682. The Hazard Of Being A Woman

682.   The Hazard Of Being A Woman 

When only looking at attitudes, morals and intentions, there may be as many women not hesitating to exploit men as there are men not hesitating to abuse women.    But the harm actually done depends not only on the intentions, but also on the power to enact them.  

Men's advantage of greater physical strength gives them power to succeed in causing harm to women, who in spite of whatever their intentions are nevertheless restricted to be victims rather than perpetrators.

http://www.world-science.net/othernews/130910_rape

"Nearly a fourth of men in the Asia-Pa­cif­ic re­gion ad­mit to hav­ing raped some­one-at least, if they’re asked about it in a way that avoids the word “rape,” a study has found.

Re­search­ers sur­veyed more than 10,000 men aged 50 and un­der from six dif­fer­ent coun­tries in the re­gion, from both ur­ban and ru­ral ar­eas."

"The sur­veys were con­ducted in Bang­la­desh, Cam­bo­dia, Chi­na, In­do­ne­sia, Pap­ua New Guin­ea, and Sri Lanka."

"Elev­en per­cent re­ported hav­ing raped a wom­an who was not their part­ner. When men who re­ported hav­ing raped a part­ner were in­clud­ed, this pro­por­tion rose to 24 per­cent. Of those men who re­ported hav­ing com­mit­ted rape, 45 per­cent said they had raped more than one wom­an.

When asked why they had com­mit­ted rape, 73 per­cent said that they did so for rea­sons of sex­u­al en­ti­tle­ment, 59 per­cent for some sort of en­ter­tain­ment, and 38 per­cent for what they per­ceived as pun­ish­ment."

Of course this does not warrant any misinterpretations of Asian men as being more instinct driven animals than men elsewhere.   They only live in societies, where they risk less punishment than their equally abusive peers in western societies, who are restricted to pay for abuse or to apply trickery and manipulation instead of violence.   

The sad biological reality, that by instinct men are attracted to and perceive female bodies as mere toilets for their body waste, blurs all men's comprehension of the magnitude of the atrocity experienced by the victims of rape.   Even many well meaning and decent men are deprived of empathy for many women's very different reaction to unwelcome close contact with strangers' bodies.   This reaction is disgust and nausea.  

There are many suggestions as to how rapists should be punished.   But in my personal opinion neither imprisonment nor even the death penalty are appropriate as sufficient punishment.   
Instead, every rapist should be forced to suffer the same amount of disgust and nausea as his victim.   He should be forced to eat something like dog shit, vomit or rotten meat with maggots.   And every man, who trivializes the full atrocity of rape should imagine, what he would feel, were he to suffer the disgust of eating such substances.                 

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.

680. Research Should Not Be Misinterpreted To Trivialize Pornography

680.   Research Should Not Be Misinterpreted To Trivialize Pornography

Pornography is a very serious problem.   Men damage themselves by a deliberate decision, yet they themselves do not suffer.   Instead they make women suffer by commodifying and objectifying them.  

Therefore men are not prone to refrain from exposing themselves, but they will gladly jump on any excuse to trivialize the self-exposure.  

The following may be mistaken as supplying such an excuse.  

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130906102536.htm

"asked 200 Danish adults aged 18-30 about their past pornography consumption; assessed a central part of their personality (the trait of agreeableness i.e., individual low in agreeableness typically holder higher levels of antagonism, coldness, hostility, suspiciousness, disagreeability, unfriendliness, and self-interest); and exposed them to hardcore pornography in the laboratory."

"Among men increased past pornography consumption was initially found to be associated with more negative attitudes toward women including more hostility, negative prejudices, and stereotypes."

"However, when the researchers actually exposed participants to pornography, personality (agreeableness) was found to influence the relationship between pornography and sexist attitudes so that it was only among participants low in agreeableness that pornography was found to increase sexist attitudes. Among this group it was found that laboratory exposure to pornography modestly increased hostile sexist attitudes. Further this increase was found to be brought about by increases in sexual arousal to the pornographic exposure material. For all other participants, pornography exposure was found not to influence sexist attitudes."

Pornography desensitizes men by destroying their ability to perceive women as persons, who suffer when being abused.  It replaces the appreciative perception by the sexist attitude of mistaking women as objects and commodities existing to be abused.

Desensitization is a time dependent effect.  The longer a man is exposed to pornography, the worse he gets and the more harm he does to women.  

The duration of the exposure to pornography in a laboratory study is limited, while the most damaged men are impacted by the cumulative effects of repeated and regular extensive exposures.   The short exposure in the laboratory does not simulate the magnitude of the real life desensitization.

Therefore the absence in this one study of an effect after only a short exposure does not justify any trivializing misinterpretation.    

I doubt, that high agreeableness suffices as a general protection against desensitization, it may only slow down the speed thereof.   The short exposure in laboratory may suffice to bring out the worst only in those men with low agreeableness, while those with high agreeableness would need longer exposure before they succumb.

