quest


I am a woman born 1949 and my quest is to find a mindmate
to grow old together as a mutually devoted couple
in a relationship based upon the
egalitarian rational commitment paradigm
bonded by intrinsic commitment
as each other's safe haven and secure basis.

The purpose of this blog is to enable the right man
to recognize us as reciprocal mindmates and
to encourage him to contact me:
marulaki@hotmail.com


The entries directly concerning,
who could be my mindmate,
are mainly at the beginning.
If this is your predominant interest,
I suggest to read this blog in the same order
as it was written, following the numbers.

I am German, therefore my English is sometimes faulty.

Maybe you have stumbled upon this blog not as a potential match.
Please wait a short moment before zapping.

Do you know anybody, who could be my mindmate?
Your neighbour, brother, uncle, cousin, colleague, friend?
If so, please tell him to look at this blog.
While you have no reason to do this for me,
a stranger, maybe you can make someone happy, for whom you care.

Do you have your own webpage or blog,
which someone like my mindmate to be found probably reads?
If so, please mention my quest and add a link to this blog.


Wednesday, December 31, 2014

727. How Instincts Reinforce Each Other Thus Aggravating Harm And Suffering

727.   How Instincts Reinforce Each Other Thus Aggravating Harm And Suffering
The biological spoils of war
Study finds those who take part in violent conflict have more wives, children
The study, ......  found that, among members of an East African herding tribe, those who engaged in conflict - in the form of violent raids carried out on neighboring groups - had more wives, and thus more opportunities to increase their reproductive success through having more children
In an analysis of 120 men, Glowacki said, the data was clear - those who participate in more raids had more wives and more children over the course of their lives.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-12/hu-tbs122914.php

In a scientific study, observed and observable data are presented.    From a very different point of view, I am looking at the suffering caused to individuals.   
  • Raids cause deprivation and often the subsequent risk of perishing
  • Raids often cause deaths, serious injuries and mutilations 
  • More children mean women suffering more often the agony of giving birth.   
  • There is often the additional suffering of those women, who are forced to share a husband in a polygamous situation in spite of wishing monogamy and/or to procreate more than they wish to. 

This is a clear example, how two instincts reinforce and enable each other leading to aggravated suffering.   
  • The raids are an expression of the ingroup-outgroup-instinct.    The more the distinction between the groups is accentuated by this instinct, the less inhibitions there are against the ruthlessness and cruelty, upon which depends the success of raids.   Thus the success of raids both depends upon and rewards the ingroup-outgroup-instinct.   
  • Procreation depends upon the combined strength of the procreation instincts and the means and occasion to act upon this instinct.   The more men are driven by the procreation instinct, the more they consider the acquisition of more wives and children as a desirable goal and a reward for embarking on a raid.  Thus a strong procreation instinct serves as a motivation for raids, such men's additional procreational behavior is enabled in the case of the raids being successful.
Would one instinct be absent, individuals would suffer less:
  • Without the procreation instinct, there were less or no reasons for raids, depending on the own resources.   
  • Without the ingroup-outgroup-instinct, raids were not possible, less procreation were possible due to less resources.

 
One should not shrug this off as if it were merely a remote problem in Africa.   The simple and therefore obvious mechanisms described in the study can be generalized and recognized in the sad every day occurrence, that people force disadvantages upon outgroup members in favor of advantages for their own progeny.    
  • The raid can be replaced by the wider concept of exploitation in situations of asymmetrical power.  The same mechanism, that has been shown in the study above, is also at the bottom of all the outrageous injustice and cruelty of the world wide globalized system of exploitation.  
  • Having more wives and more children can be replaced by the greedy accumulating of control over resources.    A person, who dies without offspring has no reason to amass more wealth than what he needs for the preferred standard of life during his own lifetime.    But someone leaving behind wealth as an inheritance bestows advantages to further generations of bearers of his own genes.   His offspring have a better chance of healthy survival, in turn they may have more offspring than without the inheritance.  

Whenever someone in the situation of direct or economic power exploits other humans, expecially slaves, illegal immigrant workers or inmates of labor camps, he has first defined them as an outgroup.   Only by this he is able to apply very different standards to them than to those people, whom he considers as his ingroup, while nevertheless not feeling cognitive dissonance with his idea of behaving morally.  

In the complex globalized system of exploitation, there are layers of ingroups and outgroups, as the example of this documentary shows.  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Gktid0YO9s
  • To the privileged social class of plantation owners, the slaves are the outgroup.   These landlords are the most directly and knowingly cruel persons.  
  • To those Ivorians, who abduct people from Mali, these are perceived as outgroup by being citizens of another country.   This is a form of raids, which are not a part of remote tribal life.  
  • To the companies importing the cocoa beans and to the consumers of chocolate, all Africans are outgroup.  The majority of the uninformed customer are in denial or even truly ignorant of the sufferings caused by chocolate as an apparently inland product.   But those managers, who dictate the prices, are aware of the unavoidably dire situation of workers not being paid sufficiently.  

The worst cause of human suffering are the instincts, which humans share with animals.  There cannot be a better world, until people recognize the damage done by instincts and until the control of the instincts is eliminated and replaced by the rational concept of global equality and global equal rights.         

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Friday, November 28, 2014

725. Objectification Of Women Gets Scientific Attention

725.   Objectification Of Women Gets Scientific Attention


I appreciate that the problem of the objectification of women gets into the focus of research.  There cannot be any improvement of this women's plight, unless men recognize objectification not only as a serious problem.  Any change also requires men to accept it as a task not possible without men's collaboration:

"According to the popular feminist Objectification Theory, women of most cultures are seen as sexual objects that are there for the pleasure of men's sexual desires. Examples of such conduct include men's visibly scrutinizing a woman's figure or making comments about her body parts, giving whistles or cat calls, sexual harassment, unwanted sexual advances or sexual assault. The media also play a role in these practices when they depict women as mere sexual objects. These experiences contribute to some women's developing mental health problems, such as eating disorders, depressive symptoms and substance abuse problems.

To study how women cope with such sexually oppressive experiences, Szymanski and Feltman studied the responses to an online questionnaire of 270 young adult heterosexual undergraduate women from a university in the Southeastern region of the US.
Their findings show that young women experience increased psychological distress when they are being sexually objectified. Women with low resilience are especially vulnerable, and tend to internalize such behavior. Some women feel confused and shameful, and reason that their own inferiority is the cause of such bad experiences. They therefore blame themselves, rather than the perpetrators, and this causes psychological distress.

Szymanski and Feltman surmise that resilient women are more successful at managing adverse experiences because they are able to cope and adapt. They can manage stress and rise above disadvantage. Resilience is both a style of personal functioning and a way in which people ably adapt to stressful situations. "Resilient women may see gender-related oppressive experiences as challenges -- rather than barriers -- that can be overcome," says Szymanski."


"To sexually objectify a woman is to focus on her body in terms of how it can provide sexual pleasure rather than viewing her as a complete human being with thoughts and feelings. While objectification has long been considered a problem in the media, how does it affect individual romantic relationships? New research finds that more objectification of a female partner's body is related to higher incidents of sexual pressure and coercion."

Thursday, October 30, 2014

724. The Hierarchy Instinct: Research On Competitiveness

724.  The Hierarchy Instinct: Research On Competitiveness

I have been speculating before, that instinctivity is a significant trait distinguishing individuals.  By Instinctivity I am referring to animal instincts, which also influence human behavior.    The hierarchy instinct is one aspect thereof.   Competitiveness is a trait, competition an behavior, both are the noticeable expressions of the invisible hierarchy instinct.

There are some research results showing and explaining by evolutionary mechanisms the variability of the level of competitiveness:
"Virtually all organisms in the living world compete with members of their own species. However, individuals differ strongly in how much they invest into their competitive ability. Some individuals are highly competitive and eager to get access to high-quality resources, while others seem to avoid competition, instead making prudent use of the lower-quality resources that are left over for them. Moreover, the degree of competitiveness in animal and human societies seems to fluctuate considerably over time. A new study sheds some new light on these findings."

