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On December 21 2011 00:40 hummingbird23 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2011 00:33 vetinari wrote:On December 21 2011 00:11 Haemonculus wrote:On December 20 2011 23:45 vetinari wrote:On December 20 2011 23:15 hummingbird23 wrote:
@Vetinari
Are you sure your example of double income families is sound? Doubling the workforce doubles the amount of labour and increases the amount of goods produced. How is it possible that the entry of women into the workforce has caused DECREASED living standards? Something is not adding up in that evaluation of value transfers.
Also, how in the hell do you propose that a single income family is MORE prone to bankruptcy/homelessness due to injury/illness than a double income family?
Your claim of the nature of men and women rings false. I'm not convinced that population level generalisations of "oh women would rather share a few rich men" or "oh, men would rather have many women" holds much weight. Even the generalisations themselves are weak and waaaaaaaaaay overstretched from data that can be called preliminary at best.
Why not look at the choices that people are making for themselves? There's no law preventing people from multihabitating in many places. If people want open relationships, they're free to pursue them and should be free to pursue them. GDP has gone up as a result: BUT: GDP doesn't measure all production. What is the value of a home cooked meal? The care of the children? But, there are increased costs when you have two earners: you now need a second car, child care, processed food due to time constraints (more expensive than ingredients and less healthy too). Often these two costs alone would make it not financially viable to work without government subsidies. Fixed costs have also increased: Utilities have increased above inflation (due to past underinvestment in infrastracture, privatisation). Second, healthcare costs have increased above inflation. Third, and this is the big one: housing. Housing has become much more expensive, where the decent schools are, because the prices have been greatly inflated by childless, dual earning households, and later aged dual earning households having a single child. This has made it impossible to live a middle class life-style on a single middle class income. How they are more prone to bankruptcy? Because in a single income family, the family only goes bankrupt if the man gets injured/sick. In a two income family, the family goes bankrupt if the man gets injured or sick, the woman gets injured or sick, or one of the children get injured or sick. This bit is important: median male income has not increased in real terms since the early 1980's.On youtube, there is a video of Elizabeth Warren (formerly on the credit consumer comission or somesuch), who goes over these statistics and more. Search for: the coming collapse of the middle class. A good article on it too: http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/10.30/19-bankruptcy.html Yes, the economic plight of the middle class is shitty these days. Wages have been stagnant for decades, and the cost of living/education continuously increases. No one's going to contest that. To say that this is *because* of women entering the work force is absurd. To boot, the notion that 1950's style "Leave it to Beaver" housewives existed in the past for anyone but the richest of families is false nostalgia. Nope, its not absurd. Its true. Its fairly simple economics. Of course, its not the *sole* reason, but it is a significant contributing factor. You won't believe it, of course. After all, its not like an increase in the labour supply will decrease the price of labour, or that the chance of a man or a woman getting sick is greater than the chance of a man getting sick. Nor will you believe that working mothers have costs that working fathers do not. Or that dual income households will cause higher inflation than would single income households. No, its not like any of it is true. Women entering the workforce increased male wages by competing with them. When both a man and a women are working, they get less sick than if only the man was working and the woman tending to her family's health. Processed foods are healthier and cheaper than home cooked meals. Women don't need cars to drive to work, and child care is free. An increase in the money supply causes a decrease in prices. . . . I can't go on. The nature of womens work has greatly changed, it is undisputable that for the vast majority of american families, married women were not in full time employment in th 50's. Rather, it was a mixture part time work and working for the family business. Are you seriously suggesting that a measure banning all women from working out of the house would IMPROVE the economic situation of a country?!
Of course not. Allowing employers to hire and fire women as they see fit, and to pay their workers as they see fit, would.
Employment regulation is best when it is restricted to bargaining rules, minimum wages and OHS, to maximise flexibility, allow workers some bargaining power and ensure a minimum standard of living.
Anything else helps some group at the expense of everyone else.
