REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

The incredible maleness of violence

POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Friday, August 10, 2012 02:29
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Sunday, August 5, 2012 7:37 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Think about it: although not all men are violent, most of the violent are men. As an article said recently, if there was ANY OTHER disease that showed such striking gender differences, the science/ health papers would be all over it.

SO, thinking about gun restrictions, maybe only women should have guns.

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Sunday, August 5, 2012 8:44 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


The idea that men are predominantly violent is becoming quite controversial here, and there is a movement that identifies that men are often victims of violence by females, but just tend not to report.

Nevertheless, much violence seems to be perpetrated by young males, 18-30.


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Monday, August 6, 2012 2:20 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


I would flip that around: not "men are predominantly violent" but "violence is predominantly male". Aside from self-reports, death rates also bear this out: in the age group 15-24, the highest rate of death among young males is
accident (10,313 for men v 3,529 for women) and the second-highest is
violence (6,224 men, 1,060 women) and the third-highest is
suicide (4,132 men, 652 women)

The picture doesn't look that much different in the 24-44 age group, except that HIV jumps to the top.

http://www.allcountries.org/uscensus/129_death_and_death_rates_by_age.
html


Abusers are usually male. The big corporate sociopaths are also usually male. Even the so-called "crazy" spree killers are almost always male. And of course the enforcers... police, military... are also almost always male. WHAT is going on here?

It seems to me that men and women are different, and they need to be thought of differently and handled differently from an early age. Boys don't do as well in the usual classroom environment. Maybe some young men need an outlet for all of that aggression: forest management, firefighting, something to work off all of that whatever it is.

Yanno, until we as a society proactively recognize and deal with aggression and sociopathy (instead of lauding it in movies and then decrying it in the news) we will never be able to manage ourselves. And we will consistently wind up in the same situation as we are now. And, as an aside, "punishment" doesn't work. (WISHIMAY, you listening?) We (The USA) not only has the highest violence rate but also the highest incarceration rate. Setting men up only to jail them later is not the answer.

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Monday, August 6, 2012 5:50 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Well said, Sig...especially that last paragraph. Again, however, as with so many topics here, I don't see a viable solution being accepted, much less put into action.


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Monday, August 6, 2012 6:21 AM

PIRATENEWS

John Lee, conspiracy therapist at Hollywood award-winner History Channel-mocked SNL-spoofed PirateNew.org wooHOO!!!!!!


Yeah, women only kill their babies....100-million babies killed by women in USA since 1973.



This is what Obama wants to do to YOU. Now give him your guns.


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Monday, August 6, 2012 6:33 AM

HKCAVALIER


Having known both murderers and women who have had abortions, I can tell you, PN, there's a big difference.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Monday, August 6, 2012 6:57 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I would flip that around: not "men are predominantly violent" but "violence is predominantly male". Aside from self-reports, death rates also bear this out: in the age group 15-24, the highest rate of death among young males is
accident (10,313 for men v 3,529 for women) and the second-highest is
violence (6,224 men, 1,060 women) and the third-highest is
suicide (4,132 men, 652 women)

The picture doesn't look that much different in the 24-44 age group, except that HIV jumps to the top.



So there's your solution. Just round up all the males 15-44. Accident, homicide, and suicide deaths go down by 3/4 instantly.

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Monday, August 6, 2012 10:15 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Hey, thanks for that insight Geezer!

Look, I know that this post would prolly make a number of men defensive, which is why I was rather careful to to repeat several times that not ALL men are violent. I'll bet that most men on this website were seldom violent, and that many of those who experienced abuse either renounced it or became extremely conscious how they used violence.

So not casting aspersions on ALL men, just noticing that violence in ALL societies is skewed towards males.


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Monday, August 6, 2012 3:01 PM

KPO

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.


The maleness of violence... Seems very true to me. More than that - it seems so self-evident that I can't really see why anyone would find such a statement controversial. As for how to confront the problem (violence in society), I would start by examining those societies that are low in violence, and see if there's anything worth emulating there.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Monday, August 6, 2012 5:59 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


There are a few societies run by women. So far as I know they're peaceful and productive. Maybe the answer is to just remove men from power.

Even the San Bushmen a notably un-warlike people fell into a kind of male-on-male violence pattern involving insults to social standing and death-vendettas between individuals. The interesting thing was they didn't particularly like that system. They were doing it b/c it was expected. When it was explained to them that the law didn't allow such things, and there was really no shame in letting bygones be bygones, they were by all accounts visibly relieved.