"If not too much is at stake, that is, if high-competitive individuals acquire only slightly better resources than low-competitive individuals, evolution leads to the stable coexistence of two types of individuals: one type does not invest into competition at all and is content with lower-quality resources, and a second type that invest an appreciable (but not maximal) part of their energy into being competitive. If much is at stake, such coexistence does not occur. Instead, the model predicts cyclical changes in competitive ability over time. "

"However, also in humans there is huge diversity in competitiveness, and individuals with highest competitive ability often seem least prudent in the exploitation of their resources. It is therefore tempting to speculate that the external stimulation of competitiveness by societal pressure, which is analogous to the stimulation of competitiveness by the female preferences in our model, can lead to such a wastage of resources that our future survival is threatened."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141029084021.htm

Friday, October 17, 2014

723. Political Preferences And Innate Tendencies

723.   Political Preferences And Innate Tendencies

In some earlier entry I speculated that the strength of the hierarchy instinct could determine, if people would lean towards politics in favor of either social differences and stratification or of equality.  

Lately I found two studies, which point towards the general assumption, that political preference are indeed connected with innate tendencies and not merely acquired.

"A growing body of evidence shows that physiological responses and deep-seated psychology are at the core of political differences, the researchers say in the latest issue of the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences

"Politics might not be in our souls, but it probably is in our DNA," says the article written by political scientists John Hibbing and Kevin Smith of UNL and John Alford of Rice University."

"Using eye-tracking equipment and skin conductance detectors, the three researchers have observed that conservatives tend to have more intense reactions to negative stimuli, such as photos of people eating worms, burning houses or maggot-infested wounds."

"Combining their own results with similar findings from other researchers around the world, the team proposes that this so-called "negativity bias" may be a common factor that helps define the difference between conservatives, with their emphasis on stability and order, and liberals, with their emphasis on progress and innovation."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/07/140731145935.htm


"A new study reveals that people find the smell of others with similar political opinions to be attractive, suggesting that one of the reasons why so many spouses share similar political views is because they were initially and subconsciously attracted to each other's body odor.

During the study, 146 participants rated the attractiveness of the body odor of unknown strong liberals and strong conservatives, without ever seeing the individuals whose smells they were evaluating."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140915120805.htm

Friday, September 19, 2014

722. Until Death Do Us Part

722.  Until Death Do Us Part


"Archaeologists have uncovered a trove of relics and remains at Chapel of St Morrell in Leicestershire. Some relationships last a lifetime -- and archaeologists have discovered that they can last even longer after unearthing two skeletons at a lost chapel in Leicestershire that have been holding hands for 700 years."

More info:
http://ulasnews.wordpress.com/2014/09/16/hallatons-lost-chapel/

Here is another picture of a couple buried together:
http://www.dograt.com/2007/02/09/eternal-embrace/

I found no information concerning the ages of the dead couples.  Without a need to be converted into trees like the mythological Baucis and Philemon, I want to find a mindmate to grow old together, and it were an ideal to also die at the same time.  

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

721. Research: The Personality Of Alley Dogs

721.   Research:  The Personality Of Alley Dogs

I have been speculating several times in previous entries that the general individual level and strength of instinctivity and the magnitude of the male urge to behave as copulating alley dogs objectifying and abusing women could be a personality trait distributed along a bell curve and also that the observable net power of the instinctive behavior were the absolute power of the instincts modified by the rationally derived amount of self-control.  


I just read about some research results which seem to point in this direction: 
"Can aspects of personality help explain a predilection towards risky sexual behaviors in developing adolescents? Researchers approached this question by surveying middle adolescents of various personality types. The three most common personality types found across cultures and age groups are undercontrollers (extroverted, disagreeable, unconscientiousness, open to new experiences), overcontrollers (agreeable, conscientious, introverted, emotionally unstable), and resilients (agreeable, conscientious, open to experiences, extraverted, emotionally stable)."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140905113909.htm

Sunday, August 31, 2014

720. The Evolutionary Purchasability Of Women By Alpha Males

720.  The Evolutionary Purchasability Of Women By Alpha Males

I have profiles on many matchmaking sites.    One such profile I made on a site apparently according to its name just another site for finding a serious relationship.   
When I found out, that this was just a secondary name for a site catering for extremely rich men, my first impulse was to delete the profile.  On second thought I decided that I do not want to exclude any chance to find an intelligent and educated man, only because of him having too much money.  
I am not a gold digger, I am the contrary.  My best match would be someone in modest circumstances.  I feel most comfortable and at ease with a frugal lifestyle.   I prefer hostels over luxury hotels, I prefer a picnic with purchases from a supermarket over a luxury restaurant.   
I am aware of the conflicts to expect with a rich man.   I would not want to feel a beggar when accommodating his needs by partaking in his luxury standard of living.    But I also would have no right to demand him to sacrifice the comforts of his accustomed luxury.   

So while I would not initiate contact with men, who present themselves as rich, I had the curiosity to have a look at the profiles.   I also have a profile on another site from the same company using the same software, but aiming at seniors of indifferent affluence.   When running a search I noticed a considerable difference between the men's accepted age for a match between the two sites.  On the general site, my age is often accepted, on the rich men's site, I am more often than not too old.

This vague observation made me curious to take a more exact look at this difference.  I made a search for men of 65 on both sites.   While I did not limit the search geographically, most of the profiles were from the USA.   

Then I entered the age requirements of the first 50 profiles from each of the two sites into a spreadsheet.   

The result:  
The rich men want on average a woman between 22.98 years and 5.14 years younger than themselves.   The men with any income want on average a woman between 15.3 years younger and 2.98 years older.  

Of course there can be factors other than wealth contributing to the cause of this difference.    But as the differences appear nevertheless really drastic, this made me wonder about how to interpret it.  

Does this difference merely represent wishes and a subjectively felt entitlement of rich men considering themselves as alpha males?   Or are these men's aspirations and claims derived from previous experiences of success with very much younger women?  

I googled and found this:
"When analyzing first marriages, men on the Forbes list married women who were on average younger than the average difference for similar weddings across the US population (7.01 years younger versus 4.1 years younger"
"When analyzing remarriages of the very wealth men, they tied the knot with women who were on average an astonishing 22.32 years younger than them."
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/homo-consumericus/201306/very-wealthy-men-marry-much-younger-women
Of course I cannot know, how many of these men will find a woman as young as what they would prefer, but generally seen it is once more at least a sad indication, how much evolution has a grip upon people's subconscious choices.   

Instead of being rationally able to appreciate the value of an egalitarian companionship with a woman of a similar age, men strive to be or to appear as alpha males and foolish purchasable women choose them.

Sunday, August 3, 2014

719. Could Evolution Lead Towards Softening The Plight Of Women?

719.   Could Evolution Lead Towards Softening The Plight Of Women?

Seen from a woman's perspective, testosterone brings out the worst in men.    But there could be hope for a better world for women in the future, even though it may take a long time.     

According to this study:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140801171114.htm
it seems that during more recent phases of evolution the male level of testosterone has been slightly dwindling.   

If this evolutionary trend continues, at some time in the distant future, the testosterone level may be so far reduced, that there no longer will be any of those horrible instinct driven, women abusing alley dogs.    When testosterone will have lost its destructive power, the kind of men, who presently are only a pleasant, nice and kind minority, will then be the majority.  

