# This is the meta-solution to ethics **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 1, 2014, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-the-meta-solution-to-ethics/682566 "2014-03-01T01:22:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-the-meta-solution-to-ethics/682566/141 "2014-03-03T01:49:41Z")
> [@Ecmandu](#): > > The part about the difference between Japan and the US isn’t totally out of the realm of my theory, because it states that when you get the homicide and rape rates to zero, which will get the female suicide rates to zero, the male suicide rates won’t budge. Which suggests still more ways to falsify your theory: find female suicides that have no possible connection to homicide or rape (of all your strange ideas, the notion that women only kill themselves as a response to violence might be the one I find the most bizarre), find women who’ve killed themselves where the trigger event was loss of a job, or demonstrate that there’s no trend in which declining rates of homicide and rape correlate to declining rates of female suicide. Have you attempted to falsify your theory in this, or any other, way? > [@Ecmandu](#): > > But… I did say that you can’t have a society with no suicides (assuming suicide is easy) and high homicides, which seems to be contradicted by your data, because it would seem then that in places where the homicide rate is higher, the suicide rate would also be higher. Perhaps aggression expresses in different and perhaps more stifling ways in Japan than in the US. Still other ways to falsify your theory, suggested by the above: demonstrate a long-term decline in aggressive violence, which would contraindicate selective pressure for aggression. Demonstrate a lack of correlation between indicators for aggressiveness (such as a violent criminal history) and reproductive or sexual success. Tried any of those? I’d really like to get out of the realm of fanciful opinions, and into provable facts. If your discovery is as valuable as your OP made it out to be, surely it’s worth the effort. > [@Ecmandu](#): > > The problem here, is that the parsimony frame I’m quite sure is correct. > > I think if you put any species in a large enough group so they generally know who is and isn’t getting sex, and you control who gets the sex, that members of the species will act out or reduce aggression to get sexual choice. I’m very certain of that, and you obviously have the luxury all day of saying it’s nonsense because the study hasn’t been done. I didn’t say that aspect of your theory was nonsense, I said it hadn’t been proven, and thus couldn’t be _assumed_ to be true (I even gave you a few possibilities that would make it untrue) as part of an argument. We should be all be wary of ideas that sound plausible and appealing, because they are very often wrong. People were certain of phlogiston, of bodily humors, of bleeding as a medical treatment, of a geocentric solar system, of hexes and the evil eye. People were certain that profits would be higher in labor-intensive industries than in capital-intensive industries. People were certain that black people couldn’t play the quarterback position well. One could fill a proverbial Grand Canyon with ideas that people were certain of, that weren’t true. > [@Ecmandu](#): > > My theory actually explains a lot… you know, some cultures have orgies every week and have reduced suicide rates… Another factual claim that, if you expect it to be believed, should be shown to be true, through a reliable citation. > [@Ecmandu](#): > > …other have ceremonies where the men dress like women and try to act as feminine as they can and the women pick them… so clearly people have tried in some cultures to deal with this problem in creative ways. Other cultures take a much darker approach, which is vaginal mutilation, which effects 200 million women, or forcing women to cover themselves, or blaming women for rape… now come at me and ask me why this stuff has been so prevalent and in many parts of the world still is, if some of what I’m saying doesn’t have a grain of truth to it. People don’t just do this stuff for no reason, even if it’s a bad or ill-informed one. The bad or ill-formed reason for FGM and other efforts to control female sexuality is to ensure male ownership of women, and control over their reproduction. The aim is ensuring reproductive success for the male. I see no particular connection to your theories, beyond the misogyny. ---