679.   The Subtly Detrimental Influence Of Movies - An Example

Recently I watched the movie 'You've Got Mail'.   I had heard of this movie before as if it were simply a nice and friendly romantic story of an internet match.  

I was quite surprised, when I discovered its detrimental subtle message.  


When only looking at the dynamics of the story, it could be a very exemplary story of the slippery slope of how the allegedly and mistakenly innocent initial behavior of chatting first escalates into emotional cheating and ultimately leads to the breakup of two couples.  

Unfortunately, the movie is not at all a warning for considerate and responsible people to beware of this slippery slope.    To the contrary, it reinforces and encourages people to pursue their own selfish goals without any consideration for their partners, without feeling any commitment and obligation.   The movie is a story about how ruthless and irresponsible transgressions are rewarded.   

Already the secrecy in the first scenes shows, that both protagonists are fully aware of doing something, which they know as not being accepted by their respective partner.  It is clearly emotional cheating. 
Additionally, both couples are shown as being principally in harmony, the respective partners are not presented as having done anything to deserve being dumped.   When the two protagonists decided to cheat, they had not the least excuse in their partners' behavior.

 
Movies are fictional stories, but movies like 'You've Got Mail' are realistic enough to influence people's behavior and their moral compass.    This movie contributes to the desensitization of people towards denial or unawareness for the hurting consequences of how they treat others.  

The fiction of this movie is very unrealistic by presenting the dumped partners as not suffering but both ready to get involved with each other.  
In real life, a dumped partner rarely ever goes through such an ordeal without being wounded and scarred.  

The two protagonists could not foresee this exceptionally benign outcome of their transgression.   When they made the first step upon the slippery slope towards emotional cheating, they decided to do this in spite of the then very real risk of deeply hurting their partners.  


Such movies propagate the fallacy as if it were morally acceptable to look for someone new and dump the previous partner, even though he did nothing whatsoever to deserve this.

Of course this is just one movie, but those people seeing such movies frequently often end up desensitized.   When they hurt others and the others are damaged and show this by their demeanor, the transgressors are unable to comprehend, what they themselves have done.   Instead of taking responsibility, they define the damage done to the hurt person as a weakness, a flaw, a defect.   Even those not directly involved are under the fallacy of blaming the victims for lacking resilience and not seeing the transgressor's full responsibility. 


Sometimes people do worry about the effects of violence in movies and computer games upon people.   But hardly ever anybody worries about the subtle desensitization of superficially harmless movies, which are teaching people to be ruthlessly selfish, irresponsible and inconsiderate.

678. Misconceptions Of Commitment Impede Relationships From Being A Safe Haven

678.   Misconceptions Of Commitment Impede Relationships From Being A Safe Haven
 
Since reading ads and profiles on the web, I have been getting more and more aware of several misconceptions of commitment. 

The following is not about those nasty promiscuous guys, who abuse women by outrightly and consciously refusing any commitment.  It is about misconceptions, which lead to hurting behavior in spite of this not being intended.
 

For many women a relationship is a simple deal, even though they may themselves not be aware of this or they may even deny to put it as bluntly as I do.   Realistically seen, when they supply their bodies for men's instinctive urges, it is meant as the price for getting a safe haven in return.  
But when men are ignorant of women's non-physical and non-material needs, they do not comprehend this deal.  Their misconceptions are harmful to women.   

When such a woman allows a man the access to her body, she instantly wants the safe haven to be given to her.  Not as a vague expectation for the future, but immediately in return, as in a fair deal.   But due to misconceptions, the man does not or not yet pay this price.  This often leads to situations, when women feel like creditors, while men do not comprehend, that they have a debt or what they owe.  

 

When there are misconceptions, there is no malice and not even selfishness, but just ignorance and misguidance by those men, who deprive women of a safe haven..    

  

Misconception 1.    Men project their instinctive cravings upon women and are not aware, that this is not symmetrical due to physiological differences.   They are unaware, that women expect the safe haven as a price owed to them.  

When, as a metaphor, an alcoholic and a non-alcoholic sit down together to drink a bottle of wine, they can seem superficially to do the same.   Both appear to enjoy the flavor of the wine.   But it is not the same.   The alcoholic craves the wine for the alcohol, he has no choice to refrain from drinking.  He would drink any other alcohol, even horribly tasting stuff.  The non-alcoholic drinks the wine as a conscious choice to do so, he is free to not drink what he does not like to drink.   

When a man and a woman get physically involved, the situation is equally asymmetrical.   The man's instincts crave to copulate with a female body because of his recurrent physiological dishomeostasis.  If he is also attracted to the woman's brain, it is only an additional bonus, not a significant reason.    The woman is free from such compulsions, she has a real choice.   She is able to choose physical intimacy, when enjoying it is part of the whole package of also intellectual and emotional intimacy, which are the preconditions for a safe haven.   She has no need for a mere male body, if she gets nothing better than a body.  
 

This misconception impedes men from comprehending the women's deal.  They are in full denial, that they owe a safe haven in return for homeostasis.  

