Internet Pornography

[chaz wyman]

Please share with us accounts of cultures where men had and raised the babies, while women fought with other women in order to weed out the weak genes.
.

Stupid question of the week.

There are examples on cultures where men are separated from children for the first five years of life, and then take all the boys into the male sub-tribe, and stay separate.
Then there are cultures where men take on an equal share of the child rearing, and in some cases bring up children with no women at all.
These differences cannot be explained by evolutionary genetics.

No culture in history EVER fought with others, either men or women "in order to weed out the weak genes" - not until Adolf Hitler anyway.

[Felasco]

Stupid question of the week.

Are you aware that the majority of your posts seem to involve calling people stupid, which reveals to mature readers that you are worried you yourself may be stupid? Your fly is down dude, and stuff is showing.... And anyway, you're not stupid, so stop worrying about it so much.

There are examples on cultures where men are separated from children for the first five years of life, and then take all the boys into the male sub-tribe, and stay separate.Then there are cultures where men take on an equal share of the child rearing, and in some cases bring up children with no women at all. These differences cannot be explained by evolutionary genetics.

Which cultures please? You've not actually named one, or provided any actual evidence to support your case.

I would grant your assertion that some examples of non-standard social arrangements do exist, including our modern western society. However these exceptions are dwarfed by the overwhelming majority of cases, where humans act pretty much just like squirrels and other mammals.

No culture in history EVER fought with others, either men or women "in order to weed out the weak genes" - not until Adolf Hitler anyway.

You and I are doing it right now.

This dynamic between us is VERY common between males on forums, and it is the egghead nerd version of the competition that happens all across nature.

Millions of years of evolution are compelling we males to compete, and attempt to prove ourselves to be the bigger male, even though in this context it's entirely irrational, as neither of us will get anything if we should be declared the winner.

Chaz, I invite you to consider that the majority of your posting is driven by emotion, not reason, and is arising from this primal source. It's not a personal failing, but a million years of evolution compelling you to engage in pounding your chest in response to me pounding mine.

If this were a truly rational insightful and honest dialog, each of us would photograph our erect penis next to a ruler, upload the photos, and finally settle the argument.

[chaz wyman]

Are you aware that the majority of your posts seem to involve calling people stupid,

There are two possible reasons for that. One is that I'm wrong. The other is that, despite, persistent efforts other posters fail to address simple points that people who are other than stupid, would at least have a stab at.

I would grant your assertion that some examples of non-standard social arrangements do exist, including our modern western society. However these exceptions are dwarfed by the overwhelming majority of cases, where humans act pretty much just like squirrels and other mammals.

It is an absurdity to suggest that ANY culture is "standard" or non standard. If human culture is non standard by rubric of comparison with squirrels, then the absurdity is with you.
As a student of history, archaeology and anthropology it is obvious enough to me, that there is no such thing as a 'standard' society, and even the most cursory examination of humans cultures should convince even a fool of the banal and obvious assertion.
What is special and unique about humans is that what characterises us is that we have long ago abandoned instinctual behaviour and adopted learning and culture. Other mammals don't have culture.
If you don't get this, then you don't understand the most basic and fundamental feature of humanity.

No culture in history EVER fought with others, either men or women "in order to weed out the weak genes" - not until Adolf Hitler anyway.

You and I are doing it right now.

More absurdity. Whatever the result of our argument, it will not impact on our genes.
Unless i find you and kill you, and your children, and this ALSO results in me having more children.

[Felasco]

There are two possible reasons for that. One is that I'm wrong. The other is that, despite, persistent efforts other posters fail to address simple points that people who are other than stupid, would at least have a stab at.

You're attempting to keep the explanation within the realm of rationality, the relative value of competing propositions etc. I propose instead that the main driver of posting on philosophy forums (by most of us, not just you) is instead found within the realm of emotion, ego, and so on.