**Author:** ![Ecmandu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/958977/32.png) [@Ecmandu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ecmandu)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-the-meta-solution-to-ethics/682566/142 "2014-03-03T01:49:52Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > In what ways, _specifically_, is asking a woman out similar to the physical act of a man wrestling a woman against her will until she stops resisting and gives in to his physical advances? How is the woman resisting when she says “Sure, let’s go out sometime! I’d love that!”, in response to the man asking her out? Because women show physical discomfort when men approach them sexually on a scale far exceeding the discomfort men show, the REASON is because of dimorphism, men are larger and more threatening… any sensitive male, as I said MANY times in this thread, figures this out by age 7, they figure out that women don’t consent to approaches. If you looked at her body language, you’d see minute signs of discomfort before the assent, that men don’t show. That “no” was turned into a “yes”. ---
**Author:** ![Ecmandu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/958977/32.png) [@Ecmandu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ecmandu)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-the-meta-solution-to-ethics/682566/143 "2014-03-03T01:53:56Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > Which suggests still more ways to falsify your theory: find female suicides that have no possible connection to homicide or rape (of all your strange ideas, the notion that women only kill themselves as a response to violence might be the one I find the most bizarre), find women who’ve killed themselves where the trigger event was loss of a job, or demonstrate that there’s no trend in which declining rates of homicide and rape correlate to declining rates of female suicide. > > Have you attempted to falsify your theory in this, or any other, way? > > Still other ways to falsify your theory, suggested by the above: demonstrate a long-term decline in aggressive violence, which would contraindicate selective pressure for aggression. Demonstrate a lack of correlation between indicators for aggressiveness (such as a violent criminal history) and reproductive or sexual success. > > Tried any of those? I’d really like to get out of the realm of fanciful opinions, and into provable facts. If your discovery is as valuable as your OP made it out to be, surely it’s worth the effort. > > I didn’t say that aspect of your theory was nonsense, I said it hadn’t been proven, and thus couldn’t be _assumed_ to be true (I even gave you a few possibilities that would make it untrue) as part of an argument. > > We should be all be wary of ideas that sound plausible and appealing, because they are very often wrong. People were certain of phlogiston, of bodily humors, of bleeding as a medical treatment, of a geocentric solar system, of hexes and the evil eye. People were certain that profits would be higher in labor-intensive industries than in capital-intensive industries. People were certain that black people couldn’t play the quarterback position well. > > One could fill a proverbial Grand Canyon with ideas that people were certain of, that weren’t true. > > Another factual claim that, if you expect it to be believed, should be shown to be true, through a reliable citation. > > The bad or ill-formed reason for FGM and other efforts to control female sexuality is to ensure male ownership of women, and control over their reproduction. The aim is ensuring reproductive success for the male. > > I see no particular connection to your theories, beyond the misogyny. I think the reason misogyny is much more rampant than misandry is because bullies get most the sex… I consider someone who asks a woman out a bully. Actually I’ve talked to a lot of men who agree with me on that too. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-the-meta-solution-to-ethics/682566/144 "2014-03-03T02:01:21Z")
> [@Ecmandu](#): > > I think the reason misogyny is much more rampant than misandry is because bullies get most the sex… I consider someone who asks a woman out a bully. Actually I’ve talked to a lot of men who agree with me on that too. The subtext here, based on the text you ignored, in this post and in previous ones, is that you haven’t falsified your theory, and have no interest in doing so, nor are you interested in your ideas being challenged, nor have you considered that being certain of something without evidence means exactly nothing. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-the-meta-solution-to-ethics/682566/145 "2014-03-03T02:09:45Z")
> [@Ecmandu](#): > > Because women show physical discomfort when men approach them sexually on a scale far exceeding the discomfort men show, the REASON is because of dimorphism, men are larger and more threatening… any sensitive male, as I said MANY times in this thread, figures this out by age 7, they figure out that women don’t consent to approaches. If you looked at her body language, you’d see minute signs of discomfort before the assent, that men don’t show. That “no” was turned into a “yes”. You’re doing it wrong if this is what you’ve learned. > [@Ecmandu](#): > > I consider someone who asks a woman out a bully. Actually I’ve talked to a lot of men who agree with me on that too. Wow. Just wtf man. So the **only** factor necessary to make one a “bully” is asking a woman out on a date? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-the-meta-solution-to-ethics/682566/146 "2014-03-03T02:35:20Z")