Instead these men have the delusion of a different deal, by which they were merely obliged to satisfy allegedly equal female instinctive urges.  In the case of apparent success, they sincerely believe to have no further obligations.    They are dangerous fools.     


Misconception 2.   This misconception equates commitment with monogamous exclusivity.  

Under this misconception, people choose or attempt to find relationship constructions, which are sometimes called LAT (Living Apart Together) or by others friends with benefits.    When and as far as they feel committed, they confound this with the mere restriction of physical intimacy to only one partner, while they do not feel any further obligations or responsibility for what they do to the other. 

Thus a man can acquire sufficient access to a woman's body to maintain his homeostasis and nevertheless keep her completely out of his own life, but continue to live at his own convenience as a bachelor.   

He fulfills his physiological needs without paying a price. In combination with misconception 1 he is oblivious that this favors only his onesided advantages but harms the woman, who is denied a safe haven.


Misconception 3.   Only the legally binding act of an official marriage with a signature is considered and perceived as commitment.  

Under this misconceptions, all obligations of marriage under the respective laws of any country are accepted as binding, but nothing else.   This is not a safe haven.    Legal obligation care for the spouse's material minimal requirements, but not for emotional needs.  

This misconception has several possible consequences.   

Consequence 1.   When a man does not understand the real meaning of a safe haven, but wishes to fulfill a woman's non-physical needs, he may be prone to hasten to marry before both have discovered, if they really are a good match.  

Consequence 2.   When a man mistakes the fulfillment of legal requirements with fulfilling a woman's needs, the laws of a country, especially gender asymmetrical ones, can make a man to wrongly believe to be a good husband.  But when he dominates, forces his will upon her for his convenience, then there cannot be a safe haven for a woman.
 

Consequence 3.   For those persons, who understand the real meaning of a safe haven and of intrinsic commitment, the obligations to each other are morally indistinguishable between a legal marriage and cohabitation without the signature.   But a man, who does not feel committed unless he is married yet who intends to be decent, is motivated to get engaged to be married.   The phase of being engaged is especially beneficial for his combined needs.

With such a man, aggravated by misconception 1, the premarital phase of physically intimate engagement can be very destructive and hurting for the woman.   She expects the safe haven to have already been created, while the marriage to come is only a tiny insignificant addition.   

But for such a man this engagement phase is subjectively as if he could temporarily eat as much cake as he wishes and continue to keep it all.  
He has the illusion to be decent and correct, because he has principally accepted to start having obligations, but only at some moment in the future.   He already fully enjoys the use of the woman's body, while temporarily not feeling obliged to already pay any non-material price.   

While being merely engaged he still feels the uncommitted freedom of the bachelor.   He still feels no obligation to share any decision with the woman.   He still feels entitled to have everything at his convenience and to enforce this.   He still considers his time and his money as his own.  
For the women, this is very painfully the contrary of a safe haven.  
For some such men, this is a very agreeable situation to be prolonged by delaying the marriage.    


As a result of the prevalence of any or all these misconceptions, a woman cannot get the pursued safe haven in return for allowing a man the access to her body.   All these misconceptions are especially found in persons, who experience themselves as singles in the interaction with someone perceived as very distinct. 

A safe haven is based upon a general intrinsic attitude towards the partner, which leads to behaviors enabling her to feel and experience emotional safety.  

Life is an never-ending sequence of problems, troubles, inclemencies, pressures, which are prone to exhaust and burn out those persons, who are forced to cope alone.    Household items and installations break, neighbors, bosses or family members cause struggles and disputes, legal and financial problems arise. 
 
The person, who is alone when afflicted with any such problem, is often ultimately very helpless.    Platonic friends and non-cohabiting LAT partners can be or at least can attempt to be supportive by listening, by giving advice or by supportive actions.   But in the end, it is not their own problem.   They have a backdoor, they can sooner or later withdraw and go on with their own life.   Being supportive is merely their choice, a onesided altruistic act, for them it is not an own necessity.   In the end, the person remains still alone with the problem.      

A safe haven is very different.   A safe haven means, that both partners intertwine their lives and their circumstances so much, that they both are concerned and struck together by such problems. They have an identity as being two halves of a unit.  Whatever happens to one automatically also happens to the other, because it happens to the unit.  The shared life causes being struck together by the impact of the same circumstances and events.   Both partners have no choice and no backdoor, they need to cooperate to solve common problems by common activities.    Whatever they do or fail to do causes either benefits or damage to both.   

677. Suitable Means Nothing Less Than Not-Unsuitable

677.   Suitable Means Nothing Less Than Not-Unsuitable

Again and again I see on dating sites calculations and concepts, which indicate the implicit assumption, that someone could be more or less a match by nothing more than only the additive presence or absence of shared and welcome traits.        

This is a very hazardous fallacy.    Relationships fail predominantly, when one partner's attributes, traits, attitudes, values or habits cause the other to feel and experience harm or at least discomfort and displeasure.    In such cases, both partners are mutually unsuitable.   

Therefore differences in how much someone is suitable are only of any significance, when there is no unsuitability at all.     