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On December 21 2011 01:01 vetinari wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2011 00:40 hummingbird23 wrote:On December 21 2011 00:33 vetinari wrote:On December 21 2011 00:11 Haemonculus wrote:On December 20 2011 23:45 vetinari wrote:On December 20 2011 23:15 hummingbird23 wrote:
@Vetinari
Are you sure your example of double income families is sound? Doubling the workforce doubles the amount of labour and increases the amount of goods produced. How is it possible that the entry of women into the workforce has caused DECREASED living standards? Something is not adding up in that evaluation of value transfers.
Also, how in the hell do you propose that a single income family is MORE prone to bankruptcy/homelessness due to injury/illness than a double income family?
Your claim of the nature of men and women rings false. I'm not convinced that population level generalisations of "oh women would rather share a few rich men" or "oh, men would rather have many women" holds much weight. Even the generalisations themselves are weak and waaaaaaaaaay overstretched from data that can be called preliminary at best.
Why not look at the choices that people are making for themselves? There's no law preventing people from multihabitating in many places. If people want open relationships, they're free to pursue them and should be free to pursue them. GDP has gone up as a result: BUT: GDP doesn't measure all production. What is the value of a home cooked meal? The care of the children? But, there are increased costs when you have two earners: you now need a second car, child care, processed food due to time constraints (more expensive than ingredients and less healthy too). Often these two costs alone would make it not financially viable to work without government subsidies. Fixed costs have also increased: Utilities have increased above inflation (due to past underinvestment in infrastracture, privatisation). Second, healthcare costs have increased above inflation. Third, and this is the big one: housing. Housing has become much more expensive, where the decent schools are, because the prices have been greatly inflated by childless, dual earning households, and later aged dual earning households having a single child. This has made it impossible to live a middle class life-style on a single middle class income. How they are more prone to bankruptcy? Because in a single income family, the family only goes bankrupt if the man gets injured/sick. In a two income family, the family goes bankrupt if the man gets injured or sick, the woman gets injured or sick, or one of the children get injured or sick. This bit is important: median male income has not increased in real terms since the early 1980's.On youtube, there is a video of Elizabeth Warren (formerly on the credit consumer comission or somesuch), who goes over these statistics and more. Search for: the coming collapse of the middle class. A good article on it too: http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/10.30/19-bankruptcy.html Yes, the economic plight of the middle class is shitty these days. Wages have been stagnant for decades, and the cost of living/education continuously increases. No one's going to contest that. To say that this is *because* of women entering the work force is absurd. To boot, the notion that 1950's style "Leave it to Beaver" housewives existed in the past for anyone but the richest of families is false nostalgia. Nope, its not absurd. Its true. Its fairly simple economics. Of course, its not the *sole* reason, but it is a significant contributing factor. You won't believe it, of course. After all, its not like an increase in the labour supply will decrease the price of labour, or that the chance of a man or a woman getting sick is greater than the chance of a man getting sick. Nor will you believe that working mothers have costs that working fathers do not. Or that dual income households will cause higher inflation than would single income households. No, its not like any of it is true. Women entering the workforce increased male wages by competing with them. When both a man and a women are working, they get less sick than if only the man was working and the woman tending to her family's health. Processed foods are healthier and cheaper than home cooked meals. Women don't need cars to drive to work, and child care is free. An increase in the money supply causes a decrease in prices. . . . I can't go on. The nature of womens work has greatly changed, it is undisputable that for the vast majority of american families, married women were not in full time employment in th 50's. Rather, it was a mixture part time work and working for the family business. Are you seriously suggesting that a measure banning all women from working out of the house would IMPROVE the economic situation of a country?! Of course not. Allowing employers to hire and fire women as they see fit, and to pay their workers as they see fit, would. Employment regulation is best when it is restricted to bargaining rules, minimum wages and OHS, to maximise flexibility, allow workers some bargaining power and ensure a minimum standard of living. Anything else helps some group at the expense of everyone else.
I fail to see how hummingbirds conclusion is incorrect based on what you are saying.
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On December 21 2011 00:54 DoubleReed wrote:
It shouldn't be that shocking. Vetinari's claims all come from simplifying complex ideas and misattributing correlations, which is something we all do.
However, Vetinari, I would recommend you actually do research on the economic impacts of women in the workforce because the evidence is against you.