> [@Ecmandu](#): > > This isn’t how I learned Cantors diagonal proof. . . . I venture to suggest you learned it wrong. > [@](#): > > what can be proven is that all the reals cannot be counted in ONE LIST WITH ONE DIMENSION… Cantors algorithm not withstanding. This is also wrong: a list of numbers in, say, three dimensions can be put into a one dimensional form. (A1, B1, C1, A2, B2, C2, A3, B3, C3…) Cantor’s proof works on a one dimensional array, and a three dimensional array can be put into a one-to-one correspondence with a one dimensional array. You gain nothing. ---
**Author:** ![Ecmandu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/958977/32.png) [@Ecmandu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ecmandu)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-the-meta-solution-to-ethics/682566/147 "2014-03-03T02:57:11Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > I venture to suggest you learned it wrong. > > This is also wrong: a list of numbers in, say, three dimensions can be put into a one dimensional form. (A1, B1, C1, A2, B2, C2, A3, B3, C3…) Cantor’s proof works on a one dimensional array, and a three dimensional array can be put into a one-to-one correspondence with a one dimensional array. You gain nothing. Did you even read what I wrote? You cannot put all of the reals in a single list with one dimension because when you square an infinity, you need to be able to count one infinity before you count the others, HOWEVER, if you use multiple lists, you can still COUNT infinities after they are squared, and you can also COUNT the diagonals of all of these infinities. Cantor did not prove that the reals cannot be counted, all he proved is that the reals cannot be counted in one, one dimensional list, in a rather crude way… I used a method that is much easier to understand and doesn’t require a diagonal argument to prove it, but I can easily show that if you are so stuck on diagonal arguments, all you have to do is modify dimensions to add ALL diagonals that occur in the lists. This, of course is not a proof or disproof that the reals can or cannot be counted, but it is a DISPROOF, of Cantor’s claim that his argument shows that. ---
**Author:** ![Ecmandu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/958977/32.png) [@Ecmandu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ecmandu)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-the-meta-solution-to-ethics/682566/148 "2014-03-03T03:15:50Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > The subtext here, based on the text you ignored, in this post and in previous ones, is that you haven’t falsified your theory, and have no interest in doing so, nor are you interested in your ideas being challenged, nor have you considered that being certain of something without evidence means exactly nothing. I’d falsify it if I had the money. I’d rather have someone else do it to be perfectly honest, who doesn’t want me to be right… because then, it’d be falsified =) I did skip over much of your post and some of your points in previous posts, I admit that, though it didn’t fall on deaf ears. I get that everyone is convinced of all kinds of stuff that aren’t true and have for a very long time. The problem for me, and perhaps we could end this thread soon after this, because we now know where both of us lie on the state of the art here, is that I am positive, even though the studies haven’t been done (because of my observation of humans) in a large aggregate, perhaps not every case (because in genetics and behaviorism sometimes behaviors skip to outliers of meta-theories - meaning that occasionally women will act like men etc…) but, I am positive, that as a large aggregate, that any species that you run sexual choice experiments through, you will find the results I describe… The results will be: More aggression and depression when more aggressive mates get the sexual choice Less aggression and less depression when less aggressive mates get the sexual choice. More sexual assault when approach averse members get the sexual choice. More depression when one gender is more monoamorous than another. That’s VERY straight forward!!! And I certainly thank you for working with me to help tease this out and discuss it. You are right, if it’s as big a deal as I say it is, it deserves rigor. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-the-meta-solution-to-ethics/682566/149 "2014-03-03T03:53:59Z")
> [@Ecmandu](#): > > Did you even read what I wrote? You cannot put all of the reals in a single list with one dimension because when you square an infinity, you need to be able to count one infinity before you count the others, HOWEVER, if you use multiple lists, you can still COUNT infinities after they are squared, and you can also COUNT the diagonals of all of these infinities. . . . What does “square an infinity” mean? Please cite a textbook example (or internet equivalent) that explains this phrase. I don’t believe it has any meaning. I demonstrated how you can reduce multiple lists to a single list in a one-to-one correspondence. ---