 

As a metaphor, the most delicious ingredients can be mixed elaborately into a perfect treat.  But one single addition of a foul tasting or toxic ingredient suffices to make it entirely unpalatable or dangerous.  

It is the same with a partner.   A man could have dozens of traits and attributes making him appear as nearly perfect and as a dream come true.  But one unbearable and intolerable attribute can suffice to nevertheless make the relationship toxic and devastating beyond endurance.   

 

If accidentally there is salt instead of sugar in a cup of coffee, it can be thrown out with a shrug of a shoulder and new coffee brewed.   But if there is accidentally salt in the tiramisu or chocolate cake, which had required a lot of work to make, the disappointment is much bigger.  

The same goes with a man.   The more a man seems to be perfect in many other aspects, the more it is painful, when his hurting behavior cannot be stopped.   Avoiding to be hurt by a man by avoiding him entirely is easy, as long as in all other aspects he is merely just acceptable.   Yet he is acceptable for a harmonious relationship, as long as there is no unsuitability.  

 

Suitability can be additive depending upon how much is shared.   Unsuitability is not additive.   One aspect of unsuitability is enough to define the entire unsuitability.  

If there is only a lot of salt in the coffee, it cannot be drunk.   If there is only arsenic in it, it is not to be drunk.   Salt and arsenic together would not make it any less drinkable.    The behavioral consequences of not being able to drink the coffee are the same, even when the reasons are different.

One unsuitability suffices to make a man unacceptable, no matter what he is otherwise.    For me, a man with children is unsuitable, a man with religious beliefs is unsuitable, and a man with both religion and children cannot be less suitable than any one with only one of these unsuitabilities. 

Therefore what defines someone as a match and as a suitable partner is the absence of unsuitable attributes of any kind.   What these are, varies individually.  

Such unsuitable attributes can be

• cognitive, when mental traits like attitudes and beliefs elicit disrespect, repugnance or repulsion.
• behavioral, when habits and instinctive urges cause harm and hurting
• incongruency of significance, when the need for a partner does not fit with what is offered and expected reciprocally
• situational, when circumstances impede fulfilling the other's needs.

I am not looking for a dream partner or for someone perfect.   Instead I am looking for someone, who is in no aspect unsuitable for me.   

This means the absence of anything, which impedes me from respecting and appreciating him as a mindmate and he is someone, who by his own inclinations and decision does nothing, which I experience as harm and by which I feel hurt.      

676. The Effects Of Attire - A Rational Woman's Subjective Perspective

676.  The Effects Of Attire - A Rational Woman's Subjective Perspective

Whatever people do to their exterior in the realm of attire and body modification, it has effects upon others' perception.  

In the following, the person choosing an attire is the source, the perceiving observer is the target of these effects.   

First some general thoughts:

These effects can

• convey information or clues suggesting and enabling surmises about the sources' invisible attributes.
• trigger or influence the targets' behaviors.  

The effects upon the targets depend upon

• the power of instinctivity leading to spontaneous and automatic reactions
• rationality and awareness controlling and impeding instinctive reactions.

Effects by the source are

• rationally intentional and successful in agreement with the target
• rationally intentional and successfully manipulating the target
• rationally intentional and not successful, when recognized and avoided by the target
• rationally intentional and counterproductive, when recognized and counteracted by the target
• unintentionally collateral and irrelevant.
• unavoidably collateral and counterproductive
• instinct driven, unaware and counterproductive.

The significance of these effects depends upon the subjective identity of the source:

• Strong instincitivity leads to an identity of predominantly being a body and this implies the expectation of benefits from effects upon another body. 
• A predominant rationality leads to identify with invisible traits of the brain.  By such an identity, benefits are expected by verbal communication and behavior. 

How to rationally deal with the effects of attire:

• As a target, it is of paramount importance to always attempt to evaluate and interpret the intention behind people's attire and to always strive for the full awareness of the own spontaneous, instinctive and irrational reactions.  
  Based upon this, a rational target can react independently to perceived effects and avoid being influenced to the own disadvantage. 
  
• As a source, costs and benefits of the effects of the chosen attire have to be carefully evaluated and compared. 
  Costs can be financial, invested time, endured pain, discomfort and social disadvantages.
  Most benefits to be gained by the effects of attire are only substitutes for what can be also gained by verbal communication and by intentional active behavior.   
  Rationally, benefits from attire and body modification are not worth the cost.

Subjectively:

As a rational woman with an identity based upon invisible traits of my brain and not upon traits of my body, the following is my personal attitude towards attire and body modification.

• As a target, I use other people's attire as a source of information.   This helps to know, whom to esteem, whom to avoid altogether, when possible, and how to avoid being influenced by the intention of the attire.    It is important to make conscious rational decision and to avoid spontaneous reactions.  
  
• As a source, I consider my attire not as an instrument to intend any positive effects.  Nothing of what could maybe be gained by external effects of attire is rationally justifiable. 
  But I have always attempted to actively avoid the undignified effect of triggering the abusive instincts of male animals.  It was futile.  Even though I always was a bit more covered than most other women, hoping to divert the animals to them was in vain.   Sadly enough, my experience at a younger age was, that short of wearing a tent, nothing helped to spare me being approached for the intention to abuse my body.  

