730. Research Concerning The Distinction Between Alley Dogs And Nice Guys

730.  Research Concerning The Distinction Between Alley Dogs And Nice Guys

In previous entries I have been speculating about the observed strong distinction between annoying predators and nice considerate guys. 

Long ago, while still being ignorant of evolutionary effects, I naively thought most men to be nice guys, and the predators to be sick exceptions.   I attributed being approached by too many disgusting men as an envisaged target for abuse as bad luck.   

Then I learned the sad reality from evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology.   Predators were and are those most successful in forcing procreation upon women.   Because there also were some decent nice guys, I started to speculate about what then seemed the most plausible, which is a continuous scale of instinctivity between two extremes.     Yet following also my admittedly biased inclinations derived from my personal experiences, I compared the two extremes mostly as if there were a dichotomy.   Alley dogs, whom I loathe, at one extreme, and those nice guys, who are suitable as a partner, at the other extreme, seemed to be the most recognizable.  

The following research confirms, that I was not completely wrong in my bias towards the dichotomy.   

Stay or stray? Evidence for alternative mating strategy phenotypes in both men and women
Rafael Wlodarski , John Manning , R. I. M. Dunbar
http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/11/2/20140977

"In all comparative analyses, humans always fall on the borderline between obligate monogamy and polygamy. Here, we use behavioural indices (sociosexuality) and anatomical indices (prenatal testosterone exposure indexed by 2D : 4D digit ratio) from three human populations to show that this may be because there are two distinct phenotypes in both sexes. While males are more promiscuous and display higher prenatal testosterone exposure than females overall, our analyses also suggest that the within-sex variation of these variables is best described by two underlying mixture models, suggesting the presence of two phenotypes with a monogamous/promiscuous ratio that slightly favours monogamy in females and promiscuity in males."

"The extent to which any one individual pursues a short-term mating strategy (‘unrestricted’ strategy involving promiscuous mating with multiple partners) or a long-term mating strategy (‘restricted’ strategy favouring the formation of exclusive and extended pair-bonds) has been referred to as their ‘sociosexual orientation’"

"Although these two strategies could well just be opposite ends of the same continuum, it has sometimes been assumed (albeit without any real evidence) that these represent two distinct male phenotypes: those that pursue a more promiscuous, unrestricted mating strategy (‘stray’) and those that focus on investing more heavily in their offspring in long-term relationships (‘stay’) ......  Although individual differences in female mating strategies have sometimes been noted in the literature ....., the possibility that women might also exhibit contrasting mating strategies has received considerably less attention."

"The SOI-R indexes an individual's psychological degree of sexual promiscuity on a continuum running from restricted (monogamous) to unrestricted (promiscuous). The 2D : 4D ratio is an anatomical marker for fetal testosterone exposure and testosterone receptor-site density ....., and reflects the level of prenatal testosterone effects in the adult phenotype ..... Across primates, 2D : 4D ratio correlates with mating system ..... and provides a biological marker for mating strategy."

"Modelling confirmed the existence of two phenotypes within each sex, one of low (restricted) sociosexuality and the other of high (unrestricted) sociosexuality. High-sociosexuality males make up a slightly larger proportion of the male distribution in each case, and low-sociosexuality females make up a slightly larger proportion of the female distributions."

The 2D:4D ratio is calculated by dividing the length of the index finger of the right hand by the length of the ring finger of the right hand. A longer index finger will result in a ratio higher than 1, while a longer ring finger will result in a ratio of less than 1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digit_ratio

729. Research Concerning Women's Evolutionary Plight

729.  Research Concerning Women's Evolutionary Plight

"Imagine the following scenario: a woman and a man are having a conversation. She is interested in the conversation, and is friendly, smiling and warm. He interprets her behaviour as sexual interest.

Or maybe: a man is sexually attracted to a woman he has just met, and signals this in various ways. She thinks that he is just being friendly."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150129094120.htm

When I was young, I again and again experienced a slightly different variety of the above scenario.  

I wanted conversation, either only or at least extensively for a long time before even considering anything more.   Being still naive I projected upon men the same needs, wishes and interests as are my own.  

But my mistake was limited to being theoretical.  Soon after the initiation of interaction, men's behavior became so clearly a nuisance, that it could not be mistaken for being merely friendly.

My own behavior showed very clearly, that I wanted to be taken for serious, to talk about cultural, intellectual topics the same way as men do between themselves.  I was not flirtatious, I was purposefully dressed in an anti-sexy way, which should have discouraged any misinterpretation.  

But I had no chance against the obnoxious male behavior. It did not appear like a misperception.  I experienced it more like behavior triggered automatically by nothing more than merely being in the presence of a woman.  This was enough to bring out the worst in men, to make them superficial, flirtatious, seductive and to deactivate any ability for serious conversation and communication.  

I suffered doubly.   I suffered from the degradation and objectification by being mistaken as prey, and I suffered from being deprived of fulfilling my own great need for intellectual exchange. 

The more women are superficial, uneducated and stupid, the more they feel flattered when being approached as prey.  Such women may not experience the nuisance the same way as I did.   But for educated and intelligent women, it is a serious plight. 

In those days, I had no clue, why I was treated as if I were nothing better than a brainless body.   Today, science and the availability of information on the web allow women and men to gain awareness of such misperceptions and misunderstandings.   

"In most areas of psychology, there is little to no difference between genders: mental capacity, intellectual achievements, food preferences -- men and women are all more or less the same. But when it comes to reproduction and challenges related to finding a sexual partner, there are suddenly differences to be found.

A man's ability to reproduce is all about seizing every opportunity. He has to spend both money and time on courtship, which still may not lead to sex. But it costs even more to not try, because then he won't be able to reproduce.

A woman can have sex with multiple men over a short period of time without producing any more children. So for men, it is a low-risk, potentially high-reward situation for men to have sex with women whenever the opportunity presents itself.

On the other hand, the cost is potentially great for a woman if she thinks that a man is more sexually interested than she is. A woman risks pregnancy, birth, nursing and raising the child, as well as lost oppotunities to reproduce with others. Across thousands of generations, women's psychology has evolved to set the bar higher, which means they need much clearer signals than men before they consider sex."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150129094120.htm

Awareness for those differences is needed as a first step, but it does no suffice to change women's plight.   Needed is the recognition, that only a fair balance between giving and receiving can improve the situation of women.   

Men need to learn, that instead of demanding and pursuing sexual homeostasis as if it were an entitlement, they have to offer in return the full meeting of women's non-physical, cognitive and emotional needs.    

Women have no chance to get this without men's insight and cooperation.