**Author:** ![PBear42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PBear42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PBear42)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-the-meta-solution-to-ethics/682566/150 "2014-03-03T05:01:51Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > When you [Ecmandu] refer to a study, I’m going to assume you mean a real study, and not your opinion as to the hypothetical outcome of a hypothetical study. From your other posts, I infer this was rhetorical. For the benefit of any lurkers, I should like to point out the opposite is the case. Ecmandu routinely uses “study” to mean his various thought experiments. Indeed, I haven’t noticed him link to a single study in the former (scientific) sense. Anyhoo, three pages of this is as much as I find to be worth my time. Carry on. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-the-meta-solution-to-ethics/682566/151 "2014-03-03T14:12:28Z")
> [@Ecmandu](#): > > I’d falsify it if I had the money. I’d rather have someone else do it to be perfectly honest, who doesn’t want me to be right… because then, it’d be falsified =) As I said, though, your theory makes specific predictions, which can be used to falsify it without having to fund a study of animal reproduction. A subscription to PubMed and some careful googling would suffice. For instance, if your theory were false, we would observe: - A suicide rate among homosexual and asexual people that was higher than or equal to the heterosexual rate. - No correlation between aggressiveness and sexual success. - Female suicides with no connection to violence. - No correlation between incidence of schizophrenia and sexual success. - No correlation between a decline in the rate of violent crime and a decline in female, but not male, suicide. - A long term decline, or no change, in rates of violent crime. > [@Ecmandu](#): > > I did skip over much of your post and some of your points in previous posts, I admit that, though it didn’t fall on deaf ears. > > I get that everyone is convinced of all kinds of stuff that aren’t true and have for a very long time. > > The problem for me, and perhaps we could end this thread soon after this, because we now know where both of us lie on the state of the art here, is that I am positive, even though the studies haven’t been done (because of my observation of humans) in a large aggregate, perhaps not every case (because in genetics and behaviorism sometimes behaviors skip to outliers of meta-theories - meaning that occasionally women will act like men etc…) but, I am positive, that as a large aggregate, that any species that you run sexual choice experiments through, you will find the results I describe… > > The results will be: > > More aggression and depression when more aggressive mates get the sexual choice > > Less aggression and less depression when less aggressive mates get the sexual choice. > > More sexual assault when approach averse members get the sexual choice. > > More depression when one gender is more monoamorous than another. > That’s VERY straight forward!!! And I certainly thank you for working with me to help tease this out and discuss it. You are right, if it’s as big a deal as I say it is, it deserves rigor. Hey, no problem. I wish the thread had stayed focused on the ethics/suicide angle, but this is the thread we got. Quick question: why wouldn’t the aggressive males get depressed when they were excluded from sex? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-the-meta-solution-to-ethics/682566/152 "2014-03-03T17:56:50Z")
I liked it better when the solution was mechanical suicide booths. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-the-meta-solution-to-ethics/682566/153 "2014-03-03T18:01:08Z")
So-The “meta-solution” to ethics is for women to put out more often? ---
**Author:** ![Ecmandu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/958977/32.png) [@Ecmandu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ecmandu)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-the-meta-solution-to-ethics/682566/154 "2014-03-03T18:08:36Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > What does “square an infinity” mean? Please cite a textbook example (or internet equivalent) that explains this phrase. I don’t believe it has any meaning. > > I demonstrated how you can reduce multiple lists to a single list in a one-to-one correspondence. It’s just a term I made up… (perhaps a better way of putting it is that it’s an infinity raised to the infinity power) what it means, is when each data point on an infinite sequence list has an infinite number extra of data points that make it so the sequence needs to count an infinite number of times before the next sequence starts… this happens when another infinity is piled on to an already infinite sequence list… your technique assumes that the extra data points for each segment of the first infinite list are finite… when they become infinite you can no longer lace them together! As I showed you in my list earlier… with a given sequence that is used to make a list… 012345678910 123456789101 234567891011 345678910111 456789101112 567891011121 … In this list, there is no way that an interval of two appears on it, because it’s constructed that way!! So you make a list with intervals of 2!! and march them inwards to get a different number each time… like this… 024681012141 246810121416 468101214161 681012141618 810121416182 101214161820 