Yes the cost of living is higher, and women working became more important to alleviate this issue. However the research shows again and again that women in the workforce can strictly make the workforce stronger.
You know that the very same research mistakes correlation for causation? E.g. companies with equal gender ratio perform better. This correlation has been widely quoted, to the point that it is assumed to be causation. But its not. There is no evidence to suggest that those companies are successful because they hire women. Rather, a closer look would show that the companies were already successful before they hired more women, thus suggesting that successful companies hire women, rather than companies becoming successful because they hired women.
Secondly, you'll find that the gender quotas in norway did the opposite of what you would suggest. They reduced company values by 20%, going by book/mv ratios.
Lastly, strictly speaking, you are correct in that women working increases the size of the workforce (men and women are equal, so adding women won't increase the quality). A higher participation rate necessarily increases GDP. However, much of the gains are illusory (does doing the laundry at a laundromat really increase productivity more than doing it at home? Is a homecooked meal really worthless?) and come at a social cost: latchkey kids, below replacement fertile, higher rates of birth defects and involuntary infertility due to delayed childbirth, increased stress, increased obesity (homecooked meals are far healthier than the processed crap that working parents make), increased illness (immune systems compromised by stress), and the list goes on.
And guess what, children with birth defects increase GDP due to their greater consumption of healthcare products, as do infertile women, with the consumption of IVF treatments.
GDP isn't the be all end all of economics.
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On December 21 2011 01:05 DoubleReed wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2011 01:01 vetinari wrote:On December 21 2011 00:40 hummingbird23 wrote:On December 21 2011 00:33 vetinari wrote:On December 21 2011 00:11 Haemonculus wrote:On December 20 2011 23:45 vetinari wrote:On December 20 2011 23:15 hummingbird23 wrote:
@Vetinari
Are you sure your example of double income families is sound? Doubling the workforce doubles the amount of labour and increases the amount of goods produced. How is it possible that the entry of women into the workforce has caused DECREASED living standards? Something is not adding up in that evaluation of value transfers.
Also, how in the hell do you propose that a single income family is MORE prone to bankruptcy/homelessness due to injury/illness than a double income family?
Your claim of the nature of men and women rings false. I'm not convinced that population level generalisations of "oh women would rather share a few rich men" or "oh, men would rather have many women" holds much weight. Even the generalisations themselves are weak and waaaaaaaaaay overstretched from data that can be called preliminary at best.
Why not look at the choices that people are making for themselves? There's no law preventing people from multihabitating in many places. If people want open relationships, they're free to pursue them and should be free to pursue them. GDP has gone up as a result: BUT: GDP doesn't measure all production. What is the value of a home cooked meal? The care of the children? But, there are increased costs when you have two earners: you now need a second car, child care, processed food due to time constraints (more expensive than ingredients and less healthy too). Often these two costs alone would make it not financially viable to work without government subsidies. Fixed costs have also increased: Utilities have increased above inflation (due to past underinvestment in infrastracture, privatisation). Second, healthcare costs have increased above inflation. Third, and this is the big one: housing. Housing has become much more expensive, where the decent schools are, because the prices have been greatly inflated by childless, dual earning households, and later aged dual earning households having a single child. This has made it impossible to live a middle class life-style on a single middle class income. How they are more prone to bankruptcy? Because in a single income family, the family only goes bankrupt if the man gets injured/sick. In a two income family, the family goes bankrupt if the man gets injured or sick, the woman gets injured or sick, or one of the children get injured or sick. This bit is important: median male income has not increased in real terms since the early 1980's.On youtube, there is a video of Elizabeth Warren (formerly on the credit consumer comission or somesuch), who goes over these statistics and more. Search for: the coming collapse of the middle class. A good article on it too: http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/10.30/19-bankruptcy.html Yes, the economic plight of the middle class is shitty these days. Wages have been stagnant for decades, and the cost of living/education continuously increases. No one's going to contest that. To say that this is *because* of women entering the work force is absurd. To boot, the notion that 1950's style "Leave it to Beaver" housewives existed in the past for