It is an absurdity to suggest that ANY culture is "standard" or non standard. If human culture is non standard by rubric of comparison with squirrels, then the absurdity is with you. As a student of history, archaeology and anthropology it is obvious enough to me, that there is no such thing as a 'standard' society, and even the most cursory examination of humans cultures should convince even a fool of the banal and obvious assertion.

More generic ranting, minus actual evidence of specific cultures which might be examined.

What is special and unique about humans is that what characterises us is that we have long ago abandoned instinctual behaviour and adopted learning and culture.

Culture, a product less than 10,000 years old, arises from biology and patterns established by many millions of years of human and pre-human history.

Look Chaz, women can have the babies, and we can't. Turn on your TV, 95% of the violence you see will be coming from men, as it has always been.

Other mammals don't have culture. If you don't get this, then you don't understand the most basic and fundamental feature of humanity.

In other words, you are large and I am small, and your penis is bigger than mine, so if any females show up, they belong to you. That's a translation out of egghead talk in to reality.

What I'm suggesting Chaz, is that we be "real men" and face up to the emotional source of philosophical blowharding, which I propose can usually be traced back to ancient patterns of male vs. male competition.

[chaz wyman]

There are two possible reasons for that. One is that I'm wrong. The other is that, despite, persistent efforts other posters fail to address simple points that people who are other than stupid, would at least have a stab at.

You're attempting to keep the explanation within the realm of rationality, the relative value of competing propositions etc. I propose instead that the main driver of posting on philosophy forums (by most of us, not just you) is instead found within the realm of emotion, ego, and so on.

It is an absurdity to suggest that ANY culture is "standard" or non standard. If human culture is non standard by rubric of comparison with squirrels, then the absurdity is with you. As a student of history, archaeology and anthropology it is obvious enough to me, that there is no such thing as a 'standard' society, and even the most cursory examination of humans cultures should convince even a fool of the banal and obvious assertion.

More generic ranting, minus actual evidence of specific cultures which might be examined.

!Kung San, Igbo, Mbuti, ancient Persian, Celtic, Western/Christian, Islamic. where do you want to start?
Talk about 'generic'!! That's a laugh. Name your "STANDARD" culture and I'll show you how ridiculous it is.

What is special and unique about humans is that what characterises us is that we have long ago abandoned instinctual behaviour and adopted learning and culture.

Culture, a product less than 10,000 years old, arises from biology and patterns established by many millions of years of human and pre-human history.

Bollocks. Human evolution has departed from animal evolution 4 million years ago. Our brains do more for us than our instinct.

Look Chaz, women can have the babies, and we can't.

Did you mummy tell you that?

Other mammals don't have culture. If you don't get this, then you don't understand the most basic and fundamental feature of humanity.

In other words, you are large and I am small, and your penis is bigger than mine, so if any females show up, they belong to you. That's a translation out of egghead talk in to reality.

No, you are just ignorant, and stuck on a very limited rubric of interpretation which you seem to have gleaned from the back of a cereal packet, in which humans have been compared to squirrels

What I'm suggesting Chaz, is that we be "real men" and face up to the emotional source of philosophical blowharding, which I propose can usually be traced back to ancient patterns of male vs. male competition.

There is no such thing as a 'real man' as distinct from what??? an unreal man?
You are bonkers.
I suppose only 'real men' can belong to a 'standard human' culture?
A moment's thought ought to tell you how poor your naturalistic fantasy is.
Take a group of squirrels. Separate them, onto 2 different islands and come back after 30 generations.
Guess what - both groups will act the same.
Do the same for a human groups and they will have changed their way of life.
Try this. Take a baby from culture A, and bring it up in culture B.
The baby will not retain ANY of the social norms behaviours and attitudes, form culture A.

I think I need to remind you what the thread is about. It's covered gender roles. As each culture has different and ever changing culture roles, it is simply not helpful asking a squirrel what he thinks about "Internet Porn", and such matters as child care, and marriage.
There is no 'natural' or 'standard' human culture, or there has not been since homo erectus marched out of Africa.

[Felasco]

Try this. Take a baby from culture A, and bring it up in culture B. The baby will not retain ANY of the social norms behaviours and attitudes, form culture A.

You keep retreating in to abstract stuff like this, so that you can ignore the evidence from the real world, where the vast majority of human societies function pretty much like the rest of the mammal kingdom.

The females have and raise the babies, and the males compete with other males so that the babies get the strongest genes available.

Evidence. The real world. That's what reason is about Chaz. How worked up you may be about being right has nothing to do with it.

[chaz wyman]

Try this. Take a baby from culture A, and bring it up in culture B. The baby will not retain ANY of the social norms behaviours and attitudes, form culture A.

You keep retreating in to abstract stuff like this, so that you can ignore the evidence from the real world, where the vast majority of human societies function pretty much like the rest of the mammal kingdom.

The females have and raise the babies, and the males compete with other males so that the babies get the strongest genes available.

Evidence. The real world. That's what reason is about Chaz. How worked up you may be about being right has nothing to do with it.

You are a waste of time.

[reasonvemotion]

Let's imagine a couple who are routinely separated by say, military service. So they have virtual video sex over Skype. Technically, this is porn not real sex, but something is better than nothing, right?

I would call this eroticism not pornography as the couple have a bond.

There is a difference.

[Felasco]

I would call this eroticism not pornography as the couple have a bond.

Ok, fair enough.

And because they have a bond (ie. the event contains emotional content) you will judge it to be good or higher, whereas an event without a two way emotional bond will be judged to be bad or lower, right?

If I got it right, ok, no problem. I'm not proposing that such an evaluation is wrong, only that it is a classic female perspective. That is, it's not some kind of universal truth, but only the point of view of one side of the equation.

Generally speaking, for men sex is largely physical, whereas for women it is largely emotional.

Each party to the transaction negotiates for what they want. The man will say "I love you" (emotional content) to get to the physical experience, the woman will look physically sexy to get the emotional experience.

Women negotiate in a more sophisticated manner than men, because they are smarter.

As example, the woman will try to make the man feel guilty about other lovers or porn etc. Her (usually unexamined) reasoning is simple and brilliant. Why fight the man if you can get him to fight himself?

This strategy evolved out of endless eons of being the physically weaker party, where a direct confrontation could get the woman physically hurt.

This is the context in which I see your well meaning posts. As a woman you are deploying the ancient strategy of trying to make men feel guilty about being men. You don't consciously intend this, you're just following an ancient script which has now become second nature.

If true, you shouldn't feel guilty, as you are just being a woman. You have every right to your own negotiation strategy.

In the same light, men should not feel guilty about being men. We want to have sex with every other woman we see, it's just who we are.

None of it's personal or individual. We're all just playing out parts written for us over millions of years. In my sexy opinion of course...

[reasonvemotion]

Actually, I don't feel guilty about being a woman, I embrace it. If I had a dispute with a man I was involved with, I would be forthright about it. Scheming is such a waste of time and effort.

I am not a feminist and I have no desire to engage in any sort of warfare with other men or women, in fact I rarely mix with women.

We want to have sex with every other woman we see, it's just who we are.

This I understand, but it is said so often and in such a blase way, that the meaning I think has fully escaped a lot of men. It is a proclamation of virility and manhood and that is natural. I wrote a post about an experience (for want of a better word) I had with a young boy and it is a good example of what can happen if men's impulses are not disciplined. He was a sixteen year old boy, what if it was a 46 year old guy. With love there is respect and if a man chooses to sit in front of a computer, masturbating, while his lover is in bed, maybe, waiting for him, I choose to see this as hurtful. I think if it was reversed, the man waiting for the woman, it would be hurtful for him too. This is not "manly" behavior.

[Felasco]

Actually, I don't feel guilty about being a woman, I embrace it. If I had a dispute with a man I was involved with, I would be forthright about it. Scheming is such a waste of time and effort.

I understand, but I'm not really talking about scheming, but behavior patterns that have developed over such a long time that they are now largely automatic, instinctual.

I am not a feminist and I have no desire to engage in any sort of warfare with other men or women, in fact I rarely mix with women.

Well, um, you are the person who started a thread whose intent seems to be to cast a negative judgment on porn, which as you've seen, puts you in to conflict with many men.

This I understand, but it is said so often and in such a blase way, that the meaning I think has fully escaped a lot of men. It is a proclamation of virility and manhood and that is natural.

I see it more as just a statement of a somewhat obvious fact about men.

I wrote a post about an experience (for want of a better word) I had with a young boy and it is a good example of what can happen if men's impulses are not disciplined. He was a sixteen year old boy, what if it was a 46 year old guy.

Apologies, I seem to have missed that one. Feel free to repeat it here if you wish, or link to it perhaps.

With love there is respect and if a man chooses to sit in front of a computer, masturbating, while his lover is in bed, maybe, waiting for him, I choose to see this as hurtful.

Ok, no problem. But you are leaving out many aspects of the actual reality of many people's lives. In another version of the story, the woman is in bed reading movie magazines, or organizing her to do list for the next day, and has long since lost interest in whether hubby comes to bed or not.

She doesn't want to have sex, and she doesn't want hubby having sex with anybody else, or using porn either. And if the man doesn't accept this lose/lose/lose equation, she tries to use guilt to enforce the plan, telling the man he is not a real man, a scoundrel, a horrible person etc.

I'm guessing that if there's a real woman in bed waiting eagerly for sex, the porn site usually can't compete with that.

You write "with love". As I've said, for men sex is often not about love, ie. emotional content. I think you may be confusing one party's perspective with some kind of universal truth.

This is not "manly" behavior.

Manly behavior is to mentally picture the cute checkout clerk bent over the side of the bed, even if you just met her 30 seconds ago. By "manly" I simply mean, what men do.

Some men are content to run these movies only in their head, while others seek to make these fantasies more tangible via computers etc.

But there are very few men who aren't routinely running the anonymous random sex with strangers movie in some manner or another. Yes, even philosopher egg head nerds!

Again, I'm not advocating this, or arguing for or against it. I'm just trying to understand and articulate the reality as best I can, that's all.

Hey, an idea. Perhaps you can invite some other gals to join us here, so the conversation doesn't become too one sided?

[reasonvemotion]

Felasco:

I'm guessing that if there's a real woman in bed waiting eagerly for sex, the porn site usually can't compete with that.

How will imperfect real human beings compete with perfect virtual beings?

[Felasco]

Good point!

I think the difference is that we don't yet have perfect virtual beings, as the technology is still relatively primitive. A two dimensional non-interactive sex partner on a 20 inch screen is still a long way from a live sex partner in the bed.

Over the longer run, that will change, and I would agree with your concerns.

You seem content with stating your concerns, but I don't really see how that changes anything. Imho, the virtual world is going develop further, whether it's a good idea or not.

I'm not at all sure it's a good idea myself. I'm a huge nature nut, and have a sincere passion for the real world. I spend every sunny day, all day, of the entire winter in the state park up the road from me. Really, I do.

But ya know what? In 10 years I've never seen a single person off the trails, in the woods where I go, because they're all too busy staring at their iPhones while they jog the trails etc.

Maybe that's good, maybe that's bad. In any case, it is what it is, and will be what it will be, whatever we think about it.

[reasonvemotion]

I'm a huge nature nut, and have a sincere passion for the real world. I spend every sunny day, all day, of the entire winter in the state park up the road from me. Really, I do.

....lurking in the park, see what internet porn does to you!

[Felasco]

Lurking? Is that what the kids are calling it now? Oh, wait, I get it. That's a combination of loving and jerking, right?

Sorry, but because I'm a gentleman, I never lurk and tell.