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

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.

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."

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.  

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.   

683. Research Confirms Biological Reasons Of Women's Plight

683.  Research Confirms Biological Reasons Of Women's Plight

Sometimes things appear to me so obvious, that I am surprised, when they are confirmed by research, which is presented as if it were a novelty.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130921092236.htm

"A recently published study strongly suggests men succumb to sexual temptations more than women -- for example, cheating on a partner -- because they experience strong sexual impulses, not because they have weak self-control."

"Overall, these studies suggest that men are more likely to give in to sexual temptations because they tend to have stronger sexual impulse strength than women do," 

"But when people exercise self-control in a given situation, this sex difference in behavior is greatly reduced. It makes sense that self-control, which has relatively recent evolutionary origins compared to sexual impulses, would work similarly -- and as effectively -- for both men and women,"

The misery and plight enforced upon women as a consequence of the physiological asymmetry between the genders is one major topic of this blog. The devastating consequences of men's recurrent dishomeostasis experienced as the urge to use female bodies for the removal of body waste cannot be explained by the mere lack of self-control. 

The reality of this drastic asymmetry is evident by the fact, that men often obtain the abuse of female bodies not only by payment and manipulation, but also by violence.  The latter is enabled by the unfortunate co-evolution of the urge towards abuse with the superior physical strength to force it upon unwilling victims.   

The evolution of these devastating strong male urges seems to make a lot of sad sense, when looking only at how it serves procreation.   Evolution serves the survival of the species, not the emotional and cognitive wellbeing of individuals.        

Female animals willingly copulate at the moment of estrus due to their lacking the cognitive ability to anticipate the consequences of giving birth and raising the offspring.   

When the human cognition evolved, this enabled women also to anticipate the experience of pregnancy and child rearing.  Some women perceive this is a horror, an abuse of their bodies and a form of slavery.  Logically they attempt to avoid this.  

The human species would probably have been extinct by now, had not the further biological evolution counterbalanced this by hiding the female estrus and by adding more male urges plus physical strength.   Thus pregnancies continued to be caused, no more only by compliance due to ignorance, but also by force upon unwilling women.  


In spite of more legal equality in modern western society, even in recent times the plight of women has been perpetuated by two main fallacies.  Both fallacies deny the physiological differences and attribute all asymmetry between the genders to education and culture.   Both fallacies are based upon the projection of the level of the own urges upon the other gender.

1.  The fallacy of the so called 'sexual revolution' is the fallacy of men, who project their higher urges upon women and claim, that women only feel abused due to sexual repression.   This dangerous male fallacy has proclaimed that if women were liberated, they would as much as men want to copulate like alley dogs and would as little as men need emotional commitment.

2.  The feminist fallacy overestimates men's willpower and unrealistically demands men to have the same easy self-control as women.   This is based upon the mistake to project their own lower female physiological urges upon men.   More about my suggestion for a more rational feminism in entry 566.  

 

According to the study, men's problem is not self-control, but the stronger sexual impulse.   But it is a banality to state, that stronger urges require stronger self-control.    Thus the same ability to exercise self-control does not automatically mean the same success of willpower over stronger urges.  

Thus any abolition of the abuse of women requires a change in the attitude and behavior of both genders.   This requires a shift of the focus away from both fallacies.  Neither the female demand of more self-control by men and nor the male myth of female repression leads to any improvement of women's plight.  

The focus needs to be on the full acknowledgment of the disruption and harm caused by the excessive male urges and a subsequent change of both men's and women's attitude and behavior.  

1.  Men need to acknowledge their instinctive urges for recurrent restoration of physiological homeostasis as asymmetrical and not reciprocal.  They need to learn and take for serious, that women have different needs.  Men need to accept the biological reality, that the magnitude of male urges cannot and will not be requited by women.   Men need to give up the devastating myth of the existence of less consciously felt but equally strong urges as being the women's defect, and the belief in this myth as the justification to overcome this alleged defect by hook or crook as if this would ultimately be beneficial for the women.  This is a male delusion with cruel consequences for the victims. 

Instead men need to recognize, that the only realistic expression of consideration and responsibility towards women means to refrain from commodifying and objectifying them.    

2.  Women need to acknowledge, how little men have control over the automatic triggering of their instinctive urges towards abuse, whenever they are exposed to the perception of stimuli from female bodies.  This is aggravated, when men are in the state of high dishomeostasis.  

Even those decent and nice guys, who have not the least conscious intention to let abuse follow the perception of any unwelcome triggers, need more self-control for stronger stimulation.   Whenever they need all their available self-control to cope with these urges, this may leave them depleted of any further willpower, which they need to cope with other urges.  This may make it more difficult to resist other behaviors like overeating or smoking.   This can be concluded from studies about the depletion of willpower as presented in entry 524.   

(The following may sound like a far fetched speculation: I am wondering, if obesity, alcoholism and other self-harming widespread behaviors of lacking willpower are not partially enhanced by the oversexation of the media and of everyday life.  Not abusing women may deplete many decent men of so much of their willpower, that they more easily succumb to other urges instead.)

 
Therefore women too have a responsibility and a moral obligation to be considerate of men's physiological affliction.   Women need to avoid triggering male instincts towards their bodies, unless they are in private with a man, with whom they either have or want a relationship. 

Most people would agree, that it is cruel to show a bill of money to a beggar and then tell him to keep his fingers off, because it is not for him to have.  This invites the beggar's attempt, if he grabs it, while of course this is not a justification.   The beggar needs willpower not to grab it.   He would not need willpower, as long as people just pass him by.   A woman presenting herself nearly naked or in any provocative attire does the same to any man in dishomeostasis, whenever she wants him to keep off her body.    

As unfortunate as it is, the misunderstandings between the genders lead to antagonistic struggles, in which in the end both genders suffer.   Men are able to enforce abuse, but women react by materialistic exploitation.  
The abuse of women and the exploitation of men can only be abolished by cooperation based upon the realistic acknowledgment of the biological asymmetry.   Studies like the one cited are a good beginning, but a much more widespread recognition of the true problem is needed.      

681. Strong Instincts Are Women's And Men's Common Enemy

681.  Strong Instincts Are Women's And Men's Common Enemy
 

This blog may appear biased, because I am a woman writing about what kind of a mindmate I am looking for.  Thus I am focusing upon the harm done by men's strong instincts to women, which I want to prevent myself from suffering, while the damage done by foolish and also instinct driven women to men does not concern me.   

This omission is no denial of the reality, that both masculinity and femininity as expressions of instinctive roles, which are equally dysfunctional for individual happiness.  