But with the speed suggested in the study, it will probably take many hundreds of thousands of years, until men will no longer abuse women.    .   
"Scientists have shown that human skulls changed in ways that indicate a lowering of testosterone levels at around the same time that culture was blossoming. Heavy brows were out, rounder heads were in. Technological innovation, making art and rapid cultural exchange probably came at the same time that we developed a more cooperative temperament by dialing back aggression with lower testosterone levels."
"Modern humans appear in the fossil record about 200,000 years ago, but it was only about 50,000 years ago that making art and advanced tools became widespread.
A new study appearing Aug. 1 in the journal Current Anthropology finds that human skulls changed in ways that indicate a lowering of testosterone levels at around the same time that culture was blossoming."
"The study, which is based on measurements of more than 1,400 ancient and modern skulls, makes the argument that human society advanced when people started being nicer to each other, which entails having a little less testosterone in action."
The Duke study argues that living together and cooperating put a premium on agreeableness and lowered aggression and that, in turn, led to changed faces and more cultural exchange.
"If prehistoric people began living closer together and passing down new technologies, they'd have to be tolerant of each other," Cieri said. "The key to our success is the ability to cooperate and get along and learn from one another."

Saturday, July 5, 2014

718. A Fascinating Novel - Jack London: Before Adam

718.   A Fascinating Novel -  Jack London:  Before Adam

I just finished listening to the audio version of this novel, available on Librivox.    And even though they may never know, a big thanks to all those volunteers, who give me the chance to listen to good books.   

In other entries, I have explained how the ability for emotional attachment is a part of the unique human evolution, which could only co-evolve along with the general cognitive and rational abilities.  My source of such ideas is reading a lot about recent evolutionary biology and psychology.  

Jack London wrote his novel in 1906/7, at times, when evolution was still a widely disputed concept.   While this novel contains certainly a lot of imagination based upon limited scientific reality, his achievement is nevertheless very remarkable.   He was able to brilliantly illustrate the evolutionary state of people, whose limited empathy and emotional attachment were in sync with their limited intelligence and their limited theory of mind.  

I doubt that anybody with current knowledge of evolutionary biology, anthropology and archaeology could write a much better novel.  

Monday, June 30, 2014

717. The Difference Between Animals And Humans

717.   The Difference Between Animals And Humans

Some people deny, that there is any decisive difference between animals and humans.   To me such a claim seems to be made by those in need of an excuse for allowing themselves the behavior of animals in disregard for the consequences. 

The most significant difference is the human ability of memorize sufficient knowledge and experience, which enables only humans for the long term anticipation of the consequences of their behavior.   Thus they are capable to recognize the harmful effects of instinctive behavior to an extent, which can lead to the conscious decision against such behavior.  

Under natural conditions, at some times animals find plenty of food, at others none.    Their instinct to eat as much as possible to store body fat is an evolutionary advantage for survival.   Until 10 000 years ago, and sometimes even much later, this was also the case for humans.
Today the reasoning ability enables humans to not always give in to the impulse to eat, because they want to avoid the anticipated consequence of obesity.    More precisely, the reasoning supplies the knowledge, but the balance between the power of instinctivity and the counter power of rationality and willpower determine the behavior.   Therefore some people are more than others able to keep their weight between healthy limits.  
Overfed pets just get fatter and fatter. 

It is the same concerning the survival of the species.    Animals do not hesitate to copulate, when they are driven by instincts, because they are unable to know, that at some time later, they will be severely punished with the atrocity of giving birth and the burden of raising the offspring.    
Only humans are capable to recognize early enough, that the survival of the species and procreation is a form of self-harming for the individual person.   The cognitive ability of a considerable number of humans to consciously reject procreation is a very unique trait of humans. 

The critical cognitive distance from instincts and the resulting freedom of decision is therefore what makes humans unique.   This ability to prevent self-harming comes along with the ability to also know, when the own behaviors cause harm and suffering to others.

 
When a cat catches a bird and drops it somewhere seriously wounded, the cat lacks any ability to recognize the suffering of the bird.  The same holds true too, when animals seriously hurt each other during struggles for the alpha position.   Animals cannot know, when the side effect of their instinctive behavior is strong suffering.
Humans can know this. Therefore it cannot be morally justified, that many humans use and consider their cognitive qualities only as a tool serving a more successful application of their instincts.   This aggravates the suffering of others instead of avoiding and preventing it.  People, who consciously follow their instinct, are knowingly cruel.  

This means that the cognitive ability to recognize the consequences of the own behavior brings along the moral obligation to avoid harm and suffering of others as much as of oneself.

 
Unfortunately, many people live by double standards.   When they benefit from using their rational brain, they do it.   But when others are concerned, they allow themselves willingly to be ruthlessly determined by instinctive drives. 

The same hunter, who during the day shoots animals feeling entitled to do so due to being a human, nevertheless claims in the evening his right to follow his animal nature by copulating like an alley dog with a prostitute, not perceiving the woman as an abused and degraded human being but only as an object.   Shooting at humans of another country or ethnic group driven by the ingroup-outgroup instinct, he also has allowed himself to be controlled by an animal instinct, even though his reason could recognize this as absurd, as animal but as certainly not human.

Who feels superior to animals due to being human should also be congruent in not giving in to his own animal urges.    Excusing and condoning animal behavior by misrepresenting it as the human nature is not only absurd, but also the consequences are fatal, usually for all parties involved.

Friday, June 20, 2014

716: Alley Dogs: The Regression To An Earlier Period Of Evolution

716:  Alley Dogs: The Regression To An Earlier Period Of Evolution


Definition: 
I call persons, who copulate without neither getting emotionally attached nor wishing this to happen, as alley dogs.
Copulation like alley dogs is a regression to behaviors prevalent before the specific cognitive qualities of the human brain had evolved.
  

Evolution is not a master plan. As long as a species survives, this only indicates, that in the past the evolutionary net sum of instinctive and in the case of humans also innate cognitive tendencies has resulted in a sufficient amount of procreation.  

Some millions of years ago, when the ancestors of present day humans were still only animals, they copulated by instinct as all animals do.  Some months later it was followed by the birth of the youngster(s).   
At that moment, they had no conscious memory of the copulation and they were not aware, that the agony of birth was caused by the copulation.   
When they copulated, they were also unable to anticipate, that giving birth was the punishment for the female.   
Lacking the comprehension of this causality, they also had no way to avoid the agony of further procreation.

Then the unique evolution of the human cognition began.   One of the aspects thereof is the longterm memory and the ability to anticipate the future consequences of the own and of others' behavior.  This enabled the co-evolution of purely cognitive emotions, which derive from reasoning and not from bodily sensations.   Cognitive emotions are very distinct from sensations like fear in the situation of a real danger or pain after being physically wounded.  

Some of these cognitive emotions are: 
  1. Emotional attachment based upon invisible cognitive traits.  
    It is difficult to define love or to put such feeling into words.  But with certainty, whatever there is, it cannot be called love without cognition derived emotional attachment. Traits leading to emotional attachment can be honesty, reliability, empathy, but also intelligence and education, which make it rewarding to be together.

  2. Rational empathy and a theory of mind.  
    By this someone has knowledge about how another person is going to react,  This is more than the anticipation of visible behavior, but also the anticipation of the invisible cognitive emotions.  This includes also those situations, when the reaction of the other will be very distinct from the own reaction under identical circumstances. 

  3. Responsibility and consideration.   When being in advance aware of the consequences and impact of the own behavior upon others, responsibility is the cognitive ability to prevent hurting others by the avoidance of anticipated own cognitive emotions like guilt, shame, remorse.
     
  4. Awareness for invisible emotional reactions caused by invisible experiences.   
    This includes taking full account of feelings of selfworth and identity of the self and in others and how these are elicited and effected by interactions.   Examples are appreciation, depreciation, adulation, disdain, honor, equality, indignation, injustice, pride, entitlement and much more.
Sometimes such qualities are called emotional intelligence.  

By instinct only, alley dogs are male, while females attempt to exploit a man as a provider for the children, who get her full attachment, while he gets a subscription to the repeated use of her body.

When cognition modifies the raw instincts, emotional attachment to an intimate partner happens usually fast or immediately in women.  For men usually more repetitions are needed, before the subjective experience of the alley dog copulation is converted into the emotional attachment of making love.
 