Some examples of information important for a woman when evaluating a man.

• Occupation
  Some jobs and hobbies require protective and hygienic attire for practical reasons.   It is important to distinguish necessary attire from attire chosen for effects.
  
  
• General conformity
  Following fashions or limiting the scope of selectable attire according to what is considered as social rules and normative dress code is a form of petty submissiveness.  Examples are men, who hate to shave but continue to do so every day and men, who deny themselves the comfort of wearing sandals or who are bothered about avoiding specific colors of socks along with the sandals.    They are pathetic and ridiculous.
  Such men have a scaring effect upon me.  They can be a jeopardy to a woman, when by the same submission to conformity they also do hurtful things to her.
  
  
• Physical masculinity
  Intentional masculinity, which is expressed for example by investing a lot of time and effort into extensive work-outs for the purpose of muscle-build-up, includes a favorable attitude towards aggressiveness and an inclination to fighting and to competing for a high rank and a position of power and domination.
  Such a man is a high risk, not only because his strength allows him to physically force his will upon a woman, but also by the positive attitude to collateral effects of masculinity as is the objectification of and domination over women.  This effect scares me.
  
  
• Group conformity
  Some men enhance their own subjective masculinity by adhering to groups, which have traditionally cultivated a form of masculinity, which included abuse and degradation of women as a part of the conformity to the group.   They express the adherence to such groups by their attire and body modifications. 
  Outfit and tattoos of motorcycle rockers, street gangs, military and sailors are examples, where the effect of identifying someone as a group member is also recognizing him as a hazard to women.
  
  
• Manipulation
  Any men dealing with large amounts of money, for example insurance agents, bankers or dealers of luxury goods, who want to pursue their own pecuniary advantage by appearing as honest as they are not, choose the crooks' uniform.   Its effects are their method of enhancing the success of their manipulation.   
  Their attire is an expensive looking suit, a tie, a clean shaven face and a neat haircut.   Their trick is creating the false impression, that this intentionally over correct attire lures people to make the mistake to expect correct behavior. 
  Upon myself, the effect is the contrary.  I am so aware of this manipulative strategy, that I never trust a man in a suit and a tie and with a clean shaven face.
     
• Attitude based group membership
  Members and role bearers of religious, woo-woo and political groups of any kind use their attire to signal their group membership.    This has the effect that I can avoid those men, from whom I am separated by a mental abyss. 
   
  

Independence and intellectual identity
 

Wise, rational and decent, non-manipulate people do not make sacrifices of time, money or comfort for the purpose of exterior effects.  They consider and experience external vanity as foolish and irrational.  Their attire serves only their subjective comfort and wellbeing.   They do not attempt to influence others by superficial and manipulative effects, they use verbal communication and correct behavior instead. 

A man wearing cheap sneakers, jeans, t-shirts and a beard due to not being bothered to shave every day expresses by this his rational identity.  (To avoid misunderstandings:  This does not imply neglect.  Comfort does not preclude the attire to be clean and not tattered.)

Depending upon what else I know about his invisible traits and attributes, such a man can have an attracting effect upon me, and he is also a good candidate for becoming trustworthy as a kindred mind.

675. Mice: Pets Or Vermin?

675.   Mice:  Pets Or Vermin?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130510124501.htm

"Many people express objections against child labor, exploitation of the workforce or meat production involving cruelty against animals. At the same time, however, people ignore their own moral standards when acting as market participants, searching for the cheapest electronics, fashion or food. Thus, markets reduce moral concerns."

"In comparison to non-market decisions, moral standards are significantly lower if people participate in markets."

So far, I can agree.   An example for this is the recent tragedy in the factory in Bangladesh, where the exploited workers were killed as a result of the greed of the owners not caring for the safety of the building,
But while the consumers are contributing by their willful ignorance of the reasons for the goods being cheap, the main culprits are those with the economic power to decide the prices by making the contracts and by paying low wages.   


But I strongly disagree, that the attitude towards the life of a mouse is a measurement for morals.    

"In a number of different experiments, several hundred subjects were confronted with the moral decision between receiving a monetary amount and killing a mouse versus saving the life of a mouse and foregoing the monetary amount."

Killing or saving a mouse is not at all a moral decision.   It is a decision between the naivety to consider mice as pets or the realism to evaluate mice as vermin..  
The naivety is a mistake of those people, who know mice only as being kept in cages, where they cannot cause any detriment.    Mice are damaging vermin, whenever they get a chance to bite holes into garments for making nests and to make a mess by feeding on bags of flower in the larder.  

I have killed mice and rats by traps and by poison, whenever this was necessary.   Morals to me means to discriminate between sparing vermin and being considerate to humans by paying a higher price for fair trade products, when available.    I want the vermin dead, but a decent standard of living for every human on this globe.  