Male and female instincts have evolved in the animal ancestors to complement each other for an optimized success of procreation.  These instincts force people to make both themselves sacrifices for their offspring and they force them also upon others.  By these instincts, personal sufferings does not impede procreation.  
High instinctivity leads to a high identification with and display of masculinity in men and of femininity in women.  The instinctive urges cause different varieties of harm to the other gender.   Masculinity leads to the abuse women's bodies without attachment and commitment.   Femininity leads to the exploitation of men as providers by choosing attachment only to the children.
 

The instinctive attractions are often symmetrical, men with high instinctivity expressed as strong masculinity are attracted to women with high instinctivity expressed as strong femininity and vice versa.    In this case, the most abusive men fall for the most exploitative women and the most exploitative women are also the most prone to become victims of abuse by a bad choice.

But whenever there is a mismatch in the amount of instinctivity, then the partner with the stronger instinctivity is very prone to hurt and harm the less instinctive and more rational person, who does not reciprocate due to not being equally driven by instinct to cause harm.   

Thus, a battle between the genders is irrational.  Both genders have one common enemy, which is the subconscious power of animal instinctive forces over them, of which they are unfortunately usually not even aware.   If both genders would learn to reject, repress and fight against all instincts, which hurt and harm others, then male abuse and female exploitation could be if not eliminated then at least drastically reduced.  

 

Masculinity and femininity are not needed for the forming of bonded and committed couples.   The biological and therefrom deducted behavioral differences between the genders are only biologically needed for procreation.   Strong instincts only serve the compulsive production of offspring overriding any rational decision for or against breeding as a mere choice.  

There is evidence, that the difference between masculinity and femininity is obsolete for couples' happiness, when couples bond as individuals and not as breeders.  This evidence are all those lesbian and gay couples, who are getting married, where this is legal, and who are able and motivated to form longterm bonded unions based upon intellectual, emotional and physical intimacy.  

These couples can be a model for a new form of heterosexual couples, who also are focusing on equality in spite of belonging to different genders.   

When procreation is not the goal, then egalitarian models of choosing and preferring similarity are a rational option for all couples, also for heterosexual ones.   This includes the option to choose psychologically androgynous partners with only a low instinctivity towards being masculine or feminine.   

The happiness in a committed union of two individuals does not require any differences.  If only differences would attract each other, then twins, even identical twins, could not be so strongly bonded and attached as they often are.   Two persons, who are very much alike each other, could become attached like twins, with the addition of physical intimacy.

674. The Omitted Cognition In The Interpretation Of Research Results Concerning Monogamy

674.   The Omitted Cognition In The Interpretation Of Research Results Concerning Monogamy

Research on questions of evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology are very valuable methods towards explaining, why the subconscious power of instincts interferes so much with the conscious and cognitive goals and needs of humans.    But it is overdoing this, when humans are mistaken for being not more than animals with a specific instrumental intelligence only serving a better success in fulfilling instinctive urges.    The unique human cognition has some special implications, which need to be taken into account.  


Evolution of Monogamy in Humans the Result of Infanticide Risk, New Study Suggests
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130729161558.htm

"Infants are most vulnerable when they are fully dependent on their mother because females delay further conception while nursing slowly developing young. This leads to the threat from unrelated males, who can bring the next conception forward by killing the infant. Sharing the costs of raising young both shortens the period of infant dependency and can allow females to reproduce more quickly."

Monogamy Evolved as a Mating Strategy: New Research Indicates That Social Monogamy Evolved as a Result of Competition
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130729172244.htm

"They found convincing support for the hypothesis that monogamy arose as a mating strategy where males could not defend access to more than one female. Monogamy is associated with low density of females, low levels of home-range overlap, and indirectly, with their diets. The study showed that monogamy evolves in species that rely on high quality but patchily distributed food sources, such as meat and fruit. In contrast, in herbivores, which rely on more abundant resources, social monogamy is rare."

"The analysis did not include humans, and the researchers are sceptical that these results tell us much about the evolution of human breeding systems.

Clutton-Brock added, "It is debatable whether humans should be classified as monogamous. Because all the African apes are polygamous and group living, it is likely that the common ancestor of hominids was also polygamous. One possibility is that the shift to monogamy in humans may be the result in the change of dietary patterns that reduce female density. While another is that slow development of juveniles required extended care by both sexes. However, reliance by humans on cultural adaptations means that it is difficult to extrapolate from ecological relationships in other animals.""

This tunnel view on monogamy is another example, how the special and unique qualities of the human cognition is overlooked or omitted.   

• Humans have emotional and intellectual needs, which can be selectively fulfilled with one specific partner more than with any or with most others.  
• For some humans, these emotional and intellectual needs are stronger or at least as strong as the instinctive needs to breed.
• Humans have the ability to recognize and distinguish other humans as individuals by invisible and exteriorly unnoticeable traits, which can only be discovered and recognized by verbal and cognition based communication.
• Humans have a memory for information gained, which allows them to anticipate the modalities of the fulfillment of emotional and intellectual needs in the future.
• Humans have the ability to comprehend the consequences of their own behavior as a determinant for this future fulfillment.

Therefore monogamy in humans can be more than an evolutionary strategy towards breeding success, instead being an expression of the unique human cognitive evolution towards surpassing the yoke of the full control by animal instincts.    The unique human cognition enables them to decide, that, when and how monogamy is the best choice for a long-term fulfillment of those predominant needs, which are more than just instinctive urges to breed.   

671. Research On Predators' Brains

671.   Research On Predators' Brains

There is a wide variety of men when judging them by the harm, which they inflict on women.  

Nice, responsible, considerate guys know how to treat a woman without hurting her.   They feel an own innate wish for bonding, for monogamy, for a close and committed relationship with a woman perceived as a person.  

Predators, jerks, abusers are instinct driven alley dogs, who make women's life miserable by mistaking their bodies as toilets for male body waste.  

Both varieties exist and of course there are mixed forms between these extremes.   Explaining the difference includes defining the baseline.

 

1.  One possible way to interpret this distinction is to see the abuse of women as the direct and logical effect of unconstrained male libido.   What enables some men to be nice and decent is their special talent or gift to appreciate and respect women to an extent, which suffices to deactivate all destructive and excessive impacts of their libido.   Their recognition and perception of women as companions is an achievement based upon this special aptitude, which may be an expression of emotional intelligence or even an independent cognitive ability.    It is something, which is lacking in animals and in abusers.