Had there been a continued linear evolution of only a growing strength of rationality and cognitive emotions like the one in the list above over instincts, this would have enabled and motivated more and more people to avoid harming others.    As a logical side effect, this would have drastically reduced procreation and maybe the human species would already have been extinct.
Until safe family planning was available, a truly considerate and responsible man would have rather refrained from physical intimacy than ever risking to cause suffering for a woman, who was not fully wishing to have children.   

But the human species did not get extinct.  Some alley dogs continue to sire alley dogs and prevail in the gene pool.  I can see several reasons. 
  1. Some people, mostly men are just like animals, because they lack the human emotional restrictions which would prevent them from copulating like alley dogs.  Their behavior is not guided or determined by cognitive emotions.    They contribute more to the gene pool by having more offspring than the considerate men.  Genghis Khan is a good example.  He is reported to have raped thousands of women and his genes are supposed be present in millions of Asians.
    1.1.  They can be generally limited in their ability to feel cognitive emotions, as in the case of Alexithymia.   They are not aware, what pain they cause to people, who want to be loved, because they themselves do not know love and are unable to experience emotional attachment.

    1.2.  They know, what they do, but do not care, because they are not able to feel guilt, shame or remorse.   They are sociopaths.  
  2. The availability of safe birth control has made the consideration for preventing the threat of pregnancy as the most drastic consequence of alley dog copulation obsolete.  
    It needs less cognitive quality to be able to refrain from doing something as drastic as making a woman pregnant. 
    To refrain from abusing a woman as a toilet for body waste because of respect for her brain, to spare the woman the invisible suffering of indignation, devaluation, objectification and humiliation requires a much higher level of cognitive quality in a man.  Less men have it.
    Being free of the fear of pregnancy is great.   But unfortunately it came with the price of the disgust of being (or at my age having been) too frequently approached by alley dogs.
     
  3. The human brain including the ability for empathy has evolved for coping with the life in small groups or communities.   Now people are suddenly (seen in the evolutionary timeline) flooded by the media with very realistic representations of extreme atrocities.  This representations are so realistic, that the subconscious brain cannot distinguish between such pictures or movies and real life. 
    Nobody can react permanently with full empathy to this extreme amount of exposure. 
    Desensitization is an unavoidable consequence.  

    When a man grows up munching chips while indifferently watching a movie, in which a woman is raped, it is not really astonishing that he will consider hurting 'only' a woman's feeling as a trifle in comparison.    

    When a woman grows up sitting in the safety of her home in front of a TV, she also gets a very biased picture.  On TV women are presented as willingly and happily doing and wanting themselves, what really only benefits selfish men.  On TV, these women get rewarded, but never emotionally harmed.  The watching real woman is thus misguided to underestimate, what she gets herself into by making the mistake of complying or imitating behavior, which really is an expression of male instinctivity and male wishes.  When this woman unexpectedly gets very hurt, she learns to understand reality too late and the hard way.
  4. When one person hurts another, no matter if it is the alley dog the loving woman or any other situation, there are two different perspectives.  
    4.1.  The difference between hurting and not hurting behavior is a choice, and therefore people with cognitive emotional quality take themselves the responsibility for what they do to others.
    They never use the behavior of the victim as an excuse, even if the victim could have avoided exposing himself to be vulnerable.

    4.2.  Under the impact of desensitization, people have a more selfish perspective based upon the entitlement to do, what they want.   Whoever gets hurt or harmed is attributed as either defective or too stupid to protect himself.  Therefore they feel justified to take no responsibility.   The victim of an alley dog is blamed for not being also an alley dog.  In the case that the suffering reactions of the victim annoy the alley dog, the victim is even blamed for diminishing the alley dog's benefits.

    This desensitization has contributed to a present social norm in many western societies, which defines alley dog copulation as allegedly healthy behavior.   Those, who get hurt, are supposed to use those remedies, which contribute to the profits of the pharmaceutical industry.
It is sad.  All the amazing progress only leads to the material standard of life getting more and more comfortable.  But when it comes to the avoidance of non-physical suffering, there is no progress, but a regress to times before the evolution of the cognition.   

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

715. Love Cannot Be Defined, But A Loving Relationship Can

715.  Love Cannot Be Defined, But A Loving Relationship Can

Love is an emotion, which is felt and cannot be clearly defined.   It is easier to define, what is not love, than what is.  
The mere urge to copulate with a body is certainly not love but only a virulent expression of the procreation instinct.    Whatever form of attraction there may be, nothing can be called love with justification, unless there is the recognition and appreciation of the cognitive qualities and personality of the partner. 

The relationship of a couple can be defined as loving by behaviors, by which the quality of the bond between the partners is directly or indirectly expressed.
  
The criteria of a loving relationship:
  1. Emotional attachment and emotional intimacy
  2. Physical intimacy
  3. Some amount of intellectual intimacy, depending upon the amount of intelligence and education
  4. Exclusivity, each being special to the other in a way, which nobody else is
  5. No need or inclination to wish or to search for someone else
When all the above criteria for a loving relationship are present, and when the couple has also explicitly agreed to stay together indefinitely, then they have accepted to be a loving couple.  Obviously both experience sufficiently, whatever love means for them personally.

But when two persons share physical intimacy repeatedly with each other during a considerable time, even for years, and they do not consider themselves as a couple in a loving relationship, there can be very different arrangements.  

In the case, that it is really only physical intimacy and nothing else, then this is just a variety of reciprocal abuse and taking advantage of each other, while they prefer the practical advantage of avoiding the recurrent hunt and search for someone different.

But there is also the concept of friends with benefits (FWB), where the word friend really means true friendship, and is not just confounded as synonymous with mere acquaintance.   

A true friend is someone, with whom there are ties of emotional and intellectual intimacy in some form.    This is the essence of friendship.  When physical intimacy is added to the true friendship, then this combination contains all esential ingredients for a loving relationship.   

When the couple nevertheless explicitly puts emphasis upon the distinction of being FWB, but not being a loving couple, this means more often than not, that their are some serious personal problems.
  1. It can be a sign of selfishness and greed, when someone wants all the benefits of being in a loving relationship while also wanting all the advantages of being single.   It is an attempt to get all needs met while not having any obligations to also meet the other's needs.  
  2. There can be fear and apprehension.  
    Someone may fear commitment and obligations.  
    Someone may fear failure and getting the more hurt, the more he allows involvement.   
    Someone may be torn apart between the fear of a repetition of a very hurtful past experience and the wish to have a better relationship. Someone may fear to fail, would accepting love lead to the next step of further closeness by living together. 
    Someone may succeed to maintain the denial of such fears by insisting on the denial of any emotional involvement.  
  3. There can be unrealistic hopes and expectations.   The real quality of the present relationship is not appreciated as sufficient in comparison with imaginary ideals.  The relationship is considered as a temporary arrangement until either the ideal and perfect partner is found or until someone experiences that overwhelming sudden sensation, as which love is presented in fictional novels or movies. 


This FWB concept seems weird.

It cannot be explained by evolutionary biology.    By instinct, men want to sire as many offspring as possible with as many different sets of genes.   By instinct, women want commitment and attachment as the best way of provision for their offspring.   

While FWB does not cater for the needs of the instinct driven, it nevertheless also does not serve the specific needs of those with a very low instinctivity, the brainiacs, eggheads and intellectuals. Their needs for intellectual and emotional intimacy, for the companionship of shared extensive cultural and cognitive activities are best fulfilled in a close loving relationship.
 
Maybe FWB suits predominantly the needs of the people in the middle of the instinctivity bell curve, who are the most disturbed by their internal struggle between the contradictory forces of instincts versus rationality and self-control.  

As long as both persons implied want either love or FWB, they can get, what they want.   But sadly enough, often there is a disparity, probably when people differ very much in their level of instinctivity.  While one partner experiences all the criteria as given and thus himself as being in a loving relationship, the other is afflicted with some of the problems listed above and keeps on enforcing a distance by insisting to be only FWB.    

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

714. The Big Difference Between Childfree Women And Childfree Men

714.   The Big Difference Between Intrinsically Childfree Women And Childfree Men

A frequent topic discussed in groups or forums of childfree people is the difficulty to find a childfree partner.  