Now… as I explained before! When you lace these two lists together… you get!! 1.1) 012345678910 2.1) 024681012141 1.2) 123456789101 2.2) 246810121416 etc… This is all fine and fun and games UNTIL the sequence converges at infinity!!! And this is the step you skipped which I thought I did well to articulate. When this interval sequence converges at infinity, every interval sequence on the list needs to cycle through an infinity before you can start adding another interval sequence. This ONLY happens when the list converges at infinity. In this way, you can prove that there is no way to crunch all of the reals into one list, HOWEVER, when you make multiple lists, you can suddenly squeeze those numbers into a system that is still a counting system. Was that clearer? What happens with the way I designed the last list when the sequence converges at infinity is that the list goes… 1.1… 1.2… 1.3… 1.4… forever, without ever letting you start to input the 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 etc… part of the list. ---
**Author:** ![Ecmandu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/958977/32.png) [@Ecmandu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ecmandu)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-the-meta-solution-to-ethics/682566/155 "2014-03-03T18:23:22Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > As I said, though, your theory makes specific predictions, which can be used to falsify it without having to fund a study of animal reproduction. A subscription to PubMed and some careful googling would suffice. For instance, if your theory were false, we would observe: > > - A suicide rate among homosexual and asexual people that was higher than or equal to the heterosexual rate. > - No correlation between aggressiveness and sexual success. > - Female suicides with no connection to violence. > - No correlation between incidence of schizophrenia and sexual success. > - No correlation between a decline in the rate of violent crime and a decline in female, but not male, suicide. > - A long term decline, or no change, in rates of violent crime. > > Hey, no problem. I wish the thread had stayed focused on the ethics/suicide angle, but this is the thread we got. > > Quick question: why wouldn’t the aggressive males get depressed when they were excluded from sex? Actually, your last two points really are the same point from how I conceived this, remember how you kept saying that schizophrenics have higher suicide rates than the population? Well… I know they have lower homicide rates, I haven’t checked to see if their suicide rates are higher, but I’ll certainly take your word for it. So, in taking your word for it, I gave you a reason that would be encompassed in my theory, the mind will fracture when sexual choice is dysfunctional in a species, it will have neuro-biological effects on people - that’s why we even began delving into this in the same thread, because my thesis is that dysfunctional sexual systems cause neuro-biological effects. The reason it ties to the very last question you raised, is that it is not a dysfunctional sexual system for a bully to be rejected for being a bully, it makes LOGICAL sense, and people don’t go crazy when systems are not dysfunctional. That’s while you’ll see rates of stress, aggression and suicide DECREASE when the least aggressive members are the only ones who get the sexual choice… actually we can already OBSERVE this with women, because men RATIONALLY give female non-bullies the most sexual choice and tend to sexually shun female bullies. ---
**Author:** ![Ecmandu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/958977/32.png) [@Ecmandu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ecmandu)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-the-meta-solution-to-ethics/682566/156 "2014-03-03T18:38:23Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > As I said, though, your theory makes specific predictions, which can be used to falsify it without having to fund a study of animal reproduction. A subscription to PubMed and some careful googling would suffice. For instance, if your theory were false, we would observe: > > - A suicide rate among homosexual and asexual people that was higher than or equal to the heterosexual rate. > - No correlation between aggressiveness and sexual success. > - Female suicides with no connection to violence. > - No correlation between incidence of schizophrenia and sexual success. > - No correlation between a decline in the rate of violent crime and a decline in female, but not male, suicide. > - A long term decline, or no change, in rates of violent crime. > > Hey, no problem. I wish the thread had stayed focused on the ethics/suicide angle, but this is the thread we got. > > Quick question: why wouldn’t the aggressive males get depressed when they were excluded from sex? Perhaps… actually I just wanted to nit pick something, you said “study of animal reproduction”, we already know from the Russian experiments done on foxes what reproduction does… they’ve been doing that experiment for over 40 years now, mating violent ones with violent ones and passive ones with passive ones to produce offspring, the results in our generation is that some people keep them as house pets and those foxes have even begun to wag their tails, while the violent ones need to be kept in cages and when anyone tries to feed them they try to bite their hand off! This isn’t about reproduction, this is about non-reproductive sexual choice. Here’s another question for you… what if my studies were done and they showed exactly what I predicted they would, BUT you also found some of your other points to be true… would that make my theory false or simply incomplete? Perhaps with greater understanding there are ways to explain in the same theory things that on the surface seem to refute it. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-the-meta-solution-to-ethics/682566/157 "2014-03-03T18:45:21Z")
You know, this is all so crazy it just might work. Quickly, somebody write all this down! On a single piece of paper, both sides, in tiny tiny print. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-the-meta-solution-to-ethics/682566/158 "2014-03-03T19:13:58Z")
> [@Ecmandu](#): > > Actually, your last two points really are the same point from how I conceived this, remember how you kept saying that schizophrenics have higher suicide rates than the population? Well… I know they have lower homicide rates, I haven’t checked to see if their suicide rates are higher, but I’ll certainly take your word for it. They are, [eight times higher than the general population.](http://www.webmd.com/schizophrenia/guide/schizophrenia-and-suicide) I just picked it as an example, there are many mental illnesses associated with an increased rate of suicide. [QUOTE=Ecmandu] So, in taking your word for it, I gave you a reason that would be encompassed in my theory, the mind will fracture when sexual choice is dysfunctional in a species, it will have neuro-biological effects on people - that’s why we even began delving into this in the same thread, because my thesis is that dysfunctional sexual systems cause neuro-biological effects. [/quote] Your thesis would have to contend with the [strong genetic component](http://www.schizophrenia.com/research/hereditygen.htm), and demonstrate that it is sexual opportunity, and not genetics, that correlates with schizophrenia. Further, since you’re arguing for _physical changes in the brain_, these would likewise be observable, and could be correlated (or not) with sexual opportunities/success. To be accepted, your explanation for mental illness would have to explain the observed characteristics of mental illness better than the current models, and make predictions that could be verified, and survive falsification. One option that springs to mind is whether asexual people, who don’t stand to be adversely affected by dysfunctional sexual choice, or homosexual people, who wouldn’t appear to face dysfunctional sexual choice in your theory, have comparable or higher rates of mental illness than heterosexuals. If so, that’d falsify your theory. [This study](http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19419899.2013.774162#preview) found that asexuality was associated with a higher prevalence of mental health and interpersonal problems than heterosexuality. [This summarizes studies](http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb02/newdata.aspx) that found a higher incidence of mental illness among homosexuals than heterosexuals. How can this be, if mental illness comes from dysfunctional sexual choice? > [@Ecmandu](#): > > The reason it ties to the very last question you raised, is that it is not a dysfunctional sexual system for a bully to be rejected for being a bully, it makes LOGICAL sense, and people don’t go crazy when systems are not dysfunctional. That’s while you’ll see rates of stress, aggression and suicide DECREASE when the least aggressive members are the only ones who get the sexual choice… Assuming you hold evolution to be true, how could this system possibly have evolved? You’re proposing a built-in logical sense that, when threatened, leads to mental illness and suicide…and that human sexuality inherently threatens that logical sense. And yes, sadly, people do go crazy when systems are not dysfunctional, because the causes are biological. > [@Ecmandu](#): > > …actually we can already OBSERVE this with women, because men RATIONALLY give female non-bullies the most sexual choice and tend to sexually shun female bullies. Given that you’ve defined bullying as approaching a person with romantic intentions, I’d wager that women who approach men to intiate romance do just fine in their sexual choice. Do you think the average man “shuns” women who approach men? Maybe in Saudi Arabia, but not in my neck of the woods. > [@Ecmandu](#): > > Perhaps… actually I just wanted to nit pick something, you said “study of animal reproduction”, we already know from the Russian experiments done on foxes what reproduction does… they’ve been doing that experiment for over 40 years now, mating violent ones with violent ones and passive ones with passive ones to produce offspring, the results in our generation is that some people keep them as house pets and