2.  The alternative interpretation is defining drastic behavioral urges as a disorder and call it hypersexuality, which is supposed to be an addiction.   This interpretation and definition omits and overlooks to take into any account the impact upon the abused victims.   Their suffering is condoned and misinterpreted as normal, as merely collateral damage.   Hypersexuality is only considered as problematic, when there are unintended and not wished for consequences for the abusers themselves.

I consider the first explanation as more plausible, because the human species is still evolving further towards the development of predominant cognitive talents and abilities.   This ongoing evolution of the unique qualities of the human brain to be more rational than driven by instinctive urges strengthens the ability to make wise decisions, which can override the power of animal instincts.  

 

There has been done a study on abusers' brains.

Sexual desire, not hypersexuality, is related to neurophysiological responses elicited by sexual images.
Vaughn R. Steele, PhD, Cameron Staley, PhD, Timothy Fong, MD and Nicole Prause, PhD.  

http://www.socioaffectiveneuroscipsychol.net/index.php/snp/article/view/20770/28995
 

"Background: Modulation of sexual desires is, in some cases, necessary to avoid inappropriate or illegal sexual behavior (downregulation of sexual desire) or to engage with a romantic partner (upregulation of sexual desire). Some have suggested that those who have difficulty downregulating their sexual desires be diagnosed as having a sexual ‘addiction’. This diagnosis is thought to be associated with sexual urges that feel out of control, high-frequency sexual behavior, consequences due to those behaviors, and poor ability to reduce those behaviors. However, such symptoms also may be better understood as a non-pathological variation of high sexual desire. Hypersexuals are thought to be relatively sexual reward sensitized, but also to have high exposure to visual sexual stimuli. Thus, the direction of neural responsivity to sexual stimuli expected was unclear. If these individuals exhibit habituation, their P300 amplitude to sexual stimuli should be diminished; if they merely have high sexual desire, their P300 amplitude to sexual stimuli should be increased. Neural responsivity to sexual stimuli in a sample of hypersexuals could differentiate these two competing explanations of symptoms."

Methods: Fifty-two (13 female) individuals who self-identified as having problems regulating their viewing of visual sexual stimuli viewed emotional (pleasant sexual, pleasant-non-sexual, neutral, and unpleasant) photographs while electroencephalography was collected.

Results: Larger P300 amplitude differences to pleasant sexual stimuli, relative to neutral stimuli, was negatively related to measures of sexual desire, but not related to measures of hypersexuality.

Conclusion: Implications for understanding hypersexuality as high desire, rather than disordered, are discussed. "

"In conclusion, the first measures of neural reactivity to visual sexual and non-sexual stimuli in a sample reporting problems regulating their viewing of similar stimuli fail to provide support for models of pathological hypersexuality, as measured by questionnaires. Specifically, differences in the P300 window between sexual and neutral stimuli were predicted by sexual desire, but not by any (of three) measures of hypersexuality. If sexual desire most strongly predicts neural responses to sexual stimuli, management of sexual desire, without necessarily addressing some of the proposed concomitants of hypersexuality, might be an effective method for reducing distressing sexual feelings or behaviors."

The study backs up my notion, that male libido is by itself a problem causing harm to women.   Therefore it should be not only considered as problematic, when it has detrimental effects upon the men themselves, but whenever is causes degradation, commodification and objectification of women.   It should be considered already as a problem, while it still is restricted to men's deranged attitudes, before any harm is done to women.  

664. Politics And The Greed Of Physically Strong Men

664.   Politics And The Greed Of Physically Strong Men

Physically strong men are not only a hazard to women, but also as politicians:

http://www.world-science.net/othernews/130519_politics

"Men’s upper-body strength pre­dicts their po­lit­i­cal opin­ions re­gard­ing how much the gov­ern­ment should spend on the poor, ac­cord­ing to new re­search."

"The re­search­ers col­lect­ed da­ta on bi­cep size, socioe­co­nom­ic sta­tus, and sup­port for eco­nom­ic redis­tri­bu­tion from hun­dreds of peo­ple in the Un­ited States, Ar­gen­ti­na, and Den­mark. In line with their hy­pothe­ses, they said, the data showed that wealthy men with high upper-body strength were less likely to sup­port redis­tri­bu­tion,"

"Men with low upper-body strength, on the oth­er hand, were less likely to sup­port their own self-in­ter­est. Wealthy men of this group showed less re­sist­ance to redis­tri­bu­tion, while poor men showed less sup­port, the re­search­ers found."

"They saw no link be­tween upper-body strength and redis­tri­bu­tion opin­ions among wom­en, though."

"Psy­chol­o­gists say the effect may re­flect psy­cho­log­i­cal traits that evolved in re­sponse to our early an­ces­tral en­vi­ron­ments."

"Among our early an­ces­tors, de­ci­sions about re­source dis­tri­bu­tion weren’t made in court­hous­es or par­lia­ments, but through shows of strength."

"The re­sults sug­gest an ev­o­lu­tion­ary per­spec­tive may help to il­lu­mi­nate po­lit­i­cal mo­tiva­t­ions, at least those of men, he added. “Many pre­vi­ous stud­ies have shown that peo­ple’s po­lit­i­cal views can­not be pre­dicted by stand­ard eco­nom­ic mod­els… This is among the first stud­ies to show that po­lit­i­cal views may be ra­t­ional in anoth­er sense, in that they’re de­signed by nat­u­ral se­lec­tion to func­tion in the con­di­tions re­cur­rent over hu­man ev­o­lu­tion­ary his­to­ry.”"

I evaluate politicians by how much responsibility they show towards their wives.   But as they can be discreet and hide their transgressions successfully, I consider politicians as unworthy of their office, whenever their having affairs and cheating on their wives becomes known.  
Politicians, whose objectification of woman gives evidence, that they have no control over some of their instincts cannot be expected to have any more control over the hierarchy instinct compelling them to take selfish advantage of ruthlessly acquired political power.   

662. Oliver, The Alleged Humanzee

662.  Oliver, The Alleged Humanzee

I have been watching this documentary:
http://documentaryheaven.com/oliver-the-chimp/

At first I suspected it to be a hoax, but after some googling, Oliver's peculiarities as shown seem to have been genuine.   But my curiosity to find out more was disappointed.   

His having the same number of chromosome as chimpanzees has been accepted as sufficient evidence to declare him as a genetic chimpanzee in spite of considerable genetic differences.   

After Oliver's death in 2012, the owners of his carcass cremated him and refused any scientific research on his body.  

http://www.friendsofanimals.org/news/2012/june/the-life-and-times-o.html 

The people in the sanctuary do a good job protecting animals, while they are alive, but this does not justify to boycott scientific progress by impeding research on dead animals' bodies.  

