or consider the problem of hunter-gatherer societies--when it's time to move on a mother could carry one child. If she had more than one that couldn't walk that meant abandoning the extra unless someone else was available to carry the child.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

A male would have more security in knowing he was devoting his labor/resources to continue his line if in a mutually committed monogamous marriage.

However, if a male partner was not fertile, a woman would benefit from having multiple male partners, increasing the chances of conception. And a male having multiple female partners would increase the chances of continuing his genetic line. There is of course risk of spreading sexually transmitted infections with multiple partners. And possibly more jealousy, etc.

Depends on the threat level.

In an environment where death is common it can actually be a survival strategy for a basically closed poly situation to exist. This doesn't reduce the average number of children per father, but by leaving paternity undetermined it means the other members of the group are much more likely to treat the children of a widow in the group as their own rather than as clearly somebody else's child.

So, different reproductive strategies work under different circumstances. We observe today that on average, children born to a mutually committed couple tend to fare better than children raised by a single parent or in an environment where there are multiple changes in partners/parental figures. There also is a strong benefit to multiple generational family groups, with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Childcare labor is shared, enabling all parental figures to pursue whatever labor/interests they might have and if someone is ill or injured or dies, the children still have committed, hopefully loving family members to see them to adulthood.

Yup, this is the ideal situation in an environment where people stay home. In the modern world where people tend to relocate for education and career it becomes pretty much non-viable.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yes, yes, I get why you think evolution works that way; that isn't the point. The point is, where did Darwin ever say anything like that? You're channeling Kropotkin. (Who was not just a revolutionary anarchist but also a scientist.) Are you using "Darwin" as a synonym for "evolution"?

People commonly refer to "Darwin" as a label for evolution favoring that which leads to reproductive success even when referring to things completely unknown in Darwin's time.

 

[Jokodo]

The existence of the condition isn't a cultural concept. Classifying it as a disorder is. Ignoring its existence in a description of the human condition overall is both a cultural concept and unscientific. You won't find a biology textbook saying that human females give birth to no more than one child a time with a separation of at least 2 years because twins and getting pregnant while nursing are "disorders" of the reproductive mechanism and not breastfeeding for at least a year is creating an artificial environment.

In the words of the master, you really think that's a useful analogy, don't you? If there's some place you've seen Emily claim DSDs qualify as disorders because they're outliers on distributions, by all means point the place out.

By all means, point out where what I said implies that she made such a claim. I for one don't believe she did. From what I gather, she claims that they qualify as disorders because they are not what we evolved "for", and believes that allows, if not forces, us to ignore them in any objective description of the species. Because they are maladaptive mishaps of an error-prone biological mechanism that doesn't always end up with what was "intended" for us. Apart from the reek of teleology, the very same could be said about twins. If evolution had "intended" us to have 2 kids every year rather than one every two years, it wouldn't have made our infants so dependent.

Oh, I see why you think it's analogous. Sorry to misunderstand and thanks for explaining.

I'm positive throughout human prehistory and most of history, having twins was clearly maladaptive. I'm willing to bet the high chance of both twins dying (above the background high infant mortality) and increased maternal mortality far outweighed the slim chance of both surviving almost in almost every culture and every environment the genus homo ever inhabited. Yet we still get (fraternal) twin pregnancies because the biochemical mechanisms that sometimes cause women's bodies to bring two ova to maturation at the same time are but a slight "misfunction" of the mechanisms that ensure they bring *one* to maturation on a regular schedule.

So twin births are, in the environment in which homo sapiens evolved, as much of a "malfunction" in the evolved biochemical pathways that ensure the development and operation of our species' reproductory apparatus as are intermediate genitals that have a hard time getting the gametes to where they're "meant" to be.

I don't think it's reasonable to consider those malfunctions in the same sense. Having genitals that have a hard time getting the gametes to where they're "meant" to be wasn't an adaptation. Multiple births was -- bearing litters is the normal mode of reproduction in mammals. Typical litter size varies from species to species and natural selection tunes it, but it would be silly to calculate that cats' optimal litter size is three and deduce from this that my quads' mom malfunctioned. A cat having four babies just means the selection pressure to reduce the size to three can't have been all that strong and the species hasn't finished evolving to the new optimum. Likewise, if having twins really is as maladaptive in humans as you say, that just means evolution isn't finished tuning our average litter size from a lemur-like two or three to a chimp-like one. (And all that's assuming evolution isn't cleverer than you, and the current average human litter size of 1.01 isn't optimal!)