those foxes have even begun to wag their tails, while the violent ones need to be kept in cages and when anyone tries to feed them they try to bite their hand off! > > This isn’t about reproduction, this is about non-reproductive sexual choice. Sure, ok, I meant fund the marking/limiting choice study you outlined. I get that it’s not strictly about reproduction, but the sex act itself. > [@Ecmandu](#): > > Here’s another question for you… what if my studies were done and they showed exactly what I predicted they would, BUT you also found some of your other points to be true… would that make my theory false or simply incomplete? Perhaps with greater understanding there are ways to explain in the same theory things that on the surface seem to refute it. There’s not a big difference between being false and incomplete. Until your theory makes predictions that can be falsified, and the predictions turn out to be true, the theory can’t be accepted as being true. And note that the study wouldn’t be automatically applicable to human society, in which, again, there’s no team of experimenters articifically selecting for aggressiveness. We know animals can be selectively bred for traits over many generations, the dog is a fine example of an animal that’s been bred to be less aggressive than its ancestors. But, as humans aren’t selectively bred for traits, you’d have to posit some sort of _natural_ selective pressure for aggressiveness, and demonstrate that it existed, in the face of evidence to the contrary. ---
**Author:** ![YoungKusher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/3e96dc/32.png) [@YoungKusher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YoungKusher)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-the-meta-solution-to-ethics/682566/159 "2014-03-03T19:14:23Z")
> [@Ecmandu](#): > > I have made many discoveries, and perhaps I will make many more, but I can guarantee you, that this will always be the first most essential of all discoveries I have made, it is, for the entire cosmos, discovery prime… there is no higher discovery… all other discoveries flow from this one, the solution to meta-ethics, and as dazzling as other discoveries may seem, are always secondary to this discovery in any possible realm of existence forever in all the cosmos. Delusions of grandeur… > [@](#): > > I will repeat, that they are votes out of the system, that’s what suicides are… it could just be that someone is tired of dealing with a neurological disorder, that nobody has a cure for, and so they leave… now they can stick around for a supposed cure, but the odds are really against them. They voted out of the system by weighing their pain against the odds that it will be alleviated. Granted, not everyone suffers problems the same, everyone is different. This is an oversimplified, made-up idea about the thought processes of a mentally-ill person. Others have tried to get this fact through to you. If a schizophrenic person is convinced that the FBI and the CIA are out to get them, when in fact that is simply not true at all, and that person commits suicide because they are tired of being “chased” by the government, then this is an example of an irrational suicide. The schizophrenic believed something that IS NOT TRUE, which caused them to kill themselves. This in no way reflects upon the ethical value of our society, and is in no way a vote out of the system. Others have pointed out that 90% of suicides are committed by mentally ill people. I _guarantee you_ that most of those suicides are not rational, which makes them no kind of vote. Another point, there are some out there who have deemed their own suicide a logical thing to do, however insignificant of a number that may be. There are certain Nihilists who have deduced that there is no logical reason to value life more than death. Because of that reasoning, their suicide doesn’t count as a vote either. They are not choosing to leave this world because they think it is worse than death, they are leaving to make the point that there is no reason to value life more than death. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-the-meta-solution-to-ethics/682566/160 "2014-03-03T19:16:42Z")
> [@Ecmandu](#): > > . . . What happens with the way I designed the last list when the sequence converges at infinity is that the list goes… > > 1.1… > 1.2… > 1.3… > 1.4… > > forever, without ever letting you start to input the 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 etc… part of the list. That’s fallacious. Using that kind of construction, I can claim that the counting numbers aren’t “countable” by saying: “2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, etc… So, 7 and 13 never appear on the list.” You’ve constructed a list that isn’t complete, by leaving out large classes of numbers. Meanwhile, I constructed a list that is countable and is in a one-to-one correspondence with the counting numbers. Mine is applicable to Cantor’s proof; yours isn’t. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-the-meta-solution-to-ethics/682566.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-the-meta-solution-to-ethics/682566.md?page=9)