anyone but the richest of families is false nostalgia. Nope, its not absurd. Its true. Its fairly simple economics. Of course, its not the *sole* reason, but it is a significant contributing factor. You won't believe it, of course. After all, its not like an increase in the labour supply will decrease the price of labour, or that the chance of a man or a woman getting sick is greater than the chance of a man getting sick. Nor will you believe that working mothers have costs that working fathers do not. Or that dual income households will cause higher inflation than would single income households. No, its not like any of it is true. Women entering the workforce increased male wages by competing with them. When both a man and a women are working, they get less sick than if only the man was working and the woman tending to her family's health. Processed foods are healthier and cheaper than home cooked meals. Women don't need cars to drive to work, and child care is free. An increase in the money supply causes a decrease in prices. . . . I can't go on. The nature of womens work has greatly changed, it is undisputable that for the vast majority of american families, married women were not in full time employment in th 50's. Rather, it was a mixture part time work and working for the family business. Are you seriously suggesting that a measure banning all women from working out of the house would IMPROVE the economic situation of a country?! Of course not. Allowing employers to hire and fire women as they see fit, and to pay their workers as they see fit, would. Employment regulation is best when it is restricted to bargaining rules, minimum wages and OHS, to maximise flexibility, allow workers some bargaining power and ensure a minimum standard of living. Anything else helps some group at the expense of everyone else. I fail to see how hummingbirds conclusion is incorrect based on what you are saying.
Because banning women from working is not the same as allowing employers to not hire women?
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That wasn't the question. The question is whether banning women from working would help the economy.
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On December 21 2011 01:22 DoubleReed wrote:
That wasn't the question. The question is whether banning women from working would help the economy.
No.
And its a fucking dumb question.
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On December 21 2011 01:24 vetinari wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2011 01:22 DoubleReed wrote:
That wasn't the question. The question is whether banning women from working would help the economy. No. And its a fucking dumb question.
Please explain then. Educate me.
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On December 21 2011 01:35 DoubleReed wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2011 01:24 vetinari wrote:On December 21 2011 01:22 DoubleReed wrote:
That wasn't the question. The question is whether banning women from working would help the economy. No. And its a fucking dumb question. Please explain then. Educate me.
Because no one, not even me, is recommending that women be banned from the workforce, or even the full time workforce.
On the other hand, if women were barred from medical school, Ireland wouldn't have a shortage of doctors. I think that having enough doctors would help the irish economy. After all, sick workers are unproductive workers . . .
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On December 19 2011 02:03 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Polygamy is illegal in the sense that you don't have the right to marry several people, that's fine. I don't see what's the problem if someone wants to live with two girlfriends or if a woman has her lover at home. That's really nobody's business.
Now, if it's legal to have two boyfriends, and it is, and legal to live with two men, and it is, I don't see why you couldn't live with your two boyfriends.
If we talk about marriage as an institution, that's obviously an other problem.
Well said, well fucking said. No reason that two, three, or even (god forbid) four! people can't live together, why not also sleep together (this happens all the time by the way, college is a lovely example of how it can and indeed does happen, although not always with the most stellar of results emotionally) or not, all up to the individuals involved and their maturity and choice.
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On December 21 2011 01:43 vetinari wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2011 01:35 DoubleReed wrote:On December 21 2011 01:24 vetinari wrote:On December 21 2011 01:22 DoubleReed wrote:
That wasn't the question. The question is whether banning women from working would help the economy. No. And its a fucking dumb question. Please explain then. Educate me. Because no one, not even me, is recommending that women be banned from the workforce, or even the full time workforce. On the other hand, if women were barred from medical school, Ireland wouldn't have a shortage of doctors. I think that having enough doctors would help the irish economy. After all, sick workers are unproductive workers . . .
Would banning men from being doctors have the same effect in your opinion?
Please no need to get offended. I'm not asking social things. Just economics.