That's not really how evolution operates, though, or is it?

The existence of the condition isn't a cultural concept. Classifying it as a disorder is. Ignoring its existence in a description of the human condition overall is both a cultural concept and unscientific. You won't find a biology textbook saying that human females give birth to no more than one child a time with a separation of at least 2 years because twins and getting pregnant while nursing are "disorders" of the reproductive mechanism and not breastfeeding for at least a year is creating an artificial environment.

In the words of the master, you really think that's a useful analogy, don't you? If there's some place you've seen Emily claim DSDs qualify as disorders because they're outliers on distributions, by all means point the place out.

By all means, point out where what I said implies that she made such a claim. I for one don't believe she did. From what I gather, she claims that they qualify as disorders because they are not what we evolved "for", and believes that allows, if not forces, us to ignore them in any objective description of the species. Because they are maladaptive mishaps of an error-prone biological mechanism that doesn't always end up with what was "intended" for us. Apart from the reek of teleology, the very same could be said about twins. If evolution had "intended" us to have 2 kids every year rather than one every two years, it wouldn't have made our infants so dependent.

Oh, I see why you think it's analogous. Sorry to misunderstand and thanks for explaining.

I'm positive throughout human prehistory and most of history, having twins was clearly maladaptive. I'm willing to bet the high chance of both twins dying (above the background high infant mortality) and increased maternal mortality far outweighed the slim chance of both surviving almost in almost every culture and every environment the genus homo ever inhabited. Yet we still get (fraternal) twin pregnancies because the biochemical mechanisms that sometimes cause women's bodies to bring two ova to maturation at the same time are but a slight "misfunction" of the mechanisms that ensure they bring *one* to maturation on a regular schedule.

So twin births are, in the environment in which homo sapiens evolved, as much of a "malfunction" in the evolved biochemical pathways that ensure the development and operation of our species' reproductory apparatus as are intermediate genitals that have a hard time getting the gametes to where they're "meant" to be.

I don't think it's reasonable to consider those malfunctions in the same sense. Having genitals that have a hard time getting the gametes to where they're "meant" to be wasn't an adaptation. Multiple births was -- bearing litters is the normal mode of reproduction in mammals. Typical litter size varies from species to species and natural selection tunes it, but it would be silly to calculate that cats' optimal litter size is three and deduce from this that my quads' mom malfunctioned. A cat having four babies just means the selection pressure to reduce the size to three can't have been all that strong and the species hasn't finished evolving to the new optimum. Likewise, if having twins really is as maladaptive in humans as you say, that just means evolution isn't finished tuning our average litter size from a lemur-like two or three to a chimp-like one. (And all that's assuming evolution isn't cleverer than you, and the current average human litter size of 1.01 isn't optimal!)

That's not really how evolution operates, is it though?

Be that as it may, your line of reasoning makes assumptions about what Emily's criterion for a disorder is that I suspect are inaccurate; hopefully at some point she'll offer a fuller explanation.

 

[Jarhyn]

It depends on whether or not a person has value beyond their ability and willingness to reproduce.

Assume that a person’s value resides solely upon their ability/willingness to continue their genes in offspring. That still does not mean that their genes can only be further propagated by directly producing genetic offspring, i.e. mating. By helping to raise to reproductive age/childbearing age the genetic offspring of closely related family members, an individual actually IS supporting the continuation of their genetic line.

Yup. To truly understand evolution you need to understand humans are the means by which our DNA replicates. Evolution selects for the DNA, not for it's host.

And to add to my previous post about helping care for niblings, there's also the fact they serve as spare parents. Humanity evolved in an environment where there was no welfare system or the like, a kid who loses their parents dies. But looking at modern society people will generally take in their niblings rather than leave them to the foster care system--think they didn't do the same when it was take them in or leave them to die? Or consider the problem of hunter-gatherer societies--when it's time to move on a mother could carry one child. If she had more than one that couldn't walk that meant abandoning the extra unless someone else was available to carry the child.

Well, darwinian evolution selects for DNA not host.

Again, humans don't use that mode "purely". We evolve using memetic units as much as genetic ones, in terms of shifts of behavior and ability.

 

[Toni]

A male would have more security in knowing he was devoting his labor/resources to continue his line if in a mutually committed monogamous marriage.

However, if a male partner was not fertile, a woman would benefit from having multiple male partners, increasing the chances of conception. And a male having multiple female partners would increase the chances of continuing his genetic line. There is of course risk of spreading sexually transmitted infections with multiple partners. And possibly more jealousy, etc.

Depends on the threat level.

In an environment where death is common it can actually be a survival strategy for a basically closed poly situation to exist. This doesn't reduce the average number of children per father, but by leaving paternity undetermined it means the other members of the group are much more likely to treat the children of a widow in the group as their own rather than as clearly somebody else's child.

So, different reproductive strategies work under different circumstances. We observe today that on average, children born to a mutually committed couple tend to fare better than children raised by a single parent or in an environment where there are multiple changes in partners/parental figures. There also is a strong benefit to multiple generational family groups, with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Childcare labor is shared, enabling all parental figures to pursue whatever labor/interests they might have and if someone is ill or injured or dies, the children still have committed, hopefully loving family members to see them to adulthood.

Yup, this is the ideal situation in an environment where people stay home. In the modern world where people tend to relocate for education and career it becomes pretty much non-viable.

Unless one forms small communities of chosen ‘family’ was we did when we began our family. There was a small group of parents with young children who were all close friends. We relied heavily upon one another and shared a lot of resources: meals, baby clothes/toys, information, transportation, advice, support. Then there was a larger formally organized babysitting coop, open by invitation only. No money was ever exchanged. Adults looked after other people’s children for points rather than dollars and obtained and ‘paid’ for services the same way, all booked through a central volunteer who kept the books. There were often other arranged agreements: I provided childcare for another family after I left my job and occasionally for other families, not always for pay but sometimes. These were all friendship/chosen family situations. No one was from around there. No one had money or family nearby. We relied heavily on each other for friendship and support, advice and expertise and shared material resources as well.

 

[Jarhyn]

A male would have more security in knowing he was devoting his labor/resources to continue his line if in a mutually committed monogamous marriage.

However, if a male partner was not fertile, a woman would benefit from having multiple male partners, increasing the chances of conception. And a male having multiple female partners would increase the chances of continuing his genetic line. There is of course risk of spreading sexually transmitted infections with multiple partners. And possibly more jealousy, etc.

Depends on the threat level.

In an environment where death is common it can actually be a survival strategy for a basically closed poly situation to exist. This doesn't reduce the average number of children per father, but by leaving paternity undetermined it means the other members of the group are much more likely to treat the children of a widow in the group as their own rather than as clearly somebody else's child.

So, different reproductive strategies work under different circumstances. We observe today that on average, children born to a mutually committed couple tend to fare better than children raised by a single parent or in an environment where there are multiple changes in partners/parental figures. There also is a strong benefit to multiple generational family groups, with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Childcare labor is shared, enabling all parental figures to pursue whatever labor/interests they might have and if someone is ill or injured or dies, the children still have committed, hopefully loving family members to see them to adulthood.

Yup, this is the ideal situation in an environment where people stay home. In the modern world where people tend to relocate for education and career it becomes pretty much non-viable.

Unless one forms small communities of chosen ‘family’ was we did when we began our family. There was a small group of parents with young children who were all close friends. We relied heavily upon one another and shared a lot of resources: meals, baby clothes/toys, information, transportation, advice, support. Then there was a larger formally organized babysitting coop, open by invitation only. No money was ever exchanged. Adults looked after other people’s children for points rather than dollars and obtained and ‘paid’ for services the same way, all booked through a central volunteer who kept the books. There were often other arranged agreements: I provided childcare for another family after I left my job and occasionally for other families, not always for pay but sometimes. These were all friendship/chosen family situations. No one was from around there. No one had money or family nearby. We relied heavily on each other for friendship and support, advice and expertise and shared material resources as well.

I think this is probably the more natural human condition, driven away in part when shelters affording more privacy and this ideological control over the next generation.

Arguably it yields better results for the group, assuming no bad actors in the pool, but it's not conducive to the individualist intent. A meme cycle with privacy armor to keep put competing memes does yield more consistent replication of the whole meme... But at the cost of the global survivability in the case of adversity, and the guarantee of eventual conflict.

 

[Bomb#20]

I don't think it's reasonable to consider those malfunctions in the same sense. Having genitals that have a hard time getting the gametes to where they're "meant" to be wasn't an adaptation. Multiple births was -- bearing litters is the normal mode of reproduction in mammals. Typical litter size varies from species to species and natural selection tunes it, but it would be silly to calculate that cats' optimal litter size is three and deduce from this that my quads' mom malfunctioned. A cat having four babies just means the selection pressure to reduce the size to three can't have been all that strong and the species hasn't finished evolving to the new optimum. Likewise, if having twins really is as maladaptive in humans as you say, that just means evolution isn't finished tuning our average litter size from a lemur-like two or three to a chimp-like one. (And all that's assuming evolution isn't cleverer than you, and the current average human litter size of 1.01 isn't optimal!)

That's not really how evolution operates, is it though?

I have no idea what you're arguing here. How do you mean evolution operates, and what did I say that you think conflicts with that?

 

[Bomb#20]

Yes, yes, I get why you think evolution works that way; that isn't the point. The point is, where did Darwin ever say anything like that? You're channeling Kropotkin. (Who was not just a revolutionary anarchist but also a scientist.) Are you using "Darwin" as a synonym for "evolution"?

I do not conflate Darwin with evolution.

I actually have never heard of Kropotkin. Will have to look him( I assume) up.

Ok, I’m reading the Wikipedia on Kropotkin. I’m not a Marxist or a communist.

I guess I was unclear, sorry. I didn't mean you were channeling his radical politics; I meant you were channeling his evolutionary theory. He was an early analyst of the biology of cooperation.

Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I believe both in individualism and also the benefits of chosen collectives ( including cities, townships an d towns, states, nations and yes, family, including chosen family. And also in different functions for different levels of government, and other relationships.

But honestly I’m only writing about my opinions, based on lived experience and lots of different reading, virtually none of it history which I find incredibly dull as I was taught it, and not filled with truth.

I grew up in small towns surrounded by farmlands. Farmers were not particularly prosperous but they helped each other during times of need: during planting and harvest time and especially during haying. Back then (50+years ago) a local farmer was killed in a farm accident. Other farmers simply showed up to help bring the crops in. Farmers sent their sons to their neighbors routinely during busy times and the wives fed everyone. I remember a group of farmers went in together to purchase a combine that none could afford on their own. Even as a teen, I was aware that this was a form of, at the very least, collectivism. But it would not have been worth my life or yours to suggest to these god-fearing, fiercely independent, staunchly conservative tough as nails farmers that they were in any way behaving like communists.

Quite right, too. Left-wingers often talk as though they think they have a monopoly on cooperation. They don't. They just want to make it compulsory, and to be the ones in charge of deciding which goals others will be cooperating toward.

Even in large cities, neighborhoods form and people are familiar with their neighbors, or at least the neighborhood grocer and deli, etc. people watch out for each other’s kids everywhere, or did before everyone became enamored with screens. Small towns, suburbs, cities alike.

Only libertarians believe that we all act on our own.

Not even libertarians believe that. It's a stereotype put about by their political opponents.

 

[Bomb#20]

... From what I gather, she claims that they qualify as disorders because they are not what we evolved "for", and believes that allows, if not forces, us to ignore them in any objective description of the species. Because they are maladaptive mishaps of an error-prone biological mechanism that doesn't always end up with what was "intended" for us. Apart from the reek of teleology, the very same could be said about twins.

And homosexuals. Using the thinking offered, homosexual genes are errors because they lead to less reproductive success of the individual.

You appear to be assuming there are "homosexual genes".