While all childfree people are different from more average people, unfortunately the biological differences between the genders seem to be more pronounced in the childfree than in instotypicals.   (I call those people, whose instinctivity suffices to facilitate the survival of the species, instotypicals.   Thus, all instotypicals are breeders, but being a breeder does not make someone automatically an instotypical)

The following is about intrinsically childfree people by inclination, not about breeders manqué including those by political considerations.

1.  Instotypical women (IW) are driven by an instinctive urge to breed.   Breeding is a function of their body, it requires no use of the brain.  Animals are breeding successfully, unless they have become extinct.
Therefore IWs identify with their body, their focus of self-improvement is upon the body, their self-worth depends upon their looks.   They consider their body as an asset, the improvement of their looks as an investment to find the man with good genes to sire healthy offspring and the man, who can provide for them.   For IW, they are often not the same.
 
Once IW have children, they become not only emotionally attached to them but even addicted to care for them. 
One consequence is their willingness to accept self-sacrifice, which could even be called self-abuse.  They choose the agony of giving birth, health risks, plus dull, unpleasant, abhorrent and annoying activities for years.   By accepting the chores of not only regular cleaning but even the changing of stinking diapers, they make themselves the slaves of selfish, very incompetent and irrational beings, who for many years remain unfit for any intellectually rewarding interaction.   IW accept to be the slaves of pre-human beings, which are more like animals.  
Once they have made these pre-human beings the significant center of their life, once the father is legally bound to pay, the IW often looses interest in the person of the man.  For her, he has become a purse, a bank account, a handyman, a taxi driver.  

2.  Instotypical men (IM) are driven by an instinctive urge to sire.   As the breeding outcome thereof cannot be predicted, the recurrent dishomeostasis does not depend on the breeding success.   The instinctive urge to sire is an urge to have as many offspring with as many healthy women as are available, it does not imply any attachment to the women nor any inclination to take part in raising the brood.   If an IM does, it is the price he is willing to pay to be subscribed to the recurrent access to the same woman's body.   Some men prefer this over the repeated hunting for new victims for siring attempts.    

3.  A childfree woman (CFW), who is not a breeder manqué, is this by lacking the breeding instinct.   This makes a lot of the body focused behavior of the IW obsolete or at least unimportant.  To find a companion to share cultural and intellectual activities, a woman needs other traits and qualities than good looks.  
It is the absence of the dominant instinctivity, which allows childfree women to recognize breeding as an unnecessary burden to refuse it.

4. In contrast to the CFW, childfree men (CFM) cannot be explained or defined by the absence of a breeding instinct, which even male breeders do not have.   For any man, being the provider of children adds a heavy burden upon his life, especially if the number of the children restricts the mother to be only a housewife.    Wishing to avoid as much as possible of the stress of the professional rat race, and additionally disliking the deficit of benefits from being with a woman, who is an overburdened mother, is independent of the magnitude of a man's instinctivity.  
Therefore remaining childfree and finding a CFW is an expression of a general male wish to avoid for himself the disadvantages of raising children. 


This leads to a sad discrepancy: 

The CFW want men, who appreciate their non-physical, cognitive qualities.   But many CFM are attracted by the same siring instinct to the same female breeders as had been those, who have succumbed to breeding.    While they remain CFM, they feel an urge to sire, yet they want the guaranty of no success.   They just do not want to be themselves involved in breeding. 
CFM feel inclined to strive for the same stupid attributes of masculinity, like fitness, muscles, strength, ambition, success, assets, competition.  Thus they appear attractive to the provider seeking breeders, whom they do not want.   They are ignorant, that what attracts breeders often does not interest or even repulse the CFW.   They know nothing except their own struggle with their own siring instinct.   They are not aware, that only the absence of the breeding instinct makes women really CFW.

CFW have a problem finding a suitable match.   CFM are oblivious of what distinguishes CFW from wanna-be breeders, what CFW need and want and how to recognize those truly not afflicted by the breeding instinct.    CFM often get involved with breeders temporarily in the skin of a CFW. 

Sunday, May 18, 2014

713. When One Irrationality Serves To Reinforce Another

713.  When One Irrationality Serves To Reinforce Another

Wars are a manifestation of the ingroup-outgroup instinct.  

The more someone perceives, defines and identifies himself as a bearer of genes and his purpose of existence as to enable his genes to survive and to spread, the more any behavior favoring his own progeny is subjectively logical to him.  Even exploiting and killing outgroup members thus appears permissible and even mandatory to him.   
Rationality ascribing equal rights to any person on this globe makes the ingroup-outgroup obsolete.  But while this instinct it is often consciously, publicly and legally discarded and rejected, it prevails subconsciously.  

When people are torn in cognitive dissonance, when they are oscillating between rational behavior and irrational instinctive urges and tendencies, a variety of irrational beliefs are invented to ease the inner conflict.  
These beliefs allow people to succumb to and to follow their instincts without feeling bad.   For many people, this comes easier than to rationally conquer instincts.  
While denial prevents to recognize and acknowledge the irrationality of the belief itself, being guided by this belief makes the instinctive behavior subjectively appear rational.    Thus the pseudo-rationality of the belief enhances instinctive behavior, even though it is obsolete and harmful.

The following article is an interesting indication of how war is reinforced by religious beliefs. 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140515153811.htm
"World War I -- the “war to end all wars” -- in fact sowed seeds for future international conflicts in a way that has been largely overlooked: through religion, says a historian and author. Widespread belief in the supernatural was a driving force during the war and helped mold all three of the major religions -- Christianity, Judaism and Islam -- paving the way for modern views of religion and violence, he said."

Monday, May 12, 2014

712. Online Discussion Forums: Observing The Peculiarities Of Behavior And The Group Dynamics

712.  Online Discussion Forums: Observing The Peculiarities Of Behavior And The Group Dynamics

The following is a fictive scenario as an illustration.

Imagine someone vacationing on a hot tropical island.   While traveling his shoe lace breaks and he needs to replace it as he needs his shoes when going back to his cold home.   Or maybe shoe laces are especially suitable to fix some item of his luggage.  In short, he has good reasons, why he wants to buy shoe laces.   But this does not imply, that he needs to discuss these reasons with any stranger.

So he asks people, where he can buy the shoe laces.   It is a simple question, and most probably people on the street, at the hotel reception or in the tourist office would give him an equally simple answer.  Either they are sorry not to know.  Or those who do know, give simply the directions how to find the shop.   Nobody in direct contact would start a discussion about his reasons to need shoe laces. 

But in the case of his asking the question on a local web forum concerning the life on this island, people probably would react very differently.   Rational behavior would be the same as that of the people when personally asked.   It would be either a suggestion about where shoe laces are sold or else no reply at all.   Instead he is prone to receive reactions like the following.
  • He may get more or less serious suggestions like those to wear sandals or to walk barefoot.  
  • He may get advice based upon some hearsay or subjective experience, like the one to better wear boots, because of someone having been bitten by a snake.
  • He may be asked to publish a picture of the shoes and the broken shoe laces.  
  • He may be criticized for being too stupid to carry spare shoe laces when traveling.
  • He may be attacked by some locals as being one of those stinking rich foreign tourists, because some other tourists have done mischief. 
  • Some people may divert to discuss their preferred color of shoe laces or the high prices on this island.  
  • Some people may start a game about the most creative ideas of what to use instead of shoe laces.


Reading forum discussions and also being the recipient of reactions to having myself asked questions, the following are my generalized observations.  

The online behavior on forums is determined by the combined effect of the specifics of written and at least impersonal, if not also anonymous communication, and of some behavioral tendencies, which can be partly explained by evolutionary psychology.   
There is also a discrepancy when important but different uses of the web are confounded:  In my example, this is finding information and needing publicity for pursuing a goal vs. social dynamics.   
My example above illustrates this discrepancy, when someone joins any forum for no other reason except getting answers to one or more specific questions, but he is involuntarily exposed to weird and unwarranted reactions of many kinds.