I found some more sources, but I cannot know, how much is based upon evidence, and how much is legend, rumor and hearsay.  

Other bipedal chimpanzees are mentioned:
http://www.bigfootencounters.com/creatures/oliverabilene.htm

According to this source, there are several unrecognized and unexplored species of apes in Africa:
http://www.mid-americabigfoot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=3838

So my comments and speculations are only based upon the video showing Oliver.   By both his looks and his bipedalism, he is remarkably different from regular chimpanzees.   But he does not appear to me as a half-breed as would be a first generation hybrid, but more like 3/4 or even 7/8 ape.     With mules, this is at least not impossible:

"A mule is the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse.[1] Horses and donkeys are different species, with different numbers of chromosomes."
"A few female mules have produced offspring when mated with a purebred horse or donkey."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mule

"the genetic difference between humans and chimps is less than 2%"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolutionary_genetics

Therefore if a man had raped or otherwise abused a female pet chimpanzee, the result could have been a hybrid daughter, who mated with a chimpanzee and become the mother or even the grandmother of Oliver.       

If Oliver really had a human ancestor, if indeed human-ape hybrids are feasible, then this is one more indication, that defining what is human cannot be merely based upon genes, but a distinction by other criteria is required.    

 

The unique human cognition justifies specific privileges, because humans can discriminate between appropriate and inappropriate targets of their behavior.    

 

A hungry lion hunts anything, he does not distinguish between antelopes and humans.   He has not sufficient cognition to know, that if he would only hunt antelopes and never humans, he could be tolerated and left in peace.  A lion is not fit for the privilege to be allowed unlimited liberty.    

But a human hunter can know by his cognition, that he can hunt deer in a limited area without consequences, while sheep on a meadow or the deer in another tribe's territory are no suitable targets for a hunt.   

Therefore the question, who is human, is also the question, who gets the privileges only reserved for humans.   

There is an unfortunate fallacy.   While privileges reserved for humans are derived from the principal and theoretical ability to choose appropriate targets for behavior, this does not mean, that all members of the species homo sapiens do choose the appropriate targets.    They can instead know, what is inappropriate, and they can nevertheless be driven by instinct to do it.  

Cognitive humans are able to keep out, where they have no right to be.  Groups driven by the ingroup-outgroup instinct raid another tribe's territory.   In this case, they behave like animals, but they nevertheless continue to feel entitled to privileges as if they were acting by cognition.     

The genetic distinction serves the selfish needs of those, who want to behave as ruthlessly as animals but also to feel justified to profit from all the privileges reserved to humans.   

Oliver had been captured in the Congo, and the video completely omits questioning his origins.   This omission indicates one of the last taboos, zoophilia and sodomy. 

In all societies of superficially civilized but desensitized men, who consider objectifying and commodifying women as normal expressions of masculinity, restricting abuse to females of the human species serves the justification of being specially privileged while also allowing instinctive behaviors not different from other animals.   Would such a man admit, that zoophilic abuse suffices for him to restore his sexual homeostasis, he would also admit, that he really is not any better or any different from a beast and he would have to face this unpleasant truth.  

But when desensitization has gone even farther, then privileges are not ascribed to human genes, they are considered as the right of the strongest after applying any methods of fighting.   Considering the extreme cruelty of many African armed conflicts, rebellions and wars, including atrocious rapes, there the step from abusing women to abusing chimpanzees is only a small and logical further step.   Human-ape hybrids are extremely rare, if any exist at all, but this is only due to biological reasons and not because dehumanized men keep away from female apes.

A human-ape hybrid would cause serious logical problems, if privileges were to be accorded automatically to beings having the genes of homo sapiens.  This is one more reason, why these genes are not a sufficient justification to give human privileges to any person.     The best criterion is the talent of sufficient cognitive control over those instincts, which cause harm to others.   Only those, who do not harm and abuse others, deserve to be called human.  

At the actual level of evolution, this talent can only be found in a fraction of the species homo sapiens. 

661. Comparing Disturbed Characters And Chimpanzees

661.  Comparing Disturbed Characters And Chimpanzees

I already mentioned George Simon before (entries 615, 618 and 629).  After having read his book 'In Sheep's Clothing' with unencumbered fascination, I just finished reading another of his books:  George Simon: Disturbed Characters.  

As far as he describes and analyses disturbed characters, it is also an excellent book.   But it seems that between the two books, he has relapsed into the grasp of religion.  He preaches submission under a god as an important ingredient of his suggested alternative to being a disturbed character.  This is annoying.  

I also disagree with his claim, that there is a free will, which gives people an option to either be a disturbed character or not.    

Two other books already mentioned are:
Martha Stout:  The Sociopath Next Door (entry 137)
Robert Hare:  Without Conscience (entry 160).         

All these books implicitly consider socially acceptable, considerate and responsible behavior as the baseline of what can be expected of all sane humans.   They have no answer, why and due to what reasons disturbed characters are deviant from such an baseline.

I doubt, that the qualities constituting this assumed baseline, are sufficiently frequent to justify this assumption.   With a realistic view at the amount of atrocities regularly forced by beings of the species homo sapiens upon suffering human victims, the ability to live by little or not harming others is only found in a minority.   Only they have the privilege of deserving to be called true humans.   Even they are not born like this but get there only after a long process of maturation and socialization. 

My explanation of disturbed characters is derived from looking at the power of instincts and at different levels of the evolution of cognition and rationality.

1. Human evolution as a process.  
 

Phase 1: 
There were early ancestors, who just like animals were automatically and fully driven by instinctive urges, which had evolved for optimizing procreation.  Due to lacking any mental capacities for comprehending the consequences of behavior, instinctive behaviors of animals are not at all impacted by any awareness for harming, hurting and suffering.  

Phase 2: 
The cognition started to evolve.   Rudimentary intelligence became a powerful tool supporting and serving instincts.   But instincts still continued to completely determine the entire behavior, including the overall goal of breeding.  
 

Phase 3:  
The unique human theory of mind evolved.   This capacity of anticipating or evaluating the effects of behavior upon others or upon the own person in the future with the additional help of a memory gives a unique option only to human.    The unique ability to act in defiance of instincts, to override momentary instinctive urges in favor of cognitively preferred alternative behavior is the decisive distinction between humans and animals.    This includes also the unique ability of humans to prefer and decide to not procreate as the result of a cognitive evaluation and perception of the own identity.    Only humans can be childfree by choice.   There are no childfree animals.  


2.  Chimpanzees

Chimpanzees and humans started to evolve separately about 6 million years ago.   Either the common ancestors had at this time already reached the threshold towards phase 2, or chimpanzees continued to evolve at a slower pace in the same direction as humans.   Today's chimpanzees are a good illustration of phase 2.  They show some amazing skills, which nevertheless always serve instinctive goals.  

In entry 648 I presented the chimpanzee Ayumu, who does better than humans on a task requiring fast perception and short term memory, as can be seen in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPiDHXtM0VA
 

While Ayumu's abilities are amazing, they yet are only isolated and not connected to any higher cognitive control.  He only does the task, because he is immediately after every run rewarded with a treat.   He cannot apply his talents for any abstract or generalized goal.  

Solving the elaborated and complex task on the screen is not different from the more simple achievement of other chimpanzees using tools to get food as is shown here. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Cp7_In7f88
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaEDeRJKN0s

But chimpanzees also kill and are aggressive.  
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/26/baby-chimpanzee-killed-at_n_1629318.html

They are even cannibals
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uU1zUzXkTtw

Other amazing skills and behaviors have also been observed in chimpanzees, but they have never reached any ability as found in humans in phase 3.  Ultimately the chimpanzees are completely determined by instincts, and all their amazing capacities only support these instincts.    No cognition has evolved, which would enable them to act in defiance to instincts by consideration or empathy.


3.  The evolutionary level of disturbed characters

I think that the human evolution is in a state of transition.   The evolution of instincts has been established millions of years ago, while the cognitive evolution is still continuing.   I see the determination of the behavior as distributed along a bell curve between phase 2 animals at one end and phase 3 humans at the other.   The majority of people are somewhere in the middle.  They are acting by the combined impact of both subconscious instinctive urges and some cognitive control. 
 

Whenever persons, mostly men, commit atrocities of any kind like murdering, torturing, raping, cannibalism, slavery, they seem puzzling, when compared with what is required and expected from humans.   But if they were instead compared with animals, they would appear as healthy and sane chimpanzees. 

I consider severely character disturbed persons, including those labeled psychopaths and sociopaths, as beings, whose cognitive evolution has relapsed, failed or is delayed and retarded.    In spite of belonging genetically to the species homo sapiens, they are not less animals than are the chimpanzees.   Their cognition only suffices to serve their instincts and to enhance their being a hazard.  But their cognition is insignificant as a determinant of personal goals.    

Chimpanzees use skills to acquire food.  Disturbed characters have a more advanced cognitive knowledge about other human and their behavior, but they use this knowledge also only as a tool.   They succeed to get more than food, they also abuse woman, gain power or pursue other instinctive and selfish goals.   While chimpanzees just lack rationality, these disturbed characters are instead determined not only by instincts but also by irrational beliefs, which serve to excuse and allegedly justify the consequences of instinctive behavior.  

It is a very sad and unfortunate reality, that the survival of the human species depends on the worst and most devastating forces in people, their instincts.   
While the extreme disturbed characters are a hazardous minority, the same instincts are virulent to a lesser degree also in the subconscious mind of the majority of the non or less disturbed people.   This lesser degree of the impact of the same instincts leads to an unfortunate bias towards too much tolerance for and condoning of harming others.  Many damaging behaviors are thus considered as still in the scope of normality, in spite of the extreme suffering of the victims,   Their suffering is not recognized as an outrage, but as unavoidable collateral damage.   


4. Distinguishing animals from humans

It is an unfortunate fallacy, that the distinction between humans and animals has always been only drawn along the genetic borders between species. 

 
In the christian tradition, humans are believed to be special, because a god allegedly created them to be so, and thus, there is a thinking taboo to reconsider and recognize anyone as an animal, no matter how much he behaves as one. 
In recent times, some people are debating, if there is really any decisive distinction at all. 

But to my knowledge, nobody has ever suggested, that the quality of being human, let alone of being more or less human, is an individual trait of the level of the individual cognitive evolution..
   
I claim:  To be considered as human requires more than the genes of homo sapiens, it also requires sufficient cognitive control over the instincts.  

This has far reaching implications.  

The concept of a general human dignity and basic human rights can rationally only be valid for humans, it is a fallacy to automatically attribute and assign it to all members of the species homo sapiens.   When someone acts like an animal, he should be treated as one.   An animal with the liberty only suitable for humans is too much of a hazard.    

The home of chimpanzees is in the wild, but in the zoo or lab, they are for good reasons kept in cages.  
http://www.ippl.org/gibbon/a-tragedy-in-eden/

If extremely disturbed characters would be recognized as animals lacking the basic human capacity of cognitive control, then this could lead to realistic methods of dealing with them.  Once disturbed characters have done serious harm, they should be recognized as animals and treated the same as dangerous chimpanzees.   The need to be protected against becoming a victim is independent of the species of the animals, which are dangerous predators.

The innate predisposition for instinctive or cognitive determination is not carved in stone, but malleable by education and social influences.    Socialization can enhance the cognitive control over instincts, when there is something to enhance.   When there is no rationality and cognition as a constituent personality trait, then no upbringing can convert an animal into a human, no matter the genetic species.   

All children start as instinct driven beings, they need socialization to develop the capacity to use cognitive control, when this talent is innate.    
When a chimpanzee is raised like a child, as in the tragic case of Moe, this does not stop him from biting off someone's finger.  
(http://www.theflamingvegan.com/view-post/Chimpanzees-as-Pets-When-Something-Goes-Wrong).  
I doubt, that a completely instinct determined disturbed character could ever become more human than Moe, no matter the quality of education.   Such a child may not bite off fingers, but bully other kids instead, before committing worse atrocities as an adult.    

Any person is entitled to be given the benefit of the doubt to be human, until he behaves like an animal and thus demonstrates, that he is an animal.   Committing atrocities as an animal forfeits the privileges reserved to humans.  Treating and considering an animal nevertheless as if he were human is an unjustifiable slap into the face to his victim(s).  


4.  The brain

Brains scans have shown differences between the brains of psychopaths and those of non-psychopaths.  

"So, once again there’s some convincing evidence that the brains of psychopaths not only work very differently from those of non-psychopathic individuals, but also may even be ‘wired’ differently than most human brains."
http://counsellingresource.com/features/2013/05/06/abnormal-brain-psychopaths/

I wonder, what would be discovered, if the brains of psychopaths were compared with the brains of chimpanzees.

660. Mavericks, Outsiders, Misfits And Gender Roles

660.  Mavericks, Outsiders, Misfits And Gender Roles


Gender roles are a subset of social norms.   Gender roles accentuate those differences between the genders, which represent instincts.  Gender roles prescribe behaviors caused by these instincts and which enhance the breeding success.   This is not restricted to those instincts leading directly to breeding, it includes also those instincts, which aim at long-term benefits for all future bearers of the own genes.

Gender roles sometimes override people's innate inclinations and cause them to damage their own best interests.  

I consider the dire burden of procreation on women's bodies as biological abuse.   I am aware, that this is a drastic point of view, which can trigger hostility by some people, even though it is a very rational way to look at it.   

Whenever a person has a tumor somewhere in the belly and has it removed by an operation, most people would agree, that this is an ordeal, that nobody in his or her right mind would choose, if there were an option.   
In the case, when it is not a tumor, but a parasite like a worm, the situation is still the same.   This attitude does not even depend on the weight of what is an unwanted growth to be removed.   

But as soon as the parasite is a fetus, which is either removed by a Cesarean session or expulsed by a very painful procedure, then all of a sudden this is not called an ordeal to be avoided, even though a child's birth weight and size is much higher than tumors and parasites usually are.    Instead of recognizing, that this is an atrocity for women, which in contrast to growing tumors can be avoided, many people of both genders have the delusion, that breeding is the purpose of the existence of women.    They are mislead to believe, that having a womb is the same as being meant to use it.  

When comparing the suffering and damage to the afflicted body alone, the distinction between a child at birth and a tumor of the same weight and size makes no sense at all. 



When animals copulate, they follow their instinctive urges without any cognitive ability to anticipate the consequences.    Female (non-human) mammals have no option to avoid the ordeal of giving birth and raising offspring, because they cannot foresee it.  

The instincts leading to human breeding behavior had evolved in the animal ancestors, long before cognition and especially the included ability for anticipation have started to evolve.    As long as the evolution of cognition was evolving as a merely serving tool enhancing the success of the dominant instinctive behaviors, cognition could evolve towards enabling the human brain to amazing progress without causing disruption.   
Only when this evolution reached a ceiling, the conscious experience of individual wellbeing started to bifurcate from the wellbeing experienced as the consequence of maintaining the homeostasis of those instinctive urges, which lead to the survival of the species.  

A slight mutation. a haphazard genetic combination, and the result were and are individuals, whose cognition is not under an instinctive power strong enough to determine the goals and objectives of these persons' behavior.   Either their cognition has advanced one step further or their instinctivity is too low to override their cognition.   
As women, they fully anticipate the unwanted long-term consequences of breeding and they refuse such self-harm.  As men they are considerate and responsible enough to feel morally obliged to refrain from harming women by making them pregnant.   


Those, whose breeding instinct is still stronger than their cognition, but who nevertheless can also anticipate the harm of breeding, experience some cognitive dissonance.   The subconscious urges of the instincts are experienced as strong but vague, on the conscious level they are converted into attitudes, which are congruent with the instincts.   When there are also disparate and incongruent cognitive needs, this causes cognitive dissonance.  This is often solved by the impact of two distinct social influences.   

• Religious belief systems of any content promise rewards for procreation and threaten with punishment for the refusal.    The delusion of a god's power to do so in the afterlife is one example.
  
• Gender roles add artificial and irrational alleged value to instinctive behaviors and those traits favoring such behaviors.   In entry 647 I declared the gender role of masculinity as an obsolete anachronism.   The gender role of femininity is of course just as obsolete.    

Gender roles accentuate all those traits and behaviors, which are based upon physical traits and not on intellectual achievements.     To fulfill and comply with the gender roles does not require any intelligence or education.    Gender roles appeal especially to those, who are deprived of any choice, because they have a suitable body for the gender role, but no brains for anything better.

All those interests, skills and achievements, which require intelligence, creativity, education and sometimes maturity, are gender neutral.    To be a mother by choice requires femininity, to be a warrior by choice requires masculinity.    But the dedication to science, art, literature, languages, technology and other intellectual pursuits is favored by a predisposition, which can be labeled psychological androgynity.  


By unfortunate logic, only breeders continue to contribute their high instinctivity to the gene pool.  The conscious non-breeders do not contribute their more advanced cognition, unless they breed by accident or otherwise against their own wish.   Therefore the evolution towards a more dominant cognition has not completely stopped, but it is very slow.   

Persons, whose psychological androgynity is strong enough to not be overridden by irrational beliefs and non-fitting gender roles, are therefore not only a minority, but they are also under the strong pressure to conform to a majority's expectations.   
In spite of the difficulties of this adversity, it is nevertheless much better to accept being a non-conforming outsider than to suffer from the self-inflicted harm, which follows conforming to what is not suitable for the own innate identity.  


Therefore those who are mavericks, loners and outsiders are this for very good and valid reasons and not at all due to lacking any desirable quality.   They are not the allegedly flawed misfits, as whom they are not only treated, but also pressed towards accepting themselves as such. 
Not all of them have the awareness and self-confidence to understand, that they are lucky to be free from a biological burden.   They are made to feel excluded, while in reality they are spared the breeders' self-destructive and harming inclinations.   Feeling excluded is a fallacy of those, who have themselves very good reasons to avoid to be included.                

649. Polyandry And Polygyny Are Not Mirror-Inverted

649.  Polyandry And Polygyny Are Not Mirror-Inverted

Superficially seen, polyandry by women and polygyny by men seem to be mirror-inverted but identical constellations.    When omitting the blurring factor of what makes a union a marriage, as this differs widely between countries and cultures, both forms of polygamy can be defined as: 

One person of one gender has at the same time more than one non-temporary intimate relationship with a person of the other gender.

But in spite of the superficial appearance, it is far from mirror-inverted.  The subconscious biological differences between male and female instincts cause decisive distinctions.  

Both varieties are in general biased in favor of male decision, male needs, male consent, male attitudes derived from their instinctive urges, while they are imposed upon women without an alternative and without the power to reject it.  Men do have the advantage of power by greater innate physical strength, and polygamy is not exempted from its effects.  

I am saying in general, as I am of course ignorant of the possible existence of exceptions.   

Polyandry: 

I just read in a newspaper about a society somewhere in Asia, where it is the custom, that several brothers marry one woman and they all live as one family.   This reminded me of once chatting with a man, who was looking for a woman to be shared with his buddy.   I already talked about them in entry 300.

Such behavior can be explained by evolutionary biologically and by the specific male instinctive predispositions.  

 

When men perceive women mainly as toilets for their body waste and not as companions for nonphysical intimacy, then it is not at all surprising, when they are emotionally and intellectually much closer and much more bonded to their brothers and to their buddies known since childhood.   

When they trust each other to share their assets and commodities as is a car, a machine or a home, then they perceive the body of an objectified woman just as one more commodity to be shared the same way.  
When men claim the right to and even fight over the exclusive control over the access to their mates' bodies, this does not automatically imply any emotional attachment.    Some men can be indifferent to the woman's affective preferences, but they just want to be sure, that they are only burdened with raising those children, who do carry their own genes and not those of someone else.  

But when men decide themselves, with whom to share a woman by the exclusion of all others, and they feel close enough, then this includes the willingness to also participate in the burden of raising children, who are genetically the descendants of one of them, but of nobody else.  

Polygyny:

Polygyny is much more widespread than polyandry.   It reflects the biological discrepancy between the frequency of male dishomeostasis and the reluctance of many women to cooperate to restore the homeostasis of those men, who do not fulfill the women's emotional needs in return.   Instead of learning to give women, what they need emotionally and intellectually, these instinct driven animals attempt to solve their biological problem by the concurrent use of more than one female body.  

So far, I have not yet heard of any two women doing the same as the men in the cases of polyandry, which means to decide to share one man.  Nor have I heard of any man entering such a constellation by passive compliance with two women's decision.   

Polygyny is a man's decision for his benefits only, and it is rarely welcome by the women.  Where it is a legal option, the second marriage is usually imposed upon the first wife, no matter what she really wishes.   The second and further wives are usually pressed into such a marriage by the family.   

Whenever an additional wife is indeed welcomed as someone to share the burden of household chores with, this is no evidence of the acceptance of polygyny as sharing a man, it really is an expression of the extreme plight and despair of women in dire poverty, who are deprived of the relief of machines or paid help.

But a form of polygyny exists even in modern western societies, but it is usually not considered nor recognized as such.   Whenever a man starts a non-ephemeral extramarital affair with a woman, he creates for himself the benefits of a polygynous constellation.   But the two women involved do not agree.   The first one is either kept ignorant or she is tied by circumstances as having children.  She wants her husband to fulfill his promise of being monogamous, she does not consent to share him.   The second woman is foolish enough to compete with the first wife attempting to take her place and then have him to herself.   Both women suffer, only the polygynous man is motivated to prolong this situations, as long as he gets enough benefits for a low price.

Thus, in the case of the polyandry by the men's decision, the men can often be content and satisfied.   in the case of polygyny, which is installed by a men over more or less disagreeing women, it is also the man, who benefits, while the women suffer.  

Only the balanced monogamy gives women a fair chance of getting as much advantages and benefits as do men.         

648. Ayumu - The Distinction Between Animals And Humans

648.  Ayumu - The Distinction Between Animals And Humans

The evolution of humans and chimpanzees bifurcated about 6 million years ago.    But this does not mean, that only humans have continued to evolve.   Also chimpanzees have not remained the same species as 6 million years ago.   The two species have evolved differently, some qualities and traits have evolved more rapidly in humans.   The possibility cannot be excluded, that after many more millions of years the descendants of today's chimpanzees may also reach the intelligence of today's humans.  

Therefore seeing the amazing accomplishments of a chimpanzee called Ayumu is amazing but comprehensible.  

Ayumu does better than humans on a task requiring fast perception and short term memory, as can be seen in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPiDHXtM0VA

This and other cases of amazing problem solving skills by animals as for example ravens has caused some people to doubt, that there were no real and decisive distinction between humans and animals.    
But there is one clear distinction.  This distinction is the complete determination of all behavior by instincts only in animals, while humans have cognitive control over their behavior.  It is the distinction between all needs and urges being instinctive in animals, while humans have intellectual and emotional needs, which can be stronger than instincts. 

Animals are those beings, who are determined by instincts and whose intelligence and skills are restricted to only serve and enable the pursuit of satisfying the instinctive urges.   

Humans have a conscious identity derived from predominantly cognitive needs, memory and anticipation allows them to be fully aware of the detrimental long-term consequences of whatever instinctive urges they do experience.    Their intelligence enables them to use cognitive control over the instincts and to avoid damaging themselves by succumbing to temporary instinctive urges.

Human evolution is actually in a phase of transition.   Some members of the species homo sapiens are still animals, who are determined by their instincts but have invented very elaborated tools and methods to serve these anachronistic and obsolete urges, causing extreme damage and suffering.   Some have already evolved farther and are no more animals but cognitive beings in full control over their instincts.  

Ayumu demonstrates his amazing abilities as a tool to get treats as a reward.  It serves his instinct to eat.    Only humans do pursue intellectual challenges of any kind for the emotional and intellectual joy of doing so, of feeling good by achievement.  

Weapons are a good example.  

As long as someone driven by the ingroup-outgroup instinct had nothing but a club as a weapon, he at least had to get close to the person considered as an enemy, before he could attack one at a time.  
At the era of the club, there was a balance between the possible damage caused by the ingroup-outgroup instinct and the limited intelligence restricting the magnitude of the maximum damage.  When the intelligence evolved, this augmented the damage done by instinct.  
It needs high intelligence to produce mass destruction weapons as are the nuclear bombs.   One person can press a button and kill millions.   But doing so is still an act of succumbing to the ingroup-outgroup instinct of killing enemies and defending the own kind.
No matter if the club or the button, those who use weapons are animals determined by the instinct, which is served by the intelligence to create the weapons.
 

True humans are no longer determined by the obsolete ingroup-outgroup instinct.  Instead they see all humans as individuals with equal rights, the only valid distinction being the one between decent people, who harm nobody, and the bad ones, who do and who need to be impeded to do so.
True humans are politicians, leaders and organizers, who use their intelligence to install and create fair treaties, agreements and compromises between countries or groups.  They contribute to peace, justice and cooperation. 


The second example is men's reaction to their experience of sexual dishomeostasis.  

As animals, men are driven without hesitation to procure for themselves the access to the ruthless abuse of a female body.   When the legal consequences make outright rape too risky, some men apply amazing amounts of intelligence to get access to female bodies without any awareness of being primitive animals.    For those men, whose attempts of simple seduction by manipulation, trickery and lies are not successful, other men have used a lot of professional qualification to develop and sell instruments and methods for attempting abuse.   Some have invented chemicals like artificial pheromones or knockout drops.  Others have written elaborate manuals for aspiring PUAs (Pick Up ANIMALS).   But no matter how clever the methods, everything serves male instincts to abuse women.   
     

Truly human men are very different.   They consider and experience sexual homeostasis as a mere collateral benefit of having a relationship for reasons based upon the appreciation of women as persons.  By those men, who are predominantly cognitive beings, restoring sexual homeostasis is by itself not considered or justified as a sufficient reason to get involved. 
The behavior of human men is determined by their cognitive need for a companion in a long-term bonded and monogamous relationship.