[QUOTE=SpiceWeasel]
Intermale agression is only a problem if expressed in a destructive way […] I could see it totally possible that men have some genetic disposition toward violent behavior that is only expressed in the presence of certain environmental triggers. So the solution is to ameliorate the conditions that trigger that gene expression.
[/QUOTE]
That could absolutely work – by modifying the social environment we might be able to subdue our genetic tendencies toward aggression. And you’re right that we should not shift the responsibility entirely onto the violent male, as some advocates of nonviolent resistance do – actually, violence is clearly necessary in some scenarios, as to defend one’s children from physical assault.
Conversely, however, I question whether violence is the only problem. What about sadness, pain, or discomfort resulting from intermale aggression? A lot of people talk about world peace. I never hear anyone champion world happiness. Of course we can obtain world peace if we slap our enemies in straight jackets and laugh at them in mental hospitals – but it would obviously thwart world happiness that they lived in discomfort.
[QUOTE=SpiceWeasel]
Could it be that lower levels of testosterone in men may be the result of ameliorating such conditions?
[/QUOTE]
As a sex-loving male (despite my culturally-enforced lifelong virginity), I can see the benefits but also the drawbacks of decreasing testosterone. Studies suggest that testosterone not only boosts sex drive but also assists in such tasks as spatial and mathematical cognition. Could it be possible to increase testosterone and yet decrease violent encounters?
[QUOTE=Chen019]
Another thing to look at is MAO-A. There was a study by Moffitt & Caspri which basically found that those with a certain variant were far more likely to be violent if they were also raised in an abusive home environment. So that suggests that eliminating abusive home environments is a good idea (aside from the obvious moral reasons).
Longer term it might be something that could be addressed with genomic editing.
[/QUOTE]
Your idea of longer-term genomic editing seems to concord with Einstein’s to direct the course of evolution. Though I would not be surprised if people focused more on the other contributing factor (abusive homes) against any kind of self-directed evolution at all: in any discussion of eugenics, people are always quick to play the Hitler card (as if that were the only scenario they could imagine!).
[QUOTE=RupieDupie]
From what I understand, starting from the basis that females are distributed according to resources and males are distributed according to females, to help reduce intra-male aggression in primates, a female strategy would be to align their oestrus cycles, therefore one dominant male cannot “guard” all receptive females against other subordinate males. Over evolutionary time it would be beneficial for males to evolve towards monogamy and away from sexual dimorphism, towards living within kinship societies.
[/QUOTE]
I’m not sure what you mean in your first statements – how are males and females distributed according to either resources or each other?
Evolving toward monogamy might be feasible – I recall Marilyn vos Savant proclaiming she was “for” it on the cover of one book – but I think there could be drawbacks to maintaining rigid monogamy at the present time. In response to Wesley Clark’s comments that intermale aggression was about mating opportunities and those without such opportunities were prone to violence, I asked if sex were somehow a “need.” Our culture insinuates that sex is a need – in snarky comments toward those who aren’t “getting any” and in love songs. That leaves open whether sex is truly biologically a “need” without which we might suffer some kind of ill physical or mental effects, and if so, monogamy runs the risk of leaving some people destitute of this “need.”
Before concerns about STDs became prevalent, we used to have brothels that regularly provided sexual services to clients. Certainly, we haven’t found a cure for every STD and even administering protection or cure for those for which we have might be resource-intensive. Yet with other advancements in technology I wonder if STD contraction can somehow be institutionally guarded against. I’m not, of course, demanding that women toil as men’s sex slaves – that would run against the aim of universal happiness within a culture – but legalized consensual sexual services could in theory play a role in the reduction of the violence and crime we tie to intermale aggression.
[QUOTE=RupieDupie]
Evolving these mechanisms does not help in the short-term, but, from what I also understand, males subjected to a boost of pro-lactin after siring an infant gives them a “hit of caring” for their young. I am sure there could be a way to dose up males with pro-lactin and through Google Glasses have other people appear as infants.
[/QUOTE]
I’ve heard similar things about the hormone oxytocin, and that might be a solution for males unfit to reproduce in order to calm their aggressive instincts and help them lead more contented lives. If we administer it to just everyone, however, we run the risk of creating an evolutionary dependency on the drug, which could have the opposite effect and make matters worse. But you’re definitely onto something with the idea of using “cuddle hormones” as drugs (just keep them away from the greedy pharmaceutical companies!).
[QUOTE=Emily Blunt]
Think influence and riches in the hands of ladies and we will have no compelling reason to search for second-hand specialist through mating with “alpha” guys.
[/QUOTE]
I like your attitude – both yours and ZPG Zealot’s. What observed differences are there between patriarchal and matriarchal societies? I have read about one or two such societies, but have never looked into the details of the comparison.
astro, you began your reply with:
[QUOTE=astro]
With all due respect your baseline assumptions are sophomoric as are your attempts to parse this out into some meta theory paradigm of human behavior. There is not a single “culture” of any size on this planet where the majority of human females of that culture are not differentially more attracted to aggressively confident men.
[/QUOTE]
When SpiceWeasel directly challenged you on this point, you then guarded your assertion with the word “believe”:
[QUOTE=astro]
I believe these preferences are cross cultural and to the extent any tendencies can said to be “wired in” they are. You are welcome to disagree.
[/QUOTE]
This isn’t just a question of whether you believe or know that women universally have a preference for the “aggressive, confident man” (as you substitute in lieu of “bad boy,” where I had concentrated specifically on the word “bad”). It is a question of whether you are even willing to discuss the issue in objective, scientific terms.
Looking carefully through your posts, I see that you occasionally reuse certain expressions referring to men of this “confident” nature. These include the notions of “stepping up,” “not taking shit,” and “handling the situation.” The problem is that despite a few examples you give (an illness in the family, an unexpected bill, or the “asshole neighbor”), you haven’t reduced these concepts to behaviors that can be physically observed. When I refer to physically observable behaviors, think punching, head-cocking, or chest-butting – or something that can be seen under a microscope. Until the terms we use are reduced to such concepts, they don’t mean anything scientifically.
[QUOTE=astro]
The notion that you are going to fix these innate male and female predispositions short of some eugenics scenario […]
[/QUOTE]
Stop there, mid-sentence. This is exactly Einstein’s suggestion and the one with which I replied to your original post in this thread – and to which you did not respond. I will repost again his remark to Freud (this time with proper spelling):
“Man has within himself a lust for hatred and destruction … It is a comparatively easy task to call [this passion] interplay and raise it to the power of collective psychosis. Here lies, perhaps, the crux of all the complex of factors we are considering, an enigma that only an expert in the lore of human instincts can resolve … Is it possible to control man’s mental evolution so as to make him proof against the psychoses of hate and destructiveness?” (Einstein: A Life, Denis Brian, 232)
The question is, is there anything wrong with a Eugenics scenario? More generally, are you motivated at all to remedy the suffering of others, suffering that is partially a result of our aggressive male instincts? Like Wesley Clark, you allude that you are and you mention the possibility of redirecting these instincts for the betterment of society:
[QUOTE=astro]
The best any culture can do is have strong ethical and moral guidelines for how these drives can be expressed and have options to channel those impulses in a socially positive direction.
[/QUOTE]
However, by “socially positive” you could mean anything from the universal happiness I brought up earlier to a dystopia in which the less fortunate are festively mocked. When people use such terms it is often hard to tell.