1.  Specifics of written communication

Suitable written postings in any forum are not too long, so they are read, but they nevertheless contain sufficient information for the intended purpose.  Therefore when someone asks any simple question like in my example concerning the purchase of shoe laces, then it suffices to express the question in an unequivocal and precise way.   He could specify, where on the island he stays to be directed to the nearest shop.   But his reason to buy shoe laces are irrelevant.   

Indirect communication without being exposed to the other's direct reaction, and the anonymity of never going to meet in person disinhibits people from being rational, civilized, polite and considerate. 

2.  Distorted reactions for ego benefits

Being able to help and to give advice makes some people feel good about themselves.   Not knowing something, even if this just means a shop selling shoe laces does not trigger this reaction.  Some people even feel bad, when they have to admit to not know something, even a trifle.  

Some people do not listen long and carefully enough to what others are really telling them, before they blur out what they belief to know.  Pouring out their alleged superior knowledge over others makes them more to feel good than just listening. 
Giving advice without being asked for in written communication is a similar behavior.   It is a form of disregard for the abilities of the other and the unknown preceding efforts.   Giving unwanted advice insinuates, that the person is unable to have himself thought of and considered these options already.    

In a posting asking a simple question it suffices, when the question itself is well expressed.   Information inviting and enabling qualified but unwanted advice is not and needs not to be provided.  Any advice, asked for or unwanted, can never be any better than the information, upon which it is based. 

Some people do not so much feel good about the absolute amount of their own knowledge and skills, instead they get the most personal benefit when they subjectively experience an apparent superiority.  They need not so much to know, but to know better and to be right compared with another person.   In the case of any lack of real superiority, they derive this benefit by instead putting others down towards an apparent inferiority.

3.  Dealing with lacking information

Lacking information and being aware thereof makes wise and rational people cautious.   If possible, they acquire more information.   Else they are aware of not being able to know, which of several possible interpretations should be chosen.   They allow themselves and give to others the benefit of the doubt. 

But there are others.   They misunderstand things, they overlook important information, they jump to conclusions, they interpret statements based upon subjective experience.  They do not doubt their own interpretation of what they hear or read.   They project their own needs, attitudes and behavioral tendencies upon others.   They have no clue, that their projections are as incorrect as the others differ from them.

They are usually biased towards an unfavorable devaluation of and an underestimation of the poster of the question.    

This can mainly be explained by:

3.1.  The Dunning-Kruger effect

When people perceive and believe their own knowledge as the general baseline, they often are unable to comprehend, what others write, say or think.   Instead of doubting themselves, and of acknowledging a lack of information, they consider anything incomprehensible automatically as the others' flaws, ignorance and deficiencies. 

They feel entitled to patronize those asking the question.  They often believe to do a favor to those, to whom they proffer unwanted and uninvited advice.  
Without explanations and background information, uninvited advice is often ridiculous and completely irrelevant.   Such advice usually includes options or apparent options, which had already been considered and discarded.   The Dunning-Kruger effect impedes the comprehension, why advice is not needed, unless it is asked for.

3.2.  Attribution of a place and role

For some people, the web is a source for information.   For some questions, the best place to ask a question is a forum, which also has become a social structure formed by the most active members of the forum group.   The person simply asking a question does not automatically intend or wish to be given a place therein.   But the wish to simply get an answer is often not accepted.   Instead any posting on a forum triggers behavior towards attributing a place to the person, who is perceived as a prospective new member to be dealt with. 

Depending on the circumstances, this attribution process can either elicit competition based upon the hierarchy instinct.  In this case, the person gets forced into status struggles, even when the person does not fight, but is passively beaten towards the role of the underdog without any attempt of self-defence.   Luckily enough, those doing this beating can attribute a low place on the hierarchy, but they cannot know, if the target really feels the beating or is protected by a shell of indifference to competition.  

Else people are so different, that the question asked suffices to perceive and to drive away the person as being outgroup, who is not considered as suitable to be allowed into the ingroup. 

The methods for driving someone towards the role of the underdog or towards exclusion are the same.   Anything real or apparent, that can be interpreted as unfavorable is used as a tool for criticism and bashing.  
Alternatively, neither the question nor further clarifications are taken for serious, instead the poster of the question is the target of jokes.  

4.  Herd behavior

The general reactions to a question depend to a certain extent upon the hazard of who reacts first and how.  When the first reply happens to be useful, then all is well.   But if the first reply starts as one of the distorted reactions mentioned above, the herd often follows this tendency.

5.  How to react

When there is no answer to the question, but instead false interpretations are believed, the question is criticized, unwanted and absurd advice is proffered, then further participation in this forum is unwise and futile.  

When people are attempting to push a person into the role of the fool, the incompetent or the underdog, when misunderstandings and omissions are purposefully used to put someone down and to make him appear stupid or wrong, then all elaborate explanations are a waste of time. 
Writing explanatory postings would be like cutting off any of Hydra's heads.   It only instigates nine more heads to grow.  Any careful attempt to explain something only leads to more willful search for using new misunderstandings and more biased misinterpretations for more attacks. 

Sometimes group members like humble newcomers.   When somebody puts himself down and asks for help, calling himself a loser, then he is usually well received.   Somebody admitting weaknesses and placing himself at the bottom does not elicit any attempts to push him there.   As long as he stays at the bottom of the hierarchy, he is treated with pity and kindness.    

Asking rational questions is not an expression of being humble.  Self confidence is perceived as a provocation.    Merely asking questions after already having figured out what to do shows self confidence.   No wish to fight a way up in the hierarchy is also perceived as a provocation.  
Provoking people can be an unavoidable side effect of the pursuit of an important goal.   But when provocation only means reacting to a power struggle, this brings no benefits.

As soon as the search for information is turned into some other people's struggle to gain secondary benefits, the wisest reaction is to withdraw.   There will be no answer and it is better to move on. 

Thursday, May 1, 2014

711. Using A Non-Native Language

711.  Using A Non-Native Language

According to some feedback to this blog and to emails, some men perceive me as appearing hard, harsh, cold and even scary, while I mean to be blunt, direct, sincere and rational in my approach to cope with my emotional predispositions and needs.   My rejection of and discomfort with the typical gender roles adds to this.

This misrepresentation of my person is predominantly caused by my inability to ever reach the full and exact knowledge of how a native speaker of English intuitively and subtly perceives my utterances.    
I am aware of this trap, but this does not suffice.   Communication is between two sides, and this trap can only be avoided by the awareness on both sides. 

People never having experienced this themselves are often not aware of the subtle implications of seriously communicating in a non-native language.   Never having used a foreign language beyond coping in shops and restaurants during vacations, they tend to perceive and interpret any utterances alike, without distinguishing between native and non-native speakers.   It just does not occur to them to consider, that what they hear or read may not be exactly, what was meant and intended to be expressed.
  
In verbal speech the foreign accent serves as a reminder, that someone is a non-native speaker.  But when in written text grammar and spelling are mostly correct, this misleads the native speakers to overlook the problem.  Their spontaneous reaction to their perception and interpretation omits the benefit of the doubt.
Thus non-native speakers like myself are prone to be too often judged by how they express themselves before getting a chance to be evaluated by what has been written.   This precludes not only comprehension but even an attempt to comprehend.  

In entry 32 I already pointed out some of the reasons, why I may be misunderstood:

1.  Inexact use of words

"My knowledge of the meaning of words is sometimes fuzzy, inexact, missing subtlety.  (What I say about words, mostly is also valid for expressions.) I have learned many words by guessing their meaning out of the context, which started with a rough idea and got better with every time seeing it in a different context.   But this is still not the exact meaning, that it has for a native speaker.   
Also, using a dictionary is misleading.   Looking up a word and finding a corresponding word in English misleads me to think, that it would be an exact translation, while it really is not, but has different connotations in the two languages.
This leads to misunderstandings, when I use words, that do not exactly mean, what I think that they would mean."

2.  Apparent exaggerations
 
"Words in the native language have a felt magnitudes and sometimes inhibitions as a result.    The corresponding word in English is just a chain of letters or sounds.   
I have grown into strong inhibitions to use vulgar language in German.   I would recoil from using the German word for a**hole, while not using the English word is a conscious decision by knowing it being inappropriate, but not by feeling inhibitions. 
Whenever I want to put emphasis on something in English, I am using the strongest word, that I can think of, because no word ever feels strong enough, therefore I am probably sometimes appearing to exaggerate without knowing it."  

3.  The style of language depending upon the source of learning

A child grows into learning first the everyday variety of the spoken native language by being immersed into it.   Having learned any foreign language at school and/or having mainly used and still digesting materials like novels and scientific or newspaper articles has also an impact upon my way of expressing myself.    Using words, because they are frequent in those 19th century novels, which are available as audio books on librivox may appear odd and I cannot know this.  


So far, this was based upon my own subjective experience of the difference between using my native German and using other languages.  

But I just read about a study of similar tendencies:  
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140428120659.htm
 
" moral choices could depend on whether you are using a foreign language or your native tongue. A new study from psychologists finds that people using a foreign language take a relatively utilitarian approach to moral dilemmas, making decisions based on assessments of what’s best for the common good."

"That pattern holds even when the utilitarian choice would produce an emotionally difficult outcome"

"The researchers propose that the foreign language elicits a reduced emotional response. That provides a psychological distance from emotional concerns when making moral decisions."

"People are less afraid of losses, more willing to take risks and much less emotionally-connected when thinking in a foreign language."

"You probably learn foreign languages in less emotional settings like a classroom and it takes extra effort. The emotional content of the language is often lost in translation."

Superficially this study seems to suggest, that people may be prone to change their morals and attitudes with the language used.   I doubt this.   It seems to me more probable, that the foreign language allows people to be more genuine in what they say.   The use of a foreign language may instigate a process of introspection, which leads to free people from some emotional thought inhibitions acquired during childhood.   Having gained a better insight into their true attitudes, people are able not only to be more sincere to themselves but they have also the new option to be more consistent and sincere in what they admit to others.

Friday, April 18, 2014

710. Commemorating Not Just One But All Victims Of Cruelty

710.   Commemorating Not Just One But All Victims Of Cruelty

Today christians commemorate the atrocious death of one man, whom they call Jesus and who is presumed to be one of those cruelly killed by the Romans about 2000 years ago.  

There is no rational reason to limit commemoration to just that one guy, the way christians do.  He was not special, even if he ever existed.   There is no reason to commemorate only him for any alleged qualities of his mythical person.    He he was merely one of many thousand victims, who had been crucified by the Romans:
"Crassus crucified 6,000 of Spartacus' followers hunted down and captured after his defeat in battle." 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifixion#Ancient_Rome

It is good to commemorate his sufferings but for what he really is:  A proxy and a representative of all those billions of people, who over the long human history have been made suffer fatal atrocities.   
A minority of them may have deserved their suffering after having first themselves caused extreme agony to others, but most of them are the innocent victims of behaviors caused and even allegedly justified by animal instincts and/or irrational and foolish beliefs.   Nothing can ever justify torturing innocent people and causing them the agony of a slow death like by being crucified.   Each of the unknown and long forgotten victims is as worthy of commemoration as is this christian mythical Jesus.  

Today is a good occasion to commemorate all victims of atrocities, and to remind oneself and to focus the awareness upon the innate option of the members of the species homo sapiens.   We can be human by behaviors clearly distinguished from those of animals. 

Being endowed with the capacity for rationality, for empathy and for having a sufficient theory of mind is not only a chance for a better life for oneself, but it also bears both the appreciation for and the obligation of consideration and responsibility for others. 
  
True and real humans have the choice to not behave like animals.   

Those who do not have this choice, are animals.   Being genetically a member of the species homo sapiens does not suffice to be called human.   This title has to be earned by dignified behavior, which includes to refrain from causing atrocities to other human beings.  



Thursday, April 3, 2014

709.   Monogamy Exists In Nature

The more men are not only promiscuous by instinct, but also abusive by attitude, the more they also demand women to accept self-abuse as their natural purpose.   
These men excuse this by claiming, that allegedly monogamy were unnatural and would not exist as an innate inclination in any species. 
They misrepresent monogamy as a cultural artifact repressing the freedom of pursuing the fulfillment of needs, which are allegedly not only male, but the same for both genders.   Such men are in denial, that in reality they demand an unrestricted freedom for abusive male selfishness.  

Here is an example of the contrary, even though of course the sample is small:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140318212248.htm
"A new study shows that Azara's owl monkeys (Aotus azarae) are unusually faithful. The investigation of 35 offspring born to 17 owl monkey pairs turned up no evidence of cheating; the male and female monkeys that cared for the young were the infants' true biological parents."

Friday, March 14, 2014

708. Men's Implicit Disrespect And Disregard For Women's Minds

708.  Men's Implicit Disrespect And Disregard For Women's Minds


Men are afflicted by feeling recurrent urges, for which they consider women's bodies as the best remedy.   But this is biologically asymmetrical, there are by far not as many women with complementary needs.    
Depending on many factors, men are coping quite differently with this asymmetry.   Unfortunately, these methods of coping show implicitly a lot of disrespect, disregard, denial and depreciation for women's brains and cognitive qualities.  
  1. In some cultures more than in others, men feel entitled to abuse women, whenever their social or physical power enables them to do so.   They do not even consider to owe anything to their victims.
  2. Men feel entitled to abuse women's body, whenever the women seem to sell their self-abuse as prostitutes as an alleged choice.
  3. Gender roles in many societies generally attribute to men the role of being a source of material benefits, even when there is commitment and no abuse.    In marriage and often also in cohabitation, the man provides all or parts of the standard of living for his wife or partner.  During phases of courting and dating, or in any other forms of non-cohabitation, men feel obliged to pamper women by spending money on her for invitations to restaurants and events, and expensive gifts.   This is a social norm, women are encouraged to expect this.   Nevertheless men implicitly compensate for their asymmetrical physiological needs by material benefits.  
  4. If men do not want to pay and nevertheless also do not want to feel as abusers or recipients of a favor, they (as pointed out in entry 707) belief the myth, that they could sufficiently please women physically and that in this case women would not experience and perceive the asymmetry.   This is a fallacy based upon male ignorance of biological facts. 
In all these constellations, men asymmetrically want access to female bodies, but they either give nothing or only material, non-personal advantages.  

They do not give anything of real value.   They do not give themselves.  
 
They either do not feel a need or they feel no reason and not obligation to share their mind, their cognition, their cultural and intellectual pursuits, their thoughts and feelings.   They want to connect bodies without connecting minds, without creating a unit of bonding, attachment and togetherness.  

This is a very blatant disregard, disrespect and depreciation of women.    I acknowledge, that many men are not even aware of this.  They are ignorant of more appropriate alternatives to the indignity of merely material compensation.   But this ignorance can only explain the plight of women, it does not justify it.   


Where are those few men hidden, who have true mindmate quality, who have a stronger need for the connection of the mind than for the connection of the body?

Thursday, March 13, 2014

707. Selfish Men's Delusion And Myth

707.   Selfish Men's Delusion And Myth

Recognizing the biological reality, that only a man has a recurrent physiological urge to get rid of body waste, which women do not have, enables him to acknowledge, what a woman really does, when she contributes to his maintenance of his homeostasis.   He appreciates this as a gift of love from her.   As a caring and equal partner, he returns his own gift of love, by equally fulfilling her needs: He bonds with her in committed monogamy, he reciprocates her emotional attachment and the feeling of belonging together, and of being a unit, he shares intellectual intimacy, he enables her to feel significant and protected in a reliable save haven. 

But there are also those men, who want access to women's bodies without giving any of the above, and nevertheless they avoid to experience themselves as selfish or abusive.  The complete denial of the biological asymmetry is their method.  
These men have created a myth, which is perpetuated by the male dominated media:   This myth is a collective male delusion and fallacy, that allegedly women would have the same need for sex as men and would therefore also equally benefit.   This claim serves as these men's justification to refuse giving anything to the women or to ever accept any obligation to fulfill women's different needs.  

But it gets even worse.   Not all women are brainwashed by the oversexed social norms, some are quite aware of their own reality, that a behavior, which every animal without a rational brain does by instinct, is just too banal and stupid to be bothered about it.   For an intellectual woman, the question, how much or how little she enjoys a book, an art exhibition or a theater play is so much more significant than the question, how much she enjoys food or sex.   When a woman states this comparison about food, most men are able to grasp this.   But not about sex, which blurs male brains.   Whenever a woman has the self-confidence to insist, that she considers the male needs merely as an unavoidable banality in a relationship, most men are just unable to accept or respect this attitude.   Instead of recognizing, that some women's cognition is above such banalities, these men defame such women as flawed, inhibited or repressed.  

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

706. Puzzled About The Five Second Rule

706.  Puzzled About The Five Second Rule

I first heard about the five second rule when visiting the USA.   Until then I had never thought twice about throwing away dropped food unless it could be washed.   The city sidewalks have a layer of dirt, which contains stuff like spittle, vomit, dog feces.   On the soles of my shoes, I bring particles thereof onto the floor at home.   The thought of eating these particles causes me disgust.  I would never eat anything unwashed from the floor. 

When googling the five second rule, the result surprised me.   There were dozens of articles seriously discussing the question, how many germs a piece of food gets contaminated with in a few seconds and how dangerous this could be.   In most of those articles, the possibility of feeling disgust is not even mentioned.   

Today I found another example of this:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140310102212.htm
"Food picked up just a few seconds after being dropped is less likely to contain bacteria than if it is left for longer periods of time, according to new research. The findings suggest there may be some scientific basis to the '5 second rule' -- the urban myth about it being fine to eat food that has only had contact with the floor for five seconds or less. The study, undertaken by final year biology students monitored the transfer of the common bacteria Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus from a variety of indoor floor types (carpet, laminate and tiled surfaces) to toast, pasta, biscuit and a sticky sweet when contact was made from 3 to 30 seconds."

"The Aston team also carried out a survey of the number of people who employ the five-second rule. The survey showed that:
87% of people surveyed said they would eat food dropped on the floor, or already have done so
55% of those that would, or have, eaten food dropped in the floor are women
81% of the women who would eat food from the floor would follow the 5 second rule"

I am wondering, if those people following the five second rule generally feel less disgust, or if they are less aware of what is on their floor or if for them only exists and counts, what is big enough to be visible.   

But after doing an extensive search, I finally I found one quote, where even an American expresses disgust: 

http://www.drozfans.com/dr-ozs-advice/dr-oz-5-second-rule-debunked-eat-food-off-the-floor-or-not/
"Personally, I am disgusted by the idea of eating something that has fallen on the floor… the same place you walk with the bottom of your shoe… which is the same place that steps on things like dog poop.  Yuck! "

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

705. Age Is No Protection

705.  Age Is No Protection  
In entry 246, I wrote about how women's lives are overshadowed by conscious and subconscious realistic fears.  
 
Mentioning my apprehension, that male libido can be a hazard to women, I have been getting the reaction, that at my age I were too old to be at risk.   Unfortunately, this is not the case.   

I just read in the newspaper, that a woman of 64, which is also my age, has been brutally raped by a 15 year old boy, while alone doing exercises in the forest.  
Age is no protection against the risk of becoming the victim of sexual violence or of the insult of the uninvited approach with the proposal of self-abuse.  

This risk depends on three factors:
  • the man's libido
  • the man's cognitive control
  • the triggering power of the attraction of the victim's body

The attraction of women's bodies diminishes with age.   As long as young women are available, they are predators' first choice as victims.   This keeps the focus away from the old ones and this puts the young women at the highest risk.   

Men become dangerous predators, when the libido is stronger than their cognitive control.   Male libido also diminishes with age, while growing maturity usually adds to the cognitive control.  
Therefore the younger a man, the higher the probability of his being a dangerous predator.  

But cognitive control can not only be weak because of mere immaturity.  It can be lacking also due to mental or emotional disturbance and derangement.   
In the case of (predominantly young) men with high libido and insufficient cognitive control, young women would be the preferred victims, but if none is available, any woman of any age is at risk.    

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

704. The Irrational Distinction Between The Abuse Of Women And Of Children

704.  The Irrational Distinction Between The Abuse Of Women And Of Children

A German politician has been caught as suspicious of owning child pornography.  Reported in the medias has been his possession of pictures of naked boys, which are not explicitly sexual.  Such pictures are actually not illegal in Germany.  

The German newspaper "Rheinische Post" writes today.  
"Die Bundesregierung plant, den Handel mit Nacktfotos von Kindern zu verbieten. Niemand dürfe mit den Körpern von Kindern und Jugendlichen Geschäfte machen" 
The federal government plans to make the trading naked pictures of children illegal.  Nobody should deal in bodies of children and adolescents.  

"Diese Bilder verletzen die Rechte von Kindern". 
These pictures violate the right of children.
http://www.rp-online.de/politik/handel-mit-kinder-nacktfotos-wird-verboten-aid-1.4046914     

Of course I agree with these quotes.   But it makes me angry, that all outrage and wish to protect is reserved to children, while the exactly the same treatment of adult women is considered as acceptable, normal and reasonable.   

There is a cruel fallacy in this arbitrary distinction of the victims by their age.   This fallacy is the entire focus upon the biological suitability of the victims for male needs and the subsequent denial of the damage done to victimized women.   

Abuse (by men) can be defined as the selfish, inconsiderate and irresponsible use of another human being's body, which a man in the state of dishomeostasis uses as an object for the purpose of getting rid of his body waste.  

Children are not biologically suitable for this.   Therefore nobody disputes children's need to be protected from all abuse, direct and indirect by pornographic representations.

But whenever women are concerned, the view is distorted.   Even though adult women are biologically suitable for sexuality, this does not imply any justification for abuse.  Women are entitled to be only targeted for a form of sexuality, which is no abuse, because it fulfills their emotional needs. 
It is generally accepted, that humans do not exist to be exploited as slaves, just because humans are suitable to do hard labor and others feel a need to make a profit from it.   Women do not exist to be abused, just because they are biologically suitable and men have physiological urges.   This still needs to be accepted.

This first distortion not only justifies the abuse of female bodies by their biological suitability, but the consequence thereof is also the male denial, that using a woman's body without emotional attachment and commitment even is abuse.  

The second distortion is the different interpretation of the damage done depending on the age of the abused victim. 
Only the damage done to children is recognized as such and attributed to the abuse.  
When abused women become drug addicts, alcoholics or psychiatric cases, this is not recognized and acknowledged as a consequence of what men have done to them.  Instead it is falsely attributed to genetic or personality defects.   
According to male attitudes, a sane and healthy woman can be abused without suffering, a woman, who cannot be abused without harm and trouble is defective and flawed.   Women are not considered to need protection against abuse, they are expected to be willing to be fixed, if they lack sufficient resilience.  
Women's self-abuse in exchange for material benefits is mistaken as a choice and as a healthy disposition.   Men's denial, that such self-abuse needs to be attributed to social problems depriving women of other options adds to the other male justifications of abuse.   The frequent delay between the abuse and self-abuse and manifestations of being damaged adds to the male denial of the true causes for the damage.
 

Therefore I am correcting the above quotes:  
Nobody should deal in bodies of other human beings, no matter the age.  

These [naked or pornographic] pictures violate the right of human beings of any age.

Suitability does not suffice to justify harming others.   

Those men, who consume pornography, who abuse prostitutes, who are promiscuous treating and perceiving women as mere toilets for their body waste, are hypocrites, if they demands more protection only for children.