Cheating and Perception

[TarnishedPenny]

Sidebar, not considering cheating, just Nature vs Nurture WRT thinking?

It would be most foolish to deny that the latter has significant influence, yet I'm not at all sure that that's the end of it.

We know that male and female human hearts are subtly different in structure and tend to behave slightly differently under similar conditions. (Consider for instance the growing calls for more research into detection protocols and treatment for heart attacks in women. The accepted androcentric standards don't work quite as well for women.)

Female livers work a bit differently, too. One example almost everybody knows is that female livers are not as efficient at dealing with ethanol and women are generally cautioned to drink less than men. (Yes, body mass is a factor, but so is liver function.)

Given other organs working differently, it's not that much of a leap for me to accept that men and women's brains might work a bit differently, too. Note that I'm not saying 'better' or 'worse', anymore than those terms can be applied to skin colour. Different is not bad, different is not weak or strong; it's just different. And no doubt such differences would be bell-curved all over the place.

 

[policywank]

Sidebar, not considering cheating, just Nature vs Nurture WRT thinking?

It would be most foolish to deny that the latter has significant influence, yet I'm not at all sure that that's the end of it.

We know that male and female human hearts are subtly different in structure and tend to behave slightly differently under similar conditions. (Consider for instance the growing calls for more research into detection protocols and treatment for heart attacks in women. The accepted androcentric standards don't work quite as well for women.)

Female livers work a bit differently, too. One example almost everybody knows is that female livers are not as efficient at dealing with ethanol and women are generally cautioned to drink less than men. (Yes, body mass is a factor, but so is liver function.)

Given other organs working differently, it's not that much of a leap for me to accept that men and women's brains might work a bit differently, too. Note that I'm not saying 'better' or 'worse', anymore than those terms can be applied to skin colour. Different is not bad, different is not weak or strong; it's just different. And no doubt such differences would be bell-curved all over the place.

I think that there is a lot of evidence to suggest that women's brains - just like every other part of us - do work differently than men's. It is just difficult to identify which aspects of that are truly innate. And I think that the differences that society in general attributes to women are heavily influenced by preconceived biases and the way men want to see us or the way we want to see ourselves.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Fine, fine...

"Oh, be a darling and nip down to the bank tomorrow and transfer (1/2 * my yearly contribution * Billy's age) from Billy's college fund into a new account for the nipper."

Happy now?

So, assuming they go to college at age 18: Billy ends up with 18 years of half-contribution, Nipper gets 18 years of half-contribution plus that transfer? That would be crappy parenting even if there was no poly angle here, even if we were just dealing with a husband and wife treating their two kids unequally.

Beyond that, though, you're still focussing solely on his contribution. Are women just producers of babies and absorbers of resources in this scenario, or are they perhaps capable of contributing to the household through earning and/or domestic work?

If only men are capable of doing useful work, then sure, this is a loss for Unnamed First Wife.

But otherwise... if Laura's arrival means rent is now being split three ways instead of two (the sexiest kind of three-way there is), that could be a net gain for everybody (especially if lack of spare room means the cousins can't come to stay any more, you know what they're like). Or if this is one of those households where the dude isn't doing his share of the housework (which seems pretty likely if he gets to make big decisions unilaterally) then two women doing three people's worth of housework still works out better than one person doing two people's worth. UFW can do a lot with that free time.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Given other organs working differently, it's not that much of a leap for me to accept that men and women's brains might work a bit differently, too. Note that I'm not saying 'better' or 'worse', anymore than those terms can be applied to skin colour. Different is not bad, different is not weak or strong; it's just different. And no doubt such differences would be bell-curved all over the place.

I'm happy to accept that as a possibility. I'm much more skeptical when people want to point at any particular difference and assume it's a hardwired brain effect and not a product of nurture/society/etc. without providing good evidence for that position.

 

[TheRedChamber]

So, assuming they go to college at age 18: Billy ends up with 18 years of half-contribution, Nipper gets 18 years of half-contribution plus that transfer? That would be crappy parenting even if there was no poly angle here, even if we were just dealing with a husband and wife treating their two kids unequally.

Beyond that, though, you're still focussing solely on his contribution. Are women just producers of babies and absorbers of resources in this scenario, or are they perhaps capable of contributing to the household through earning and/or domestic work?

If only men are capable of doing useful work, then sure, this is a loss for Unnamed First Wife.