Saving mice as in the study is also for other reasons an illusion.    Carnivorous animals in the zoo are fed by small animals, like for example chickens, mice and rats.   There are companies specialized in breeding these for feeding purposes, when the surplus from other sources does not suffice.  

For any of the saved mice in the study, another mouse was bred as a replacement to be fed to a hungry zoo animal.   No lives of mice were saved.   

I would like to see a study, which tests the same question but on issues of genuine morals.   

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.   

673. More About The Facial Width-To-Height Ratio

673.   More About The Facial Width-To-Height Ratio

Already in entries 487, 518 and 641 I mentioned the possibility, that wide-faced men may be more of a hazard to women than narrow faced men.    Here is another study pointing in the same direction: 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130606223251.htm

"The study focussed on the link between the facial width-to-height ratio (FWH) and dominance in men. Participants were asked to rate different aspects of the personalities of 100 men using a single photograph.

FWH is measured as the maximum horizontal distance from the left facial boundary to the right facial boundary (width) divided by the distance from the top of the lip to the highest point of the eyelids (height). It has been suggested that development of this facial characteristic is related to differences in adolescent levels of testosterone, a hormone known to be involved in socially dominating behaviour.

In the study 30 participants viewed photos of 93 Chief Executive Officers's (CEO) from the top 100 FTSE companies (minus seven female CEO's) and were asked to judge their personality on gut instinct.

Another set of 93 photos were taken from internet (such as university websites) to act as a control group.

The results showed that the CEO's faces had a greater FWH ratio compared to the control group and were perceived as more dominant and successful."

672. Avoiding Commitment Is Unhealthy

672.   Avoiding Commitment Is Unhealthy

Often people, who are not in a relationship, especially those, who had been hurt, cope with this situation by distributing their emotional and social needs over a variety of sources, children, family, colleagues, buddies.   What first starts as a method of substitution, sometimes reduces or eliminates all subjectively felt need to find a partner and the situation is perpetuated. 

  
Women in such a situation often claim to not need a man at all.  Thus they at least do not harm anybody.  
Men in such a situation unfortunately are also a jeopardy for women needing a companion, because while they can fulfill all their emotional and social need by combined substitutes, they continue to have physiological needs.  They restore their homeostasis by the temporary abuse of female bodies, but refuse commitment.   

According to this research, such a system of substitutes does not suffice to maintain optimal health:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130703101607.htm

"New BYU research finds that people in happy marriages live less "in sickness" but enjoy more of life "in health."

In a 20-year longitudinal study tracking health and marriage quality, BYU family life researcher Rick Miller found that as the quality of marriage holds up over the years, physical health holds up too."

This has unfortunate implications.   The more people feel a deficit, the more they are motivated to change this actively.   Men on dating sites, who have settled in such a system of substitutions, are often not motivated to make the least efforts towards finding a committed relationship, while they are still healthy and fit.   They make the big mistake of waiting passively and with inertia, until some perfect dream woman would falls from the sky directly into their bed.    

In my age group, these men's mistake can be fatal.   They are in denial, that once they have undermined their health and are already sick, frail and in need of a caring woman, then it is too late to find one.   Few women are interested to start a relationship as a nurse.        

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.  

670. The Compartmentalized Mind

670.   The Compartmentalized Mind

This continues entry 669.

There is one more pattern, which on a subtle and hidden level can be even more devastating to unfortunate victims.   

A person has learned a system of rules, values, morals or psychological concepts, which to him are logically convincing.   He accepts them as generally valid and as a wise basis and guideline for human interaction. 
But he nevertheless excludes himself entirely from applying this system upon himself.  He does not do this consciously, he is unaware of the compartmentalization of his mind.   He has and pursues the same goals as George Simon's (entries 629 and 661) disturbed characters.   These goals are derived only from the subjectively alleged entitlement to the unrestricted fulfillment of all own needs.  

I call him a robot, because he is controlled by two programs.    The main program is the goal program, which determines, that he always pursues his own needs and wishes with unhesitating priority.   The second program is the auxiliary methods program.  It contains all general human rules of interactions and expectations needed as instrumental intelligence.    This program is to be applied only selectively, whenever it serves to get advantages from others.   

This robot lives in a divided mental world, where real and virtual or distant people are perceived as categorically distinct.  

The robot theoretically accepts rules as generally valid for all humans but fails to ever recognize any person in real life as a human of the quality to whom to apply the rules.   Instead he experiences himself as only interacting with entities, whom he mistakingly perceives as mere commodities existing for his convenience.  He experiences them as either functioning, when they serve his needs or else as being flawed, when they refuse or fail to function.  

In the robot's perturbed minds, none of those entities, whom he meets in real life, is ever considered as a human suitable to mentally apply the system of accepted behavioral rules to. He is unable to recognize such humans, when he meets them.   Instead, the robot experiences humans as elusive abstract sources of text or other creative and intellectual stimulation.    A robot's real world is populated by commodities, while humans to be treated with respect and consideration are figures from fairy tales.   

A robot with a good memory can become an excellent bluffer as described in entry 287.   He can reproduce learned thoughts of others to an amorphous audience, while he himself does not understand any of what he is theoretically talking about.   Due to his inability to recognize real humans as non-commodities, he deprives himself of ever experiencing in real life, what he reproduces verbally like a parrot.      

The robot is impeded from the benefits of feedback.   He considers the commodified victims as too insignificant and flawed to take any heed of their disagreement.   Abstract distant humans, with whom he may have contact, are ignorant of his commodifying real people.    

The robot does not attempt to hide his intended commodification, as he is not aware of the disagreement to be elicited.  People usually are able to avoid harm from such a robot, when they meet him in real life and are immediately and overly treated as commodities.      


On the internet, such a robot is a high risk for a woman.   By any form of initial communication over any distance, a woman is represented mainly by emails, a few pictures or at the most a voice over the telephone.   Thus she is abstract and not real, as long as she is not in the direct reach of the robot's commodification.     

Under such circumstances the woman elicits initially the robot's response and behavioral disposition for humans.   She is prone to be mislead, when he talks convincingly about things, which in reality he has no comprehension for.   She develops wrong expectations, she hopes to be treated by him as in reality only the author of the parroted books would have treated her.

 
Meeting him means disaster for her.    As soon as she appears as a real person in his life, she is automatically redefined in his perception to be henceforth a commodity like every real life person.   Everything of what he had expressed to her as to someone being considered a human, is instantly annihilated.   Nothing of it remains valid.   As a commodity, she now is outside the scope of any previously accepted obligations to her.    Now he expects all to be at his convenience.           

669. The Difference Between Instrumental Intelligence And Wise Intelligence

669.   The Difference Between Instrumental Intelligence And Wise Intelligence

Entry 648 was about a chimpanzee's amazing cognitive accomplishments.    But he is not the only animal with astounding achievements:   
http://www.zoo.ox.ac.uk/group/kacelnik/lb_movie_s1.mov
This movie shows, how a cockatoo solves a complicated puzzle to get access to food.  

This is once more an example for what I consider the fundamental difference between what I will call instrumental intelligence and wise intelligence.    This difference is often overlooked and confounded.   Animals can show some form of instrumental intelligence.   But wise intelligence requires cognitive abilities, which are found only in humans, and by far not in all of them. 

Ayumu and the cockatoo will repeat difficult cognitive task, whenever their body is inclined to eat the reward.    Nothing else has an impact upon the application of instrumental intelligence to a perceived need and to the goal of fulfilling it.   Attempting a task, no matter the amount of instrumental intelligence needed, is not a decision, but an automatic reaction to a need or an urge.  

A human too usually needs some instrumental intelligence to acquire food.   No matter if this means the skills to hunt, to gather or to farm, or if it requires to earn money and to buy food, or even to steal it.   But a human's wise intelligence first evaluates the goals in a complex mental context, before applying instrumental intelligence towards reaching it.   A human can for example decide, if he wants to spend money on food or on a book, if he wants to eat or to lose weight, if he wants to acquire food for himself or for some other person.  

Instrumental intelligence is a tool, which serves to pursue goals, which are derived from either instinctive urges or external influences or any interaction between both.    These goals are exempt from any rational evaluation.  

Wise intelligence also uses instrumental intelligence as a general principle and as much upon the own person as upon others.    Goals, attitudes, morals, value systems and behavior are chosen and evaluated by the same rationality and logical procedures as is the subsequent pursuit of the goals.   Wise intelligence includes having a theory of mind, and it is more than emotional intelligence, which can be misused to the disadvantage of others.  

To illustrate this, here are some examples of humans doing a lot of harm by using instrumental intelligence in the absence of wise intelligence:
   

• A scientist explores methods how to build lethal bombs for the purpose of serving his religion as a terrorist.
• A scientist designs weapons for war as a means of strengthening his own ingroup.
• PUAs (pick up animals) learn and teach elaborated tricks for the purpose of luring women into situations, in which they can be abused.
• Greedy sales people learn special psychological techniques to get money from reluctant customers.
• Power hungry politicians use elaborate intrigues and strategies to get to the top of hierarchies.

There are several different patterns of dynamics, when people apply instrumental intelligence as a means of asymmetrically pursuing goals.   Some believe, that the fittest and strongest are naturally entitled to privileges, whenever they can achieve them.  They outrightly reject the concept of equality.  Some believe at least, that everybody competes and fights for benefits adn that doing the same to protect themselves legitimates it. 

George Simon's (entries 629 and 661) disturbed characters are of these patterns.   The persons are aware of what they are doing and that many targets and victims disagree with how they are treated.   There is no denial of the collateral damage caused.    

While targets and victims are usually not able to stop such behaviors, they often have the option of avoiding, what can be easily recognized.   
Simon's disturbed characters do not accept the validity of other people's rules for themselves, but they pretend to do so, when this serves their purpose.
When disturbed characters fail to succeed, they are usually aware to be the losers in a competition fought with all the weapons supplied by instrumental intelligence.   

668. Where Are The Men Like André Gorz?

668.   Where Are The Men Like André Gorz?

I already mentioned Dorine and André Gorz in entry 100.    I have now finally read his entire book 'Letter To D.'.    

It is a very touching book.   It sadly reminds me of the role in a man's life, which I am craving for.   Those men, who are able to concede so much significance to a woman, are very elusive.  I have never met one.  

Andrè Gorz appreciated Dorine as a person, she was very significant to him.   He cared, what she thought, he valued her feedback, he accepted to be influenced by her.   He was intellectually and emotionally bonded with her.  She was even more than just a part of his life, she was the essence of their being a unit transcending the limits of being two persons.   

Dorine got the dignified and appropriate place in his life, which she deserved.   He never tired of her, the longer they were together, the more he felt attached and the more he learned to admit and recognize this. 

When the book 'Letter To D.' was published, the reactions in the media were not about an example of a happy marriage, they sounded more like the review of a fairy tale of a marriage.  

 

Men today are the victims of the subtly devastating collateral damage of the technological and economical progress which began, when my generation grew up and was in the decisive years of being most susceptible to being influenced.  

One generation earlier, the Gorzes grew up in a very different world, which facilitated the development of deep thoughts, while today this is more impeded than facilitated:

1.   Kind of media

When the Gorzes were young, there were movies shown in the cinemas, but the majority of media was printed text, and that was what people had at home to occupy their minds with.

Reading a book is a completely different process compared with watching a movie.   I grew up without TV, but it started in Germany, while I was a child.   In those days, any program on TV was continuous and could not be stopped or rewound.   If some part or some important scene was missed or not understood, it was gone without retrieval.   

This trained people to accept as normal the superficial consumption of what was not available for any deeper reflection.    

Reading a book allows people to process it much more thoroughly than a TV program.  One can put a book aside and think, one can go back and reread some chapters or talk about it.  Therefore books allow people to reach a profounder understanding of the content than do movies, when they cannot be stopped at one's own convenience.  Thus people can learn deeper thinking much better from reading than from TV.   

2.   Effect of media

I have already mentioned Kanazawa and his savanna theory.     
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201002/the-savanna-principle
His suggestion, that people's minds mistake persons on a TV-screen as friends, has made me aware of a much broader effect.   The human brain has not evolved to subconsciously distinguish between merely technical representations and real life experiences, whenever the quality of the representation is a good enough imitation of real life.   This is true for TV, movies and sound in the quality, which exists now since several decades.  
 

When people read a story in a book, it is easy to be aware, that this is an imaginary story and not a description of reality.    But when people see the drastic imagination of extreme behaviors acted out by real people, these actors as role models on a TV screen can subtly change the standards and the sense of what is morally right.  This effect of role models on a screen is much more devastating than the influence of books.   
Behavior based upon consideration and responsibility does not entertain people.   What entertains people, is drastic and extreme.    Consciously, people know, what is real and what is not.   But the subtle subconscious devastation nevertheless happens. 

Reading Casanova's written stories about his abuse is much less a lecture instigating men to abuse women in real life, than are movies presenting the hero-jerk's abuse of women as a positive role model.
 

The quantity of the exposure to the readily available mass of movies presenting the most extreme and outrageous behaviors has a strong impact upon the subconscious mind. This deforms and distorts, what is considered as normal and acceptable.    

Not only does this change social norms, it also leads to the desensitization towards the suffering of the victims of those imitating the role models.  Since people's standards have been damaged, hurting, cruelty, abuse, inconsideration have become so ubiquitous, that people have lost the awareness for the monstrosities done or at least tolerated.   

3.   Effect of distraction

A couple in the times of the youth of the Gorzes had not much alternatives to spend their time together except by communicating.  At least at home, there was not much entertainment available, and events outside the home were expensive compared with people's income.  

Communicating leads people to knowing and appreciating each other and to growing deeper in their connections.    Becoming deeper as persons makes communication more attractive and enjoyable.    

Today people can entirely avoid communicating by the permanent distraction of easily and affordably available superficial entertainment and activities.    A couple can thus never even discover the benefits and joy of a deep level of communication as was the life style of the Gorzes.  

4.   Effects upon men's attitude towards women

The above listed factors have damaged men's behavior and attitudes towards women.   

Men's instinctive tendency to perceive women as bodies are enhanced, while they are impeded to recognize and to notice, let alone to appreciate the benefits of women's intellectual abilities.

Relationships are considered as mainly between two bodies.  

Female bodies are presented as easily available and easily replaceable.  

Conflicts and troubles do not lead people to work on their relationship and develop depth and bonding.   By discarding and replacing their mates too easily, people never experience depth and are unable to recognize and value it in others.   

667. Flowers From My Garden

667.   Flowers From My Garden

 

 

666. Reading Praise Of Animality Makes Me Cringe

666.  Reading Praise Of Animality Makes Me Cringe

 
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130605133712.htm
 

"In addition to humans' place in the animal kingdom at a scientific level, Lