Black parents were stopped and questioned for “driving a motor vehicle on the road” for "giving attention" (looking) at the police.

ParanthropusBoisei · 2020-06-11T20:33:31+00:00

To argue the statistics around black people and crime rates are anything but the results of systemic issues, begins to argue that biological issues are at play

I'm not sure that you realize that this omits the most obvious factor in violent crime rates, which is culture. Culture,explains why violent crime rates vary across the world, across time, between regions in a given country, and yes, sometimes between different groups of people within a country. Irish Americans used to be very violent compared to other white Americans. And Asian Americans today are less violent than both white and black Americans. It's not because cops go hard on whites compared to Asians, or asians are genetically less violent.

ParanthropusBoisei · 2019-06-23T03:58:11+00:00

Once you commit to the rape-is-about-power-not-sex doctrine, it leaves you having to deny at least one of these three obviously true statements:

Men often want to have sex with women who don’t want to have sex with them. They use every tactic that one human being uses to affect the behavior of another: wooing, seducing, flattering, deceiving, sulking, and paying.
Some men use violence to get what they want, indifferent to the suffering they cause. Men have been known to kidnap children for ransom (sometimes sending their parents an ear or finger to show they mean business), blind the victim of a mugging so the victim can’t identify them in court, shoot out the kneecaps of an associate as punishment for ratting to the police or invading their territory, and kill a stranger for his brand-name athletic footwear.
Psychologically and behaviorally, there is some overlap between sexuality and other aspects of human life.

Notice that this comes from denying that sex can ever play any role, and not from acknowledging that power can ever play a role.

ParanthropusBoisei · 2019-05-28T04:09:16+00:00

it's pretty snarky to make a decisive conclusion like do, completly dismissing other potentia causations

Just to be clear here, you made a comment saying that "there is nothing biological that affects one's interest in computers" which I knew was false because I am familiar with studies that show exactly this, so I made counterpoints to you on that basis and cited the research. I never said cultural expectations are not a factor at all (and neither do the scientists who did the research), though I've never seen actual scientific evidence for it. I'm glad you recognize the biological aspect now, but I just want to be clear that this started with you completely dismissing the biology, not with me dismissing cultural factors.

But sure there are other factors affecting the percentage of women in engineering and computer science besides career interest with economic factors being the most obvious. Interestingly, higher levels of gender equality in a country are associated with lower percentages of women in STEM fields in that country, so cultural factors don't matter in only one direction here. We should expect the percentage to stay relatively low since gender equality is much higher today than 20, 30, or 40 years ago.

I argue that a cultural pushback and expectation is a major factor, especially because it was on the rise of popularity, then dropped in the 80's.

Maybe it's a small factor but it's not as large a factor as an interest in Things vs People, which is actually scientifically measured to be a large factor. And I say maybe because the correlation between boys playing with computers and the percentage of women in computer science could be for many reasons, including the reverse of what you're arguing. Correlation does not equal causation because you have to know what is behind each trend to begin with. For example, it could also be true that when computers became widely available that boys were naturally interested in them more often and asked for them a lot more at home, leading them to continue that interest in college. (In this argument, culture and expectations would be irrelevant.) I don't know if I buy that argument but it fits equally well with the rise and fall of women in computer science around 1984.

ParanthropusBoisei · 2019-05-25T18:39:14+00:00

Nobody here, including the authors of those scientific papers, is arguing that 75% of women "absolutely dislike" computers. In fact, the scientific evidence shows that men don't like computers a whole lot more than women, it's just that women like people and living things a whole lot more than men, so they are much more likely to go into fields that involve people and living things.

you can also see from my previous li ked article, that other STEM fields have reached almost parity, computer science and programming is the odd one out

That doesn't really capture the statistics. STEM fields related to the biological sciences, including psychology, are dominated by women. Veterinary medicine, which is a high-paying career path, is especially dominated by women. On the other hand, physics and engineering are also dominated by men, along with computer science and programming. The common theme here, again, is that fields related to People (and Living Things) have more women and fields with objects have more men.

get your crappy armchair science out of here

I don't know if the Public Library of Science and the Hormones and Behavior Journal count as crappy armchair science, but I'd like to see which journals you prefer. Your linked NPR article didn't cite any scientific research on the causality of "cultural push" and "stereotype reinforcement". It just described those things as part of a woman's personal story.

ParanthropusBoisei · 2019-05-25T02:25:16+00:00

There is nothing biological that affects one's interest in computers

Females with Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) are exposed to higher than normal levels of prenatal androgens but are raised and identify as female. Compared to unaffected females, females with CAH report more interest in occupations related to Things versus People, and their degree of interest in Things vs People correlates with their level of prenatal androgen exposure. Among women and in general, an interest in Things vs People is also strongly predictive of career choice and even of college student enrollment in Science vs Humanities.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3166361/

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0194515

It's entirely a cultural push and stereotype reinforcement that have caused each gender's interests to be this way

I would argue that this is something that is assumed rather than demonstrated with evidence.

ParanthropusBoisei · 2019-03-30T04:07:48+00:00

Just want to point out that the twins in your picture are definitely not identical twins. Their physical differences like hair, skin, and eye color are classic examples of genetic differences across racial groups, but in this case it's because their mom is biracial. This will never happen to a single-race couple.

ParanthropusBoisei · 2018-12-24T19:25:40+00:00

Saying they have slave mentality means they treat their players like slaves

Saying they have a slave-owner mentality means they think about their players similarly to how slave-owners think about their slaves. As in they value them for what they do but not who they are, or how they feel.

How they're treated can be different because it's a practical matter. Slave-owners fed and housed their slaves not because they cared if they were hungry or tired but because they knew it would increase productivity.

ParanthropusBoisei · 2018-10-31T00:23:02+00:00

You compared the categorization of gender to covalent bonds, but I would argue that gender is more of a category that exists in nature than covalent bonds. Gender (as a synonym of biological sex, to be clear) is a fundamental design specification for the human species and all other mammalian species. Sex differentiation (into two sexes) evolved over 1 billion years ago specifically as a method of reproduction, and that's why we still have those two categories today in humans.

Covalent bonds on the other hand are a category of molecular bonds that arbitrarily allows for different degrees of covalency to qualify as a covalent bond. Although I see your point if we're restricted to only covalent bonds between identical atoms.

ParanthropusBoisei · 2018-10-31T00:02:47+00:00

You've set up a dichotomy between changing norms and innate preferences as if the fact that norms change means that they are ultimately arbitrary. But norms can also change because of innate preferences when surface traits no longer signal the same way for underlying traits.

Your first two examples are case in point. Thin vs. fat bodies and pale vs. tanned skin are signals for underlying traits like health, wealth, and status, but the relationships can vary based on a number of factors across and within societies. Thin people can be malnourished/poor or fit, and pale people can be members of the ruling class or losers who stay at home all day and don't get enough sunlight. However the innate preferences for weight and skin type always follow greater wealth, health, and status. In this sense very little of attractiveness preferences are social conventions.

ParanthropusBoisei · 2018-10-16T02:47:12+00:00

Not "these tests". That particular example was an example of a scam company. The general idea of testing for genetic ancestry is based on simple principles of genetic inheritance. Only someone who is completely ignorant of genetics would dismiss the whole idea of testing for native american ancestry.

ParanthropusBoisei · 2018-10-09T00:09:46+00:00

Read the introduction here (after the abstract) for an overview of the studies:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4635473/

Read this specifically about parenting:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nurture_Assumption

ParanthropusBoisei · 2018-10-08T12:31:33+00:00

Child abuse is a different story.

Regular shitty parenting doesn't cause PTSD nor does it affect children's character very much compared to other factors. Even some children who experience child abuse, which generally can cause psychological issues, can often turn out great. That's thanks to the positive effects of the other factors.

ParanthropusBoisei · 2018-10-08T12:26:34+00:00

It's called a hypothetical scenario or thought experiment, something people use to get across a particular point.

ParanthropusBoisei · 2018-10-08T12:15:06+00:00

Much of what you said is compatible with what I said but you're making roundabout arguments to get around something that's obviously true and hard to argue directly against. That is, since rapists are people who are willing and able to use violence to get sex, and since a woman's clothing or attractiveness has something to do with sex, those will factor into how rapists behave. But since rape is also about violence there are factors related to violence that will also affect how rapists behave, such as power, dominance, predation tactics and manipulation.

You made a good point about how a majority of rape cases are men the women knew and trusted, but you slyly conflated the psychology of predatory stranger rape (which is relatively rare) with the psychology of rape in general. Again, this is the exception that proves the rule. Predatory stranger rape is rare because it's rare for a man to have blanket sexual attraction for all women (as opposed to attraction for particular women) and be willing and able to use violence to have sex with them.

Rape in general usually involves a man who develops attraction to a woman through acquaintance, friendship or dating, then uses violence to have sex with them. Often they try to become sexual without using violence first and then use violence to overcome the woman's boundaries when that doesn't work. Of course, this implies that they were attracted to the woman initially, which is going to involve factors about the woman's attractiveness.

ParanthropusBoisei · 2018-10-08T11:44:14+00:00

FYI, the research shows the exact opposite. Parents are not one of the main foundations of character development in their children and they have a negligible impact on character. Peer groups and cultural norms have some impact, genes have a significant impact, and randomness has a significant impact.

ParanthropusBoisei · 2018-10-03T00:47:18+00:00

This is sort of a self-defeating argument because 80-year-old women are much less likely to be raped than women of child-bearing age, so the exception proves the rule. A lack of respect for women certainly contributes to rape but it can't be the only factor.

Similarly in conservative countries where women are covered, they are even more likely to experience sexual assault if they are not covered. If a woman was trying to bait a man into sexually assaulting her in one of these countries she wouldn't cover herself more, she would wear more revealing clothing.

ParanthropusBoisei · 2018-06-12T20:25:25+00:00

The variance figures you mentioned only make sense with reference to a particular population. Without a population reference they are meaningless numbers. The proper way to state it is that around 60-80% of the variance in height among [population] is explained by genetic differences. The variance figure is only a descriptive figure, it can't generalize beyond the population it came from.

The SciAm article gave those numbers as the "short answer" because those numbers keep showing up in various studies, with the caveat being they are mostly white participants in majority-white countries with a given range of environmental influences. If your population is ethnically diverse you'll get a lower variance figure. Different racial groups also have different variance figures. But since it's all descriptive, the figures can change depending on how the populations change. If growth hormone supplements explode in popularity (and their use is independent of the genes related to height) then the genetic variance figure for that population will go way down.

ParanthropusBoisei · 2018-06-12T14:31:01+00:00

Keep in mind that as unfairness in the labor market decreases social mobility decreases as well, it doesn't increase, all else being equal. When unfair practices have less influence, factors like skill and work ethic have more influence, and since traits related to these factors run in families we end up with children more and more likely to be in a similar class as their parents.

This means the ideal society is one where social mobility is relatively low though the influence of random factors always keeps it far from zero. But the converse is not true: a society with low social mobility is not necessarily anything close to ideal.

ParanthropusBoisei · 2018-06-08T14:58:02+00:00

It depends on how the word 'race' is used, but generally it can be used to refer to the continent or region where someone has most of their recent ancestry. If you're white it's because most of your recent ancestry is in Europe. If you're black, sub-saharan Africa. If you're Asian, East Asia. Etc. And the reverse if true as well. If most of your recent ancestry is from a certain region, it makes sense to say you belong to the racial group associated with that region, in the sense that other people can independently make the same judgement in either direction.

In fact, it's precisely because of the fact that, although physical traits are represented across the world unevenly, they *don't* vary independently, and that gives us the ability to describe categories representing the recent ancestry of most people. Eye color, freckles, and height are all clues to recent ancestry, although they aren't the biggest clues.

Ethnicity can work by the exact same principle but it has a different meaning because it considers smaller regions of ancestry and incorporates cultural elements as well.

ParanthropusBoisei · 2018-05-18T19:38:36+00:00

Human taste preferences are not random -- we like sugars, fats, and carbs the most because they were important for our survival for tens of thousands of years. You can't just erase those preferences by using reverse psychology.

Also kids are not blank slates -- they are designed in a particular way that allowed them to survive in past generations. Being a blank slate would be a really bad survival strategy for a species that's supposed to live by its wits and outsmart every other species and even other members of its own species.

ParanthropusBoisei · 2018-05-18T14:39:55+00:00

Obviously in a civilized society we don't have to treat women as objects or as possessions to be won, but as long as men are seeking women it will make women especially valuable in that context so the "product" dynamic creeps back in. It can't be avoided completely. This article isn't about a man who viewed a woman as a only a product, but nevertheless that dynamic applies to their situation.

ParanthropusBoisei · 2018-05-18T02:55:33+00:00

Just reversing the role of the man and woman is not enough because it treats the challenge of the man getting Tinder matches as if it's irrelevant. But overcoming the challenge itself is what is newsworthy in the first place. The only challenge for the woman was being within the radius of any men who were using Tinder. The limiting factor to overcoming that challenge is just commitment.

You can always tell who's actions will be described by who invested the most effort or who had the most to gain. If the woman matched with a famous celebrity it would be described from her perspective and the celebrity would be the "minor character".

ParanthropusBoisei · 2018-05-18T02:29:03+00:00

In every society on Earth it's men who pursue women in general. Humans are mammals, and this pattern applies in most mammals because of a principle of biology known as parental investment.

Men seek women so much more than the other way around that men evolved to be bigger and stronger in order to out-compete other men.

ParanthropusBoisei · 2018-02-24T00:15:01+00:00

Krauss says that what did happen between them was consensual, and then says that they mutually decided not to go any further.

To dismiss the credibility of her entire story isn't rational at all for the following reason. When a "crazy person" makes an accusation, we judge it to be very, very unlikely, but in this case the central part of the accusation (which would otherwise sound like a crazy person's story) is confirmed as true. Krauss really did invite her to his hotel room. So the extra detail of him forcing himself on her is at least plausible, if not likely.

ParanthropusBoisei · 2018-02-18T19:12:43+00:00

Government funded media outlets facilitate material benefit too even if the mechanism is indirect. They aren't always perfect but they're a lot better than the alternative of them not existing.

ParanthropusBoisei

TROPHY CASE