But otherwise... if Laura's arrival means rent is now being split three ways instead of two (the sexiest kind of three-way there is), that could be a net gain for everybody (especially if lack of spare room means the cousins can't come to stay any more, you know what they're like). Or if this is one of those households where the dude isn't doing his share of the housework (which seems pretty likely if he gets to make big decisions unilaterally) then two women doing three people's worth of housework still works out better than one person doing two people's worth. UFW can do a lot with that free time.

I could, out of spite, rework the formula further to ensure both children reach maturity with exactly the same amount of college fund (adjusted for inflation), but that's not really the point.

These evolutionary behaviours are evolving at a time when humans are still animals or at least in a highly primitive society. Resources (let's just say food at the moment) are likely to be scarce, so whatever the man and women (+ extended tribe) can pool together are probably necessary. From the woman's point of view, she has whatever she has, but more are going to make her and her child fatter and healthier, and possibly she can pass any further surplus onto her kin who may also be struggling. Plus, if she does become pregnant she's going to need more resources that usual and have her own resource-gathering ability curtailed in the months directly before and after birth. If she's so swimming in resources and helpers at this point that any male contribution is just going to be a drop in the ocean then she can run the 'Superhunk' strategy and just mate with whoever looks the best without expecting them to hang around. But that's probably not the situation that the majority of the world's women are going to find themselves in.

It's not that women absorb resources. Fetuses, babies and children absorb resources and for the first nine months (plus breastfeeding in the absense of a wet-nurse) what they absorb comes directly through the woman. Men can contribute by giving their mates (or indeed their sister kin) food and other resources (including help), but they are not physically committed to doing so. Once she is pregnant a woman's body is committed to bringing the pregancy to term. After that resources (including food, childcare and education) can be divided flexibly. In a committed monogamous relationship both partners are going to be pouring resources into the children in whatever quantities they can aquire.

When deciding who to mate with a woman is going to be looking at two things - how attractive the mate is and how many resources he can provide (on top of, as you keep pointing out, what she can provide for herself). Noting that for both men and women 'attractiveness' is based on the genes assessment of who is likely to be able to produce healthy, successful offspring.

In any tribal group if the man who is most attractive is also the man with the most resources then the optimal strategy for the woman would seem to be to mate with him and ensure his focus remains wholey on her and their children. (note, if the genes are doing a good job at defining attractiveness then this could well be the case)

If the most attractive and most resource rich man are different, then the optimal strategy would seem to be concieve with the most attractive man but to fool the man with most resources into thinking the children are his and, again, ensuring his focus is entirely on her. This strategy can obviously backfire spectacularly if her deception is discovered. For the cuckolded man this is genetic 'game over', but the 'bull' also makes out nicely from this strategy.

(If you want to get extra evil, you could argue that the woman could optimize even further by persuading multiple 'bull's that the child is theirs and harvesting extra resources from all of them, but given she's already married to the richest man there's not a lot of incentive for them to kick in that much...)

But this strategy is going to be the same for all the women in a given population - they all have different genes (+ eventually in mankinds evolution - different socialization) so there may be some differences in how they assess attractiveness and resources - but mostly they are likely going to be after the same relatively small pool of men (what LW would probably call the alpha's). If we assume a world where we assume all woman have copious resources (+helpers) and are not bothered about acquiring more (and have not evolved 'love'-based pair bonding), we might assume this group of alpha's would father all children.

From a male point of view, if a woman wants to mate and neither asking for nor needs any resources (commitment) in return, then...great - Genetic destiny fulfilled for free.

But as noted above, the vast majority of women through evolutionary history, are going to need, or at least would benefit from some kind of help with the children. The more attractive and the more resource-laden a man is the more he's going to be sought out by other woman and the more competition there is going to be for his attention (and visa-versa).

It's one thing to say that a man has resources, quite another to say that the woman is actually going to get them. If the nightmare scenario for men is cuckolding the problem for women is abandoment. She mates thinking the male is going to supply her with resources (including time) for years to come only for him to up and leave the moment the deed is done, the moment she misses her period, or else at any point during the child-rearing process. This is a double-betrayal if she chose a less attractive but resource-richer man over the super-stud she knew wasn't going to hang around because now she's lucked out both genetically and resource-wise.

Once obvious solution for the woman is to demand some degree of 'payment up front'. The more resources the man has to pour into 'the project' before he gets to mate, the less likely he is to cut and run. If we're still talking about the resources as food era then having the woman put on weight prior to the pregnancy is a good thing anyway. (Remember, men not only want to have children, but to have those children reach sexual maturity themselves, it does them no good to divide their resources between mutliple women/children such that none of them have enough to survive.)

SIDE NOTE: Woman can, of course, abandon their husbands and children. If a woman abandons her husband and takes her children with her to a 'better' relationship, then the man is going to have to find someone else and make futher courtship, but at least he has offspring and maybe even offspring he now no longer has to care for. A woman might abandon her child to her husband or family (or in the modern age, social services) and go find another partner solo. It happens. It's probably less common than with men though because a woman risks death every time she gives birth, whereas, however much time and resources a man has kicked in, he never does.

This takes us the long way round to saying there is a evolutionary push towards monogamy but not one that completely excludes other strategies. Under this structure, neither men nor women are likely to feel comfortable (at an evolutionary level) having their partners hanging around with members of the opposite sex. For women, they may fear that if their husband is spending time and resources on another woman it's a prelude to abandonment. For men, they may fear being cuckolded (also abandoned). A man who is swimming in resources might set up a harem, but its notable that the first thing he'll do after that is cut the balls off all his guards.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Going back to my original examples.

Suppose Laura's arrival is not draining the family's resource - Laura is a millionaire who will instantly fill Billy's college fund jar full to bursting. Even then, and even if original wife is fully consulted, I maintain, most OWs are not going to like it 'in her gut', no matter how practical you make it sound and even if there's a three-way prenup guaranteeing everything. The other woman is going to feel like a threat (and maybe she is, if she's more resource-laden, possibly more attractive and maybe younger - even on a rational level, abandonment seems like a distinct possibility)

Similarly, reworking the male example to an indecent proposal scenario - "How much money would it take a husband to allow another man to sleep with his wife - especially if you add in the stipulation of no birth-control and a requirement to raise the child to the age of eighteen. Even past the figure where it would make complete logical sense to take the deal, many men wouldn't be 'happy' about it."

(And to preempt your next objection there's probably an equal issue with the reverse scenario where the husband is paid to breed with another woman and the resulting child dumped back with the couple).

But your original post suggests a new strategy

(Female) Female-only Couple/Commune.
Women find other women who are resource-rich and likely to be good at raising children. They mate with the same man (or series of men) to produce genetically related children (25% similarity or if the woman are sisters 37.5% - not quite as good as full siblings, but close). Men are selected for attractiveness rather than resources - if they want to hang around and contribute great, if not, no matter.

Does this strategy work? Possibly, but it has the same big flaw that the male-led harem has in that, if it becomes the dominant strategy, you have a whole bunch of men with no hope of reproducing hanging around, which is never good for social stability.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I could, out of spite, rework the formula further to ensure both children reach maturity with exactly the same amount of college fund (adjusted for inflation), but that's not really the point.

These evolutionary behaviours are evolving at a time when humans are still animals or at least in a highly primitive society. Resources (let's just say food at the moment) are likely to be scarce, so whatever the man and women (+ extended tribe) can pool together are probably necessary. From the woman's point of view, she has whatever she has, but more are going to make her and her child fatter and healthier, and possibly she can pass any further surplus onto her kin who may also be struggling. Plus, if she does become pregnant she's going to need more resources that usual and have her own resource-gathering ability curtailed in the months directly before and after birth. If she's so swimming in resources and helpers at this point that any male contribution is just going to be a drop in the ocean then she can run the 'Superhunk' strategy and just mate with whoever looks the best without expecting them to hang around. But that's probably not the situation that the majority of the world's women are going to find themselves in.

I am confused here with the back-and-forth between "primitive society" and the modern era where college funds are a thing. That's not necessarily any fault of yours; I've had a migraine for the last day or so, and that always makes my head a bit woolly. But maybe I need to take a step back and distinguish between those two cases.

If we're talking about the present day, I don't think anybody in this thread is disputing that many men and women would feel very unhappy about their partner sleeping with somebody else, let alone having a child with them. I thought the question we were wrangling over here was more the why of that feeling, for which you're suggesting a genetic/evo-psych explanation of which I'm unconvinced. Given that the present-day people we're talking about have almost all grown up in cultures that tell them they ought to feel threatened by such things, that thought experiment doesn't seem to get us very far in separating out genetic causes from socialisation, let alone confirming the selection mechanism responsible for any genetic feelings of jealousy.

If we're talking about human prehistory, then none of us know how people would have felt about such scenarios, and it's unsafe to assume it would have matched present-day reactions. Via genetic analyses, we do know that as of about 8000 years ago there was a substantial bottleneck in male reproduction, implying that for every 17 women who had children only one man did, but interpreting that is another matter.

 

[TheRedChamber]

I am confused here with the back-and-forth between "primitive society" and the modern era where college funds are a thing. That's not necessarily any fault of yours; I've had a migraine for the last day or so, and that always makes my head a bit woolly. But maybe I need to take a step back and distinguish between those two cases...

The original contension of a few posters here, before LCs article was even published, was that there was no difference between men and women's 'wiring'.
And some added that if there was a difference it was because they'd been socialized differently.

I'm arguing the because men and women need different strategies for optimal reproductive success, the gene's and hence the wiring they start with is likely different to begin with even before socialization begins - even if we don't know exactly how it is different. Socialization almost certainly adds further differences as it 'rewires' the brain during childhood and throught out life.

(I haven't really said anything about socialization because I've been too busy defending the lower layer)

I agree that it's difficult to seperate nature from nurture, but it doesn't seem to make sense to then make the leap, as many seem to, that it must all be 'nurture' just because a lot of it could be. There seems to be an idea that the human brain is almost infinitely rewirable, which seems unlikely to me.

The paper about the bottle-neck is interesting but at 8,000 years out, it's unlikely to affect evolutionary characterists to any significant degree.

 

[SimonDoom]

The original contension of a few posters here, before LCs article was even published, was that there was no difference between men and women's 'wiring'.
And some added that if there was a difference it was because they'd been socialized differently.

I'm arguing the because men and women need different strategies for optimal reproductive success, the gene's and hence the wiring they start with is likely different to begin with even before socialization begins - even if we don't know exactly how it is different. Socialization almost certainly adds further differences as it 'rewires' the brain during childhood and throught out life.

(I haven't really said anything about socialization because I've been too busy defending the lower layer)

I agree that it's difficult to seperate nature from nurture, but it doesn't seem to make sense to then make the leap, as many seem to, that it must all be 'nurture' just because a lot of it could be. There seems to be an idea that the human brain is almost infinitely rewirable, which seems unlikely to me.

The paper about the bottle-neck is interesting but at 8,000 years out, it's unlikely to affect evolutionary characterists to any significant degree.

I think you might be making some assumptions about your fellow posters that aren't correct.

I'm open to the idea that men and women are "wired" differently. But I'm far more skeptical when you examine some particular subset of human behavior and speculate that men and women would act differently because of their wiring. It's just too speculative, and there are so many reasons to believe that our cultural wiring influences us so greatly that I don't see how we control for them to determine whether the inherited wiring is different.

In the nature/nurture debate over human behavior, generally, I'm one of those who believe that nature plays a role. But there are huge swaths of human behavior where nature probably plays almost no role. For instance, there might be a genetic reason for why people like music, but it's a huge stretch to say there's a genetic explanation for why some like Bach and some like Snoop Dog. That's likely all culture.

My impression, totally speculative, is that there may be a genetic basis for certain kinds of behaviors, e.g., men are wired (on average) to be more aggressive, women are wired to be more nurturing. But with things like monogamy and fidelity, I'm not so sure. It seems totally speculative to me.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Alicia Walker has written a couple of books on why men and women cheat. I don't think her books meet the standard of a scientific study, but they had some interesting observations regarding the why question.

Conventional thinking suggests that women cheat due to something missing in their marriage, such as some kind of emotional connection that is lacking. Her findings indicated that women were just as likely to simply be seeking a different or better sexual experience. Crudely put it isn't always about anything any deeper than wanting to get fucked by someone new. Meanwhile conventional thinking about men was that they were just after the physical experience whereas many reported seeking a connection they weren't getting in their marriage. In other words conventional thinking misses the mark and depending how you read the results it either actually has the gender perspectives backwards or there simply isn't nearly as much difference in why each gender cheats as previously thought.

Her results also indicated that when asked about an open marriage women were substantially more inclined to consider it.

I think that environmental factors have a notable impact on observed behaviour and how we interpret it. For instance why have we conventionally been inclined to think that a women had different reasons for cheating than men. Is it because women are shamed so much more for wanting sexual adventure that we sought a different more sympathetic rationale? Is it because men have an easier time being regarded as emotionally distant than as sexually inadequate in any way so they prefer to see the former as their wife's reason for cheating?

I don't know. My comments are just opinion and interesting but not quite scientific study. I do think that it is fairly clear that attitudes towards male and female sexuality driven by a patriarchal society are a fairly big factor in observed behaviour. We don't really have a control group of women who have lived entirely independent of those dynamics so I don't see how one can truly separate the nurture from the nature in this discussion.

Men and women are the same fucking species. Despite most of society trying to pretend otherwise.

No reputable neurological study identifies any different wiring. It’s about the software, not the hardware. And the software is shaped by societal attitudes.

Em

 

[djrip]

Men and women are the same fucking species. Despite most of society trying to pretend otherwise.

No reputable neurological study identifies any different wiring. It’s about the software, not the hardware. And the software is shaped by societal attitudes.

Em

But there are the cultural differences between Venus and Mars to account for.

 

[EmilyMiller]

But there are the cultural differences between Venus and Mars to account for.

Sorry, I forgot that.

I hate that fucking book and so many people view it as Gospel. It’s about as accurate as Chariots of the Gods.

Em

 

[Bramblethorn]

The original contension of a few posters here, before LCs article was even published, was that there was no difference between men and women's 'wiring'.
And some added that if there was a difference it was because they'd been socialized differently.

I'm arguing the because men and women need different strategies for optimal reproductive success, the gene's and hence the wiring they start with is likely different to begin with even before socialization begins - even if we don't know exactly how it is different.

The fact that something might be a useful adaptation is no guarantee that evolution will deliver it.

You know what would be fantastic for reproductive success? A mode of childbirth that doesn't involve trying to squeeze a baby's head through the human pelvis, that's what. Childbirth would be so much easier and safer if the natural mode of delivery was through the abdomen instead, and that would also remove a major limitation on the size of the human brain. But evolution hasn't delivered, because it's a very haphazard and limited form of optimisation.

In the case of behavioural adaptations in humans, one reason why we mightn't expect genetic selection to provide everything we need is that cultural adaptation has the potential to be a faster and more purposeful means to achieve it.

Leaving aside the battle of the sexes for a moment: let's suppose we have a population of ~1000 humans who've just moved from a region where seafood is nutritious and safe to a region where eating seafood has a one-in-a-hundred chance of killing you via poisoning before you get to pass on your genes. How long does it take genetic selection to deliver a population of humans who instinctively avoid seafood?

Quite possibly never. To get the process started, we need somebody to get a mutation that gives somebody an aversion to seafood. That part is just throwing the dice, over and over again. Mutation rate in humans is approximately 1E-8 per nucleotide per generation; let's suppose there are a thousand possible places in the genome where the right mutation could create that aversion. So each birth has about a 1E-5 chance of delivering such a mutation. In a population of 1000, that means on the order of a hundred generations before that mutation first appears.

(Aside from the 1E-8, those are very back-of-envelope numbers; I'm just establishing that the answer is "a long time".)

Once that mutation appears, how long does it take to become fixed in the population? Each generation, the ones with that mutation are about 1% more successful (on average) than those without. Assuming no stochastic bad luck wipes that mutation out early on, we're looking at approximately 700 generations to reach the point where everybody in the population has that mutation, or a bit over 600 generations to reach 50% of the population. All in all, say about 700-800 generations before that genetic aversion to seafood becomes fixed.

Meanwhile, if seafood is killing one person in a hundred before they reach adulthood, how long do you think it takes before people notice that folk are dying from eating seafood? Once they notice, how quickly does that knowledge spread through the population? I'd be surprised if it was 20 generations all up.

In programming terms: why change the hardware at great time and expense when it's so much faster to update the software?

(I haven't really said anything about socialization because I've been too busy defending the lower layer)

I agree that it's difficult to seperate nature from nurture, but it doesn't seem to make sense to then make the leap, as many seem to, that it must all be 'nurture' just because a lot of it could be. There seems to be an idea that the human brain is almost infinitely rewirable, which seems unlikely to me.

The paper about the bottle-neck is interesting but at 8,000 years out, it's unlikely to affect evolutionary characterists to any significant degree.

How so?

 

[Bramblethorn]

Sorry, I forgot that.

I hate that fucking book and so many people view it as Gospel. It’s about as accurate as Chariots of the Gods.

Em

One of my favourite T-shirts: https://www.redbubble.com/i/t-shirt...t-White-Letters-by-ArkansasLisa/2820873.6N0CH

 

[policywank]

Men and women are the same fucking species. Despite most of society trying to pretend otherwise.

No reputable neurological study identifies any different wiring. It’s about the software, not the hardware. And the software is shaped by societal attitudes.

Em

While there are physiological differences between men and women, for the most part it is just slightly different variations of the same thing. With the exception of our reproductive parts, All of our parts work essentially the same. As you say, I know of no scientific data to indicate that our brains work in any fundamentally different ways.

Some evolutionary psychologists would have us believe that societal pressures have actually led to a permanent change in the way we think much like a chihuahua is irreversibly different from its wolf ancestors. But most of it seems questionable. All the assumptions about women needing to choose a male for protection, provision and procreation started to crumble as soon as the forces that compelled us in that direction started to fall away. As soon as our laws and enforcement of them evolved to protect women, we ceased to be denied access to the means to support ourselves and birth control opened up the possibility of sex for reasons other than procreation things changed almost instantly. Women didn't take another few thousand years to evolve into new habits. We almost immediately embraced the freedoms available to us and ceased to see finding a monogamous male partner as a survival necessity.

To me it is clear that not only had our "hardware" not evolved to need a man to survive mode, neither had our "software". In evolutionary terms we almost immediately embraced a different and more equal approach to relationships and sex. We immediately recognized that we want companionship and intimacy as much as men and we see the benefits of pooling resources as much as men, but we don't need them to take care of us, we don't need to think of sex as solely for procreation and we do see our own sexual fulfillment as a legitimate priority. The speed with which we embraced the new paradigm indicates that we hadn't changed at all. Our behaviour was only altered by and for as long as our environment forced it in one direction.

The idea that women need monogamy for the reasons noted above was actually a fiction utilized to justify a double standard. In fact, men want/needed monogamy as much or more than women. Without a forced one-to-one ratio many men would have no chance of finding a mate

 

[lc69hunter]

Interesting stat. My score on this one was at 4.4 soon after publishing. It is now at 3.3, but is still getting added to favorites. I guess I pushed a few too many hot buttons

 

[AlinaX]

While a lot of what we consider 'male' and 'female' is socially constructed, nevertheless there are aspects to our fundamental nature than seem hardcoded. The idea that this is not reflected in the brain's wiring is absurd. Arguing that it's all (or primarily) nurture and not nature is what leads to attempts at and justifications for conversion therapy.

Scientifically separating out the cultural from the physiological is a non-trivial task, but there is some (arguably controversial) evidence from brain scans of differences between cis male and cis female. Such research, however, is in itself dangerous, because any research that can be used to identify genes etc. that cause non-normative development will inevitably get abused by eugenicists.

But even if there is a measurable difference between 'male' and 'female', I imagine attitudes towards cheating are largely sociological rather than innately physical. Patriarchal society programmes men and women in very different ways with its need to control women.

 

[policywank]

While a lot of what we consider 'male' and 'female' is socially constructed, nevertheless there are aspects to our fundamental nature than seem hardcoded. The idea that this is not reflected in the brain's wiring is absurd. Arguing that it's all (or primarily) nurture and not nature is what leads to attempts at and justifications for conversion therapy.

Scientifically separating out the cultural from the physiological is a non-trivial task, but there is some (arguably controversial) evidence from brain scans of differences between cis male and cis female. Such research, however, is in itself dangerous, because any research that can be used to identify genes etc. that cause non-normative development will inevitably get abused by eugenicists.

But even if there is a measurable difference between 'male' and 'female', I imagine attitudes towards cheating are largely sociological rather than innately physical. Patriarchal society programmes men and women in very different ways with its need to control women.

It is also a really difficult topic to discuss without getting people worked up. As you say there is a real danger of research that highlights innate differences being used in a variety of unethical ways. But these days a lot of society has gone to the other extreme and constructed a framework built around the false premise that we are all so innately similar that equal outcomes are a good gauge of equal opportunity. Any time an identifiable group is under represented in a given occupation or profession the default assumption is that it must be because of lack of equal opportunity. The refusal to consider the possibility that differential outcomes are the result of innate differences (in ability or interest) leads to a lot or irrational and destructive social engineering.

 

[AlinaX]

Maybe, but the alternative is companies going, "We don't want to hire women because they might get pregnant, and we certainly don't want foreign or autistic or queer or disabled people for reasons."

Sometimes the assumptions we make about people based on their differences are just prejudices. Sometimes the problem really is the way the company chooses to structure its operations - maybe expecting employees to work 14 hours a day, 6 days a week, is not reasonable.

Do you really think the occasional token hire is a bigger problem than companies hiring monoculturally?

 

[policywank]

Maybe, but the alternative is companies going, "We don't want to hire women because they might get pregnant, and we certainly don't want foreign or autistic or queer or disabled people for reasons."

Sometimes the assumptions we make about people based on their differences are just prejudices. Sometimes the problem really is the way the company chooses to structure its operations - maybe expecting employees to work 14 hours a day, 6 days a week, is not reasonable.

Do you really think the occasional token hire is a bigger problem than companies hiring monoculturally?

No. That isn’t what I said or implied. Nor is it the logical inference of what I said.

Personally I believe that conscious and unconscious bias in our workplaces and institutions is a significant problem. Setting diversity objectives and targets is one of the ways we seek to counteract those biases. It is a reasonable approach. To the extent that it represents an adjustment to the playing field it is an attempt to bring it closer to balance. It may be imperfect but it necessary as the “system” generally won’t correct itself.

However, such mechanisms need to be utilized in the context of achieving measurable objectives. Assuming we actually hope to achieve equality one day we need to be open to the possibility that we will actually do so and can limit interventions to that which is needed to maintain equality.

In my view, true equality is a matter of all people having equal opportunity. If we look at humans realistically, there are differences in aptitude and interest across identifiable groups. It is therefore not realistic to expect equal outcomes to be the result of equal opportunity.

Outcomes are easier to measure so they are useful to the cause of seeking equal opportunity. But if we take the absence of equal outcomes as proof positive of lack of equal opportunity we will over engineer our responses and take things too far to everyone’s detriment.

This is not a binary thing where we either adopt equal outcomes as the objective or abandon efforts at equality altogether. We can recognize that equal opportunity does not equate to equal outcomes while still using observed outcomes as a tool to calibrate equality policies. It just shouldn’t be the only tool or the definitive tool.

 

[AlinaX]

I don't know. I think you're inventing problems.

 

[lc69hunter]

I have received a lot of PM's over this story, and also my previous one. Of course the cuckold types loved it, but the majority of the others called me all sorts of names, along with a number of undefined (and defined threats) over the fact that I had been with so many married women, even though I was never the predator type and generally just scratched an itch, or was there when she was on the game. I think in my future stories, I will need to downplay that aspect of my varied relationships, maybe even in the sharing category.

It will probably help my scores a lot.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I have received a lot of PM's over this story, and also my previous one. Of course the cuckold types loved it, but the majority of the others called me all sorts of names, along with a number of undefined (and defined threats) over the fact that I had been with so many married women, even though I was never the predator type and generally just scratched an itch, or was there when she was on the game. I think in my future stories, I will need to downplay that aspect of my varied relationships, maybe even in the sharing category.

It will probably help my scores a lot.

Only if they haven't painted a target on your back.

 

[policywank]

I don't know. I think you're inventing problems.

Respectfully, I don't think that I am. When we are not rigorous with our logic and analysis we run the risk of making bad decisions. But equally importantly we facilitate the arguments of those who resist progressive policies and those arguments have significant sway for the 10-20% of centrist citizens who are not ideologically driven. Firing up the base at the risk of losing the moderates and undecided is counter productive.

 

[Bramblethorn]

In my view, true equality is a matter of all people having equal opportunity. If we look at humans realistically, there are differences in aptitude and interest across identifiable groups. It is therefore not realistic to expect equal outcomes to be the result of equal opportunity.

But how do we know which of those differences in aptitude and interest are genuinely intrinsic, and which are themselves caused by disparities in opportunity?

The difficulty with making "equal opportunity" a goal is that one of the most significant kinds of opportunity is the kind that comes with inherited wealth. (Not necessarily inheritance in cash; a stable childhood with good nutrition and no lead in the paint or the water gives tremendous advantages.)

The idea of abolishing such inherited advantages is unpopular, so when I hear people talking about "equal opportunity" it almost always turns out to mean equality within a very limited scope.