Also, FWIW a recent paper indicates that early Homo sapiens buried their females with as much deference and care as their males. From that, it's been inferred that the society was not male-dominated but at least egalitarian.

Perhaps the role of male violence isn't necessarily biologically determined, but an unfortunate self-sustaining structure that gets accidentally started by circumstance, and continues on after that.



SignyM: I swear, if we really knew what was being decided about us in our absence, and how hosed the government is prepared to let us be, we would string them up.

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Monday, August 6, 2012 10:46 PM

OONJERAH


Quote KPO, "As for how to confront the problem (violence in society),
I would start by examining those societies that are low in violence,
and see if there's anything worth emulating there."

^ What KPO said.
It makes perfect sense. But America is no longer a sensible place.


=========================
I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. ~Charles R Swindoll

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Tuesday, August 7, 2012 12:34 AM

FREMDFIRMA



Hmm, I dunno if it's so much a "Male" thing as based in cultural gender roles and whatnot.
I can only imagine the mirror image of this kind of discussion goin on amongst the Amazonian tribes which more or less reversed typical gender roles...
Be darkly entertaining to watch, that would.

As for emulation - just cause I was thinkin about it most of the week, I will mention that our so-called "role models" these days are all sociopaths, and that has an impact as well.
In fact, I think that who a person considers examplars of proper human behavior is a pretty effective measure of their own character, even if they do not always live up to those expectations themselves.

Case in point, some of mine.


Nausicaa (Valley of the Wind)
She never gives in to hate, never, and only twice has resorted to violence, which in both cases was rooted in a combination of desperation and compassion, a need to protect.

Yuna (Final Fantasy X/X-2)
Also never gives in to hate, but not only that, was willing to openly defy tradition and society and rather than sacrifice herself for a temporary peace, sought out the root of the problem and went after that, even if doing so turned prettymuch everyone against her.

Filica Heideman (Sound of the Sky)
Despite being a soldier and in command, sees the military as a protective rather than aggressive organisation, and when it comes to cases is willing to outright mutiny rather than allow a needless and futile war to begin, up to and including pulling a gun on her own superior, and placing her own command between two armies to forestall the conflict.

Sure, they're mostly female, but I don't think it's about gender per-se, cause Welkin Gunther (Valkyria Chronicles) is made of the same moral steel that Filica Heideman is, if a bit rough around the edges sometimes..

Oh, and you might notice something in common with all the stories revolving around humane, empathetic persons...

Select to view spoiler:


They all have happy endings, if sometimes bittersweet.
They're also stories which do not glorify war or violence even if they acknowledge we've not grown beyond it yet, which focus instead on that which really matters, people, and how you treat them.


-Frem

PS. In regards to your thoughs of emulating saner societies - look at each and every, and then look at how they treat their children.
And there, you have the answer.

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Tuesday, August 7, 2012 1:05 AM

FREMDFIRMA



Okay, cause yanno, that scene is just too good NOT to share with you folks.


Background: The Series Sound of The Sky takes place some time after a massive conflict which has left much of the world in ruin, and apparently during said conflict radio communications were lost early on causing the necessity of falling back on bugle signalling between armor units.
Due to language barriers, some part of the coordination between the defensive forces, and as a symbol of their alliance, was the song "Amazing Grace", with the theme of one-song-many-instruments, so culturally it became a strong symbol of cooperation across all barriers.

The 1121st found themselves in possession of a badly damaged relic of the war, a spider tank with capabilities unmatched by modern versions, and repaired it, during which they discovered the song was in fact part of it's operating system, leading to the presumption of its cross-cultural importance.

When the 1121st discovers a fallback troop movement by the other side (in case the peace talks fail), their regional commander, Colonel Hopkins, decides to use this to provoke a the war he so desperately wants in order to further his own advancement.
The commander of the 1121st, Filicia Heideman, knowing that a peace treaty has been signed...
Without so much as a blink pulls her sidearm on him, stands him down, and uses their repaired spider tank to barge through all opposition to a vantage point between the forces about to engage.

Konata pops the back hatch and then signals both forces to cease fire and stand down, but each one thinks it might be a trick of the other and doesn't seem inclined to stop.
So Konata climbs out and stands on the tank....



Select to view spoiler:


And this stalls the confrontation just long enough for Rio to show up with the peace treaty in hand and the imperial guard in tow, and put a stop to this lunacy before anyone gets hurt.
Seriously: This scene gets ME to misting up at the eyes, and that takes a lot.


-Frem

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Tuesday, August 7, 2012 3:37 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So not casting aspersions on ALL men, just noticing that violence in ALL societies is skewed towards males.




Could it be that, in general, the sexes are designed that way? That 'traditional' male/female roles are pretty much hardcoded by evolutionary forces? Sort'a like why folks tend to get fat because they're still coded to eat as much as possible to be ready to run down prey or spend all day on the move looking for edibles. Remember, Homo Sapiens has been around for 500,000 years, and proto-man for much longer, and for 99% of that time we were small tribes living a migratory, hunter/gatherer life. Men needed to be aggressive to hunt and protect the tribe from danger.

We've only been trying to organize into larger groups for a few thousand years, and perhaps the evolved propensity for aggression - which used to be desirable, or even necessary for survival - hasn't had time to catch up with our rational need to be more social.

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Tuesday, August 7, 2012 4:45 AM

CAVETROLL


Taking it a step further, perhaps with that programmed aggression, males are not supposed to be represented in society in such numbers as they are now?

Given an increased level of aggression and a harsher environment males would suffer from a higher incidence of mortality. There is biological evidence that humanity is geared against monogamy. (IIRC, there are 3 different types of human sperm cells) Basic biology shows that it only takes one male to keep many females gravid. If humanity were still in a nomadic hunter/gatherer tribal existence males would be exposed to higher risk activities.

When we move to an agricultural society is when social order gears toward monogamy. More reliable food supply decreases all mortality, but it seems likely that male mortality would take the largest drop.

It's also interesting to consider how domesticating animals, especially dogs, may have impacted our evolution.


Kwindbago, hot air and angry electrons

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Tuesday, August 7, 2012 5:33 AM

KPO

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.


Quote:

If humanity were still in a nomadic hunter/gatherer tribal existence males would be exposed to higher risk activities.

Have you factored in the fact that women in the past were decimated by childbirth?

I would describe humans as semi-monogamous, as we undoubtedly have some monogamous instincts. Animals that are fully monogamous typically have males and females that are the same size - here from Wikipedia:

"In polygynous species, males compete for control over sexual access to females. Large males have an advantage in the competition for access to females, and they consequently pass their genes along to a greater number of offspring. This eventually leads to large differences in body size between females and males. Polygynous males are often 1.5 to 2.0 times larger in size than females. In monogamous species, on the other hand, femaes and males have more equal access to mates, so there is little or no sexual dimorphism in body size."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monogamous_pairing_in_animals#Sexual_dimo
rphism


It's not personal. It's just war.

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Tuesday, August 7, 2012 5:36 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


That's a really interesting insight which had never occurred to me, Troll. The idea of male mortality having been much higher in the distant past. It may well be a valid theory; makes sense to me at least.

Anything else I would have to say about this topic has pretty much already been said. IF the "good old boys' club" ever gives way to women in either a dominant, or even EQUAL, way, we'll see if anything changes.

I know one thing I heard is that some societies, recognizing the aggression that comes to young men, have ceremonies and trials as such to celebrate their coming of age, and that these often include trials or aggression (i.e., hunting, fighting, etc.). So there's a recognition there of the need, and of course it's something we're far too "civilized" to consider...


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Tuesday, August 7, 2012 1:36 PM

KPO

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.


Quote:

perhaps with that programmed aggression, males are not supposed to be represented in society in such numbers as they are now?

Were you suggesting that this contributes in some way to the violence (beyond the basic maths of there being more men around)? That being surrounded by other men makes men violent?

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Tuesday, August 7, 2012 7:49 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


"Men needed to be aggressive to hunt and protect the tribe from danger."

Outdated notion. In H/G societies as existed in Africa and which exist to today, the vast majority of food calories is from gathering, then scavenging. Humans need grams of omega-3 fats for brain and eye development and function, best found in seafood and the bone marrow of grazing animals. (But taurine, an amino acid critical to heart health is only found in seafood and sea plants.) Teeth wear in fossils attests to eating lots of tough plant food, smashed bones to scavenging. "Man the Hunter" is a self-flattering paradigm but it's not borne out by evidence to date. It's more like "Man (and Woman) the Grubber".


SignyM: I swear, if we really knew what was being decided about us in our absence, and how hosed the government is prepared to let us be, we would string them up.

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Tuesday, August 7, 2012 7:58 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


"Basic biology shows that it only takes one male to keep many females gravid."

But it takes free hands to help keep those partially embryonic and completely helpless young'uns alive.

If with your presence you are not helping the next generation stay alive YOU ARE COMPETITION FOR FOOD AND RESOURCES AGAINST THEIR SURVIVAL. And if you are a fit, unburdened, aggressive male competing against burdened females and young you will survive and they will not. Not a great way to keep the species alive.

I think the closest analogy are the bird species whose young are born featherless, fragile, and helpless. The males are ACTIVE caregivers of their young - they would have to be, or the species would never have survived with such helpless babies.


SignyM: I swear, if we really knew what was being decided about us in our absence, and how hosed the government is prepared to let us be, we would string them up.

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Tuesday, August 7, 2012 8:46 PM

HKCAVALIER


Hey kiki,

Thanks for putting that old chestnut to bed so succinctly. It's amazing how badly some men want to normalize agression and violence. It's easier for them to believe that men are hopelessly violent and destructive than to believe that society needs to change. It's the way they're raised.

I don't know why masculinity has gotten so polarized seemingly around the world and across cultures. There's a strange battle being waged throughout the world between those who are subject to their emotions (mostly women) and those who are determined to suppress their emotions (mostly men). Why should men across so many cultures be shamed against feeling? Against crying? Against having inner thoughts and feelings at all?

We observe that in Totalitarian culture the inner life of the citizenry is tightly controlled. Inner life = dissent. But why should every man in America today, in Europe, in Asia and Africa carry around a microcosm of Totalitarianism in his heart? As has been demonstrated, the earliest humans behaved much more egalitarian. So, this totalitarianization of the male psyche is an historical phenomenon; it happened to us somewhere along the way. It's so maladaptive and at the same time so tenacious once it takes root. What went wrong?

The Chalice and the Blade points to desertification and scarcity as the social event that turned certain tribes into dominators; homo sapien evolved in a resource rich environment, but in the new desert communities resources were more and more scarce and only the fiercest survived. The dominator model then took on a life of its own and invaded far more fertile lands with its zero sum insanity. The more peaceful tribes didn't stand a chance in direct conflict with these mad dominator tribes. And so it goes.

It's been shown with other primates, that when the most aggressive males are somehow removed from the community, no one takes their place. The community reforms to much less aggressive norms. Until a critical mass of males renounce the dominator model we will all suffer in its shadow.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Wednesday, August 8, 2012 1:45 AM

FREMDFIRMA


Quote:

Originally posted by HKCavalier:
It's been shown with other primates, that when the most aggressive males are somehow removed from the community, no one takes their place. The community reforms to much less aggressive norms. Until a critical mass of males renounce the dominator model we will all suffer in its shadow.


You know, once you realize this factor was a critical one of Robespierres plan, a lot more of his behavior makes sense, does it not ?

Problem is, using violence to end violence is kind of idiotic in a putting out fire with gasoline kinda way...
And, this does not address the problem of the social-educational systems being corrupted into mass-producing empathy-crippled dominion types faster than you can purge them.

So instead of going top down with a hammer, we need to go bottom up with a gentle hand.

It is that simple, but yet, not simple, as I have explained many times.

-Frem

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Wednesday, August 8, 2012 2:09 AM

KPO

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.


Quote:

It's amazing how badly some men want to normalize agression and violence.

I want to normalise aggression, but not violence.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Wednesday, August 8, 2012 2:40 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
"Men needed to be aggressive to hunt and protect the tribe from danger."

Outdated notion. In H/G societies as existed in Africa and which exist to today, the vast majority of food calories is from gathering, then scavenging. Humans need grams of omega-3 fats for brain and eye development and function, best found in seafood and the bone marrow of grazing animals. (But taurine, an amino acid critical to heart health is only found in seafood and sea plants.) Teeth wear in fossils attests to eating lots of tough plant food, smashed bones to scavenging. "Man the Hunter" is a self-flattering paradigm but it's not borne out by evidence to date. It's more like "Man (and Woman) the Grubber".




Okay. So man the grubber isn't aggressive or violent. Problem solved.

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Wednesday, August 8, 2012 7:24 AM

CAVETROLL


Quote:

Originally posted by kpo:
Quote:

perhaps with that programmed aggression, males are not supposed to be represented in society in such numbers as they are now?

Were you suggesting that this contributes in some way to the violence (beyond the basic maths of there being more men around)? That being surrounded by other men makes men violent?


Holy crap, that's a sick notion. But mother nature doesn't play by our rules. It would follow that if men were biologically oriented towards violence then some of that would be directed at their own species. Driving off other males to keep his mate(s) safe and bearing his offspring for example. Just following the theory, if men aren't supposed to be present in high numbers and now they are, would that trigger an instinctive need to reduce the number of males?

I'm not married to the theory, just musing out loud.




Kwindbago, hot air and angry electrons

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Wednesday, August 8, 2012 7:39 AM

HKCAVALIER


Hey CT,

I think ruinously high populations, unheard of outside your nearest termite mound, have a lot to do with it. No primate was meant to live in a hive. And naturally tribal homo sapien was never designed to live as we do surrounded by countless, nameless strangers. We males are the naturally less occupied sex, so it's not unreasonable to imagine that our behavior would be more influenced by these environmental factors.

We look at pictures of factory farm animals in their pens and it rightly disturbs us. Yet we live and work in similar conditions without a second thought. What sane animal urinates in crowds? We have thoroughly domesticated ourselves. But many animals are simply not domesticable. I presume even we homo sapiens have our limits.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Wednesday, August 8, 2012 8:07 AM

CAVETROLL


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
"Men needed to be aggressive to hunt and protect the tribe from danger."

Outdated notion. In H/G societies as existed in Africa and which exist to today, the vast majority of food calories is from gathering, then scavenging. Humans need grams of omega-3 fats for brain and eye development and function, best found in seafood and the bone marrow of grazing animals. (But taurine, an amino acid critical to heart health is only found in seafood and sea plants.) Teeth wear in fossils attests to eating lots of tough plant food, smashed bones to scavenging. "Man the Hunter" is a self-flattering paradigm but it's not borne out by evidence to date. It's more like "Man (and Woman) the Grubber".



Oh goody. Somebody go tell the vast herds of wooly mammoths to come out of hiding. You know, all those mammoth remains that were found with knapped flint spear points embedded in their bones must have been decoys.

Man the hunter is borne out by the way human males optical centers of their brain works. Males tend to have better distance vision and depth perception, and usually better vision in lighted environments. Women have better night vision and have better visual memory. Men also tend to have a smaller field of vision than women. Color blindness tends to be inherited by males instead of females. While there wouldn't be any absolutes in a primitive society, these differences would suggest that male and females had different evolutionary pressures.

Looking around the internet I found an interesting chimpanzee study at http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/chimpanzee-hunting-behavio
r-and-human-evolution/1

Not that chimpanzee behavior is an exact parallel for primitive hominids, but it seems like a reasonable guide.

The study found that chimpanzees meat eating accounted for only 3% of their eating time. But the chimpanzees would go on "hunting binges" where they would kill up to 150 animals. They formed "hunting parties" composed of males and females, but 90% of the time the successful hunters would be males. Although females participated in the hunts, females were also more likely to receive a share of the meat from the male who captured the prey.

Quote:


...The early hominids were probably at least as socially complex as modern chimpanzees. The hunting ecology of the chimpanzee suggests the following: Most meat-eating took place within the home range of the social group and most frequently within a core area smaller than the total range. Most of the prey were small animals, weighing less than 25 kilograms. Most of the hunters would have been males, and the rate of success was linked to the number of hunters in a party. The meat was probably shared by members of the hunting party as well as by any females who might have been present. Meat may have been used by males for selfish political reasons and for gaining sexual access to females. If so, we would expect a degree of sexual selection for the best hunters...




Kwindbago, hot air and angry electrons

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Wednesday, August 8, 2012 6:01 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


Geezer

Does your ENTIRE repertoire of thought consist of straw-man arguments? Can you think of no other pathway to violence besides "'traditional' male/female roles" and that "men needed to be aggressive to hunt and protect the tribe from danger"?

Really? Is that the best you can do?

Well, then, thank you for your stellar contribution to this discussion! Better luck next time!


SignyM: I swear, if we really knew what was being decided about us in our absence, and how hosed the government is prepared to let us be, we would string them up.

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Wednesday, August 8, 2012 6:42 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


Troll

You were responding to this "Homo Sapiens has been around for 500,000 years, and proto-man for much longer" posted by Geezer.

Aside from being factually wrong (H sapiens has probably been around for 200,000 years) it does indicate the human story goes much further back than the woolly mammoth.

In that long span of time males have gone from being roughly twice the size of females to "in the United States, adult males are, on average, 4% taller and 8% heavier than adult females." (WIKI) This is not a large size difference, indicating significant social numbers in the group rather than polygyny.

By comparison, male common chimps (Pan troglodytes) are on the average 25% heavier than females, and have significant facial dimorphism in terms of head size and shape, with males having prominent canines that females lack.





The biggest difference between common chimps and us is that the chimp babies are physically capable of clinging and don't need to be constantly carried. Having less dependent young changes the social structure of necessity, from a society where male involvement in young is non-existent in terms of care to one where males involvement is vital. That makes comparisons between common chimps and humans uncertain. Also, it depends on WHICH chimp species you choose, as bonobos (the other chimp species Pan paniscus) have a completely different social structure of co-equal male and female hierarchies and extremely low within-group aggression, even though they do indeed hunt, and hunt quite well.

In any case, it's been a long day. I hope to get back to this later.




SignyM: I swear, if we really knew what was being decided about us in our absence, and how hosed the government is prepared to let us be, we would string them up.

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Thursday, August 9, 2012 3:05 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
Geezer

Can you think of no other pathway to violence besides "'traditional' male/female roles" and that "men needed to be aggressive to hunt and protect the tribe from danger"?



Well, no others have been suggested here.

Maybe it's stuff like this.








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Thursday, August 9, 2012 4:21 AM

CAVETROLL


1kiki, I'm really enjoying this discussion and your latest post makes me wonder about the unintended consequences of establishing an agrarian society.

Humans establish permanent villages and begin to grow crops and domesticate animals. When war inevitably rears its head those chosen to go off and fight that war are inevitably, the strongest and the fastest. Less physically remarkable male specimens remain behind with less competition for the fertile females. Could the long term implications of that be reduced stature of males in the long term? Seems like a situation where it is survival of the slightly less than fit. Certainly counter-Darwinian. Of course not all the men gone off to war are killed or maimed to the point where they cannot reproduce. And not all of the smaller, weaker men father a child with every woman. It is rarely a apocalyptic shift that causes widespread change, but a slow change that happens at a glacial pace.

A brief search didn't find any studies done on male aggression as a corollary to size. (Excepting one that showed men with wider faces tend to display more aggression, the same not being true for women, at least in that study.) I'd be interested in seeing results of any such study if anybody can find one.

And for your daily dose of "Wow, there's a weird connection". This blog post states that increased aggression or dominance toward men and women is linked to smaller penis sizes, as quoted from Geoffrey Miller's "The Mating Mind".

http://baddogpug.blogspot.com/2008/10/realitionship-between-aggression
.html


Really thought provoking stuff here.



Kwindbago, hot air and angry electrons

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Thursday, August 9, 2012 4:24 AM

CAVETROLL


HK,
What's that old saw? If you put enough rats in a cage they'll start killing one another.


Kwindbago, hot air and angry electrons

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Friday, August 10, 2012 2:29 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Think about it: although not all men are violent, most of the violent are men. As an article said recently, if there was ANY OTHER disease that showed such striking gender differences, the science/ health papers would be all over it.

SO, thinking about gun restrictions, maybe only women should have guns.



Uh... huh.....

Maybe in your generation....

http://tahlequahdailypress.com/archive/x519330964

Quote:

“They [girls] seem to have taken over areas previously dominated by boys,” said Otteson. “I first noticed it when they began using foul language that used to be reserved for guys when talking to other guys, then they began to use hand gestures. Their violence then graduated from ‘girl fighting’ - pulling hair, scratching, etc. - to actual punching, hitting, kicking and then to the use of weapons. They appear to have little or no remorse, and a kind of ‘they deserved it’ attitude.”

According to a recent report on MSNBC, federal statistics indicate if the trend continues, female delinquents will take up even more of the time and attention of researchers, policymakers, court officials and service providers.

From 1992 to 2003, the most recent year for which complete figures are available in the Justice Department’s Uniform Crime Report, the number of girls arrested on all charges increased by 6.4 percent, compared with a decline among boys of 16.4 percent.

The glaring observation involved the figures for assault: Within the study’s time frame, girls arrested nationwide rose 41 percent, as opposed to a 4.3 percent increase among boys.



This ain't 1960. Equal Rights. Girl Power.

Thanks Spice Girls.

"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." ~Shepherd Book

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