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On December 21 2011 02:13 DoubleReed wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2011 01:43 vetinari wrote:On December 21 2011 01:35 DoubleReed wrote:On December 21 2011 01:24 vetinari wrote:On December 21 2011 01:22 DoubleReed wrote:
That wasn't the question. The question is whether banning women from working would help the economy. No. And its a fucking dumb question. Please explain then. Educate me. Because no one, not even me, is recommending that women be banned from the workforce, or even the full time workforce. On the other hand, if women were barred from medical school, Ireland wouldn't have a shortage of doctors. I think that having enough doctors would help the irish economy. After all, sick workers are unproductive workers . . . Would banning men from being doctors have the same effect in your opinion? Please no need to get offended. I'm not asking social things. Just economics.
No, because male doctors work more hours than female doctors, and are less likely to drop out of the workforce. As a result, the shortage of doctors would increase. The problem that ireland is having, is the problem that the pill was supposed to solve: medical schools refused to take on female students because they considered it highly likely that women will stop working in the field as a result of having children. This was deemed sexist and banned.
It turns out the sexist pricks were right. Female doctors are cutting down their hours and dropping out of the full time workforce, "to balance work and life". We all know that "work/life balance" really means "work/kids" balance.
You see, the thing is, spots in medical schools are highly limited, and thus it is in the best interest of society to train those who are going to use the training, than those who do not. What is better return on investment? A doctor that works full time for 5 years once training is complete, then works part time, maybe returning to full time work when the kids are grown, until 65? Or a doctor that works full time and over time from the day he finished training until the day he retires of old age? (Ireland has 60% of its female doctors working full time by at age 40, compared with 95% of its male doctors, with the male doctors also working considerably higher hours than female full time doctors.)
You cannot know in advance which women will effectively drop out of the labour force. But it is not in the interest of society to train people who will probably not fully utilize the training when there are people who you can be almost certain will fully utilize it. At this point, you must choose: which comes first: needs of the patient, or the desires of female students.
Anyone who would answer the latter probably shouldn't be choosing to be a doctor...
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Wouldn't that obviously drop the quality of doctors due to a huge chunk of the competition going away?
Not to mention that, as you said, the cost of labor would go down allowing hospitals to afford more doctors in general.
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Slightly, yes. The thing is, no longer taking in female medical students, you'd be going from really bloody smart to pretty bloody smart, on average. As a result, your average doctor will be slightly less capable. However, that slight reduction in inherent capability is more than compensated for by the increase in hours worked. In the long run, the male doctor will be on average better than the female doctor, simply by weight of experience. (working more hours, you see more cases, you learn more each day, you get better quicker and for longer)
No, female doctors actually increase the cost of doctors, in a rather roundabout manner. You see, the limiting factor in the supply of doctors are the medical schools, not the cost of the doctors. As a result, if almost all medical students were men (with the occasional exception for the female supergenius), the supply of labour would actually increase. Not the supply of doctors, per se, but the amount of available doctor hours (due to men working more). Since the shortage of doctor hours would be lessened/eliminated, hospitals would not have to offer extremely high inducements to get doctors working more to make up the shortfall in labour. (which, can be up to 10k per day.)
Its also possible to import from other countries, but as you can imagine, their home countries aren't usually happy about it.
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Vetinari: My problem with your posts is that you assume that all of these chores are naturally the woman's job by default. Cooking, cleaning, raising kids, etc. Are men incapable of these things or something?
This "social cost" you speak of has been borne by women for centuries. Home cooked food is healthier than store bought pre-packaged meals. Of course. No one is going to contest that. Are men incapable of cooking their own food though? Of doing their own laundry? Of spending time with the kids?
I find it incredibly troubling logic to go from "obesity is a problem" to "homecooked meals are better than store bought meals" to "this is because women don't stay home and cook".
Further, a family in which "if either parent gets sick will go bankrupt" is clearly already depending on both incomes to survive. A family "which is only in trouble if the father gets sick" is clearly able to support itself on one sole income. I assume your point is that if all women weren't working, their husbands would all be making more due to lack of competition for wages. Again I find it troubling to be blaming women's involvement in the workforce for these trends, and not perhaps the gross misallocation of wealth in our nation and its growing disparity over the last several decades. There are a bunch of fun charts and graphs I posted in another thread on similar issues.
+ Show Spoiler +
Finally, keep in mind that being a housewife, staying home and taking care of children, cleaning, cooking daily, etc, is a *lot* of work. It is not, however, socially prestigious.
"What do you do for a living?"
"I'm a doctor/lawyer/engineer"
"Oh wow, that's impressive!"
"What do you do for a living?"
"I'm a homemaker."
"Ohhh... that's great, good for you..."
Which looks better on a resume? Which carries a higher social status? Which gives you potential for future employment?
Even if we go with your flawed assertion that stagnant wages and a crumbling economy are the fault of women entering the workforce, what do you think we should do about it? What is your alternative? In such an alternative, what, aside from getting married, is a woman's option for supporting herself? What are her options if she doesn't want to spend her life tied to a man for support? Or is that so entirely off base with your idea of femininity as to be even worth considering?
In your example as to doctors in Ireland, how much of that discrepancy is due to women naturally choosing to get preggers and take off from work, and not that perhaps even when we contribute equally to the family income, that we still end up with the brunt of the housework and child rearing?
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Wouldn't there just be larger demand for more medical schools and such? And with what you said you would have still have decreased labor cost because hospitals would need more doctors to cover it.
Anyway, back on topic, the real cognitive reason why multiple husbands tends not to work, and open relationships in general, is jealousy. Jealously is hardwired into us, some more than others. Of course, everything I've heard about polyamorousness I have seen says that the first thing you have to do is deprogram jealousy. It shouldn't be too surprising that without jealousy you can have stable healthy polygamous relationships.
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On December 21 2011 00:54 vetinari wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2011 00:16 hummingbird23 wrote:On December 20 2011 23:45 vetinari wrote:On December 20 2011 23:15 hummingbird23 wrote:
@Vetinari
Are you sure your example of double income families is sound? Doubling the workforce doubles the amount of labour and increases the amount of goods produced. How is it possible that the entry of women into the workforce has caused DECREASED living standards? Something is not adding up in that evaluation of value transfers.
Also, how in the hell do you propose that a single income family is MORE prone to bankruptcy/homelessness due to injury/illness than a double income family?
Your claim of the nature of men and women rings false. I'm not convinced that population level generalisations of "oh women would rather share a few rich men" or "oh, men would rather have many women" holds much weight. Even the generalisations themselves are weak and waaaaaaaaaay overstretched from data that can be called preliminary at best.
Why not look at the choices that people are making for themselves? There's no law preventing people from multihabitating in many places. If people want open relationships, they're free to pursue them and should be free to pursue them. GDP has gone up as a result: BUT: GDP doesn't measure all production. What is the value of a home cooked meal? The care of the children? But, there are increased costs when you have two earners: you now need a second car, child care, processed food due to time constraints (more expensive than ingredients and less healthy too). Often these two costs alone would make it not financially viable to work without government subsidies. Fixed costs have also increased: Utilities have increased above inflation (due to past underinvestment in infrastracture, privatisation). Second, healthcare costs have increased above inflation. Third, and this is the big one: housing. Housing has become much more expensive, where the decent schools are, because the prices have been greatly inflated by childless, dual earning households, and later aged dual earning households having a single child. This has made it impossible to live a middle class life-style on a single middle class income. How they are more prone to bankruptcy? Because in a single income family, the family only goes bankrupt if the man gets injured/sick. In a two income family, the family goes bankrupt if the man gets injured or sick, the woman gets injured or sick, or one of the children get injured or sick. This bit is important: median male income has not increased in real terms since the early 1980's.On youtube, there is a video of Elizabeth Warren (formerly on the credit consumer comission or somesuch), who goes over these statistics and more. Search for: the coming collapse of the middle class. A good article on it too: http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/10.30/19-bankruptcy.html Wait, that makes no sense at all. If the costs of having a second person work were greater than the second person's wages, why is it that the second person continues to work? Should we not see poorer families forgo the wages of the second person in return for lower expenditure? What government subsidies are you referring to and how are they specific to double income households as opposed to single income households? How is fixed costs like utilities and healthcare relevant to single income versus double income families? How do children or the lack thereof affect this? Uh, there are several problems with your injury/illness model. The children are irrelevant. And the rise in healthcare costs have had little to do with women entering the workforce. Why is the fact that median male income not having risen since the 1980s is important? On December 20 2011 23:57 vetinari wrote:On December 20 2011 23:27 hummingbird23 wrote:On December 20 2011 23:21 dUTtrOACh wrote:On December 20 2011 23:20 hummingbird23 wrote:On December 20 2011 23:17 dUTtrOACh wrote:
OK, so what I've gathered from the many pages of this is that if I want lots of wives, I have to move to Singapore and convert to Islam? It seems a lot of you are still uptight about this awesome polygamy thing. Is it just legal marriage you're after? If not, you're better off where you are. Legal Polygamy What would be the benefit over a bunch of open relationships? On December 20 2011 23:22 vetinari wrote:On December 20 2011 23:06 DoubleReed wrote:
The fact is that historically polygamy hasn't really been tried in combination with women's rights as far as I know. The fact is that modern polygamy is something thats rather unusual. It's not going to be as conventional as man + wives. What we see now is a much larger mix of relations. There are ffmm marriages like gay couples marrying each other for biological children and straight couples marrying to make it easier to raise children etc.
This is basically uncharted territory and it's more of a question of whether our society is mature enough to handle it. Doubt it. Our reproductive strategies will still be determined by the fact that eggs are expensive and sperm is cheap. A few hundred years of industrialization, and 10,000 of agriculture are nothing to the 500 million since sex first evolved. I'm not sure how straight couples marrying makes it easier to raise children. I mean, couldn't you get the same effect by living next door to each other? Eggs are expensive and sperm is cheap for a huge chunk of species. Mating arrangements differ GREATLY though. What point are you trying to make? They don't actually differ all that much. There are exceptions, but the predominant mating arrangement is males inseminate as many females as possible, while females try to get the best mate they can. Of course, there are exceptions both ways, but they are rare, and they exist in no apes or monkeys (except for one species that has only avoided being wiped out by chimpanzees due to being on the other side of a river that the chimps can't cross). There is no evidence to suggest that the same instincts are not present and active in humans, and plenty to suggest there is. Namely, a significant majority of women are sleeping with a minority of men. I.e. women are selecting men they perceive to be "the best", and that men are selecting women they perceive to be "good enough". It would suggest modern polygamy would predominantly be the same as ancient polygamy. Alpha Ape + female Apes. You're referring to bonobos I take it. What is the basis for your assertion that this is because the chimpanzees were physically prevented from wiping them out? What is the evidence that a significant majority of women are sleeping with a minority of men? If this is the case, why is it that open relationships have not become the dominant form of informal partner arrangement. Because fossil evidence shows pretty clearly that the bonobos were killed by chimpanzees. STD rates (STD rates are higher among women than men, even after accounting for the relative ease of m->f transmission, compared to f->m transmisssion), college surveys, etc. 2000 years of christianity, inertia, Because only highly attractive males can have open relationships and such men are a minority. Women won't accept an open relationship with averagely attractive men, due to higher female sexual power while they are young.
So many people in this thread seem under the impression that science proves that women have these tendencies; it doesn't. Evolution has left us with absurdly adaptable brains fed by absurdly complicated combinations of desires that interact in unforeseeable ways with absurdly complicated social forces. We do not currently possess anything close to the ability to predict the results of legislation based on facts about Chimps and Bonobos.
You should get more life experience before making clearly false pronouncements like the your generalization above. Having attended several famously liberal colleges, I can assure you that numerous women will "accept an open relationship with averagely attractive men." In fact, many will accept open relationships with far bellow averagely attractive men, with terrible personalities to boot. Same thing for what men will accept in open relationships with women. If this is any indication of what a more liberal society would look like, the men in this thread have nothing but their conservatism to worry about.
So, what you generalize about in your last paragraph is simply false. This shouldn't surprise anyone since your evidence for it was monkey science.
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That is absolutely correct: if you believe in liberal and feminist dogma, then you cannot predict the future with any amount of accuracy, because your ideologies are dependent on a mistaken understanding of human nature.
Terrible personalities? I think thats code for narcissistic asshole, am I right? In that case, they are highly attractive men. "Nice guys" with decent jobs and average looks are unattractive. You make the mistake of conflating what you consider to good traits for a man to have with what women consider sexually attractive.
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Marriage is, at it's heart, a method for solidifying a bond between two people. Whether male or female, marriage was designed so that TWO people could pledge loyalty to each other, and only each other. Later on, marriage became associated with the law and now marriage tends to affect taxes, property rights and other major laws in the modern legal system. Polygamy fucks with both of these parts of marriage hardcore.
Also, polygamy in quite a few societies tends to have major problems associated with it a lot, such as children being involved, polygamy primarily being dominated by men with many women involved solely with him and rarely vice versa or the community based type, etc.
Anyways, this ruling is bad because it inspires precedent for polygamy. With this precedent, bad things could happen moving forward, something that I find both objectively and subjectively disagreeable.
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On December 21 2011 10:07 vetinari wrote:
That is absolutely correct: if you believe in liberal and feminist dogma, then you cannot predict the future with any amount of accuracy, because your ideologies are dependent on a mistaken understanding of human nature.
I'll be charitable and assume you understand that there isn't a good argument here, only rhetoric. But, in the interest of helping you respond with more accurate ad hominems in the future, you should know that I'm a naturalist of a fairly ordinary sort. Humans are a part of nature best studied using empirical methods and all of our actions are subsumed under the laws of nature that control the motions of our parts.
We can predict plenty of things using our scientific understanding of the world, but we're bad at doing that when the systems are sufficiently complex. Humans are currently in the range of the too complex, at least on this matter. Your mistake is conflating naturalism with an overly simplistic, and as yet unjustified, reductionist of our actions to selected-for traits. The two are in no way equivalent. I for one think that current science is on the side there being very few of our actions that can be explained directly in terms of selected-for traits, and it's rare to find disagreement on this outside of evolutionary psychology (which, to level an ad hominem, is widely considered really shitty science by just about everyone outside of it).
I repeat that fossil evidence about Bonobos tells else little about how human females would react to legalized polygamy.
Terrible personalities? I think thats code for narcissistic asshole, am I right? In that case, they are highly attractive men. "Nice guys" with decent jobs and average looks are unattractive. You make the mistake of conflating what you consider to good traits for a man to have with what women consider sexually attractive.
I can correct this part pretty directly. You're mistaken in thinking I made that conflation, and your baseless assumption that I meant "narcissistic asshole" by "terrible personality" was unsurprisingly way off the mark. I just meant people who suck in a variety of ways. Some were dumb. Some were unbearably boring. Some had terrible hygiene. None of them fit the PUA community stereotype of who ought to be getting all the girls, and the fact that you assumed that they must just shows you need more life experience and less simplistic reductionism.
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On December 21 2011 10:07 vetinari wrote:
That is absolutely correct: if you believe in liberal and feminist dogma, then you cannot predict the future with any amount of accuracy, because your ideologies are dependent on a mistaken understanding of human nature.
Terrible personalities? I think thats code for narcissistic asshole, am I right? In that case, they are highly attractive men. "Nice guys" with decent jobs and average looks are unattractive. You make the mistake of conflating what you consider to good traits for a man to have with what women consider sexually attractive.
The "Nice Guys Finish Last" thing is actually a total myth. It just comforts all those "nice guys."
Of course there are true things about human nature and sexual attraction. You're just not actually stating any of them.
Men do not just "spread their seed" or whatever. No, men also choose mates selectively based on fitness and attraction. Women, similarly, do not just find the "strongest" or the most confident or whatever. There are several factors to attraction. For instance, a compare a goth chick and preppy chick. The preppy chick appeals to wider audience, but the goth chick appeals to niche audiences. The goth chick will get more extremely positive and more extremely negative responses, and therefore the goth chick may be able to filter out attractive partners much quicker.
And women, just like men, are not ok with their spouse having sex with other people as part of instinct. Women put up with traditional polygamy because they were not considered equal. Women are frequently jealous and cruel to each other in traditional polygamous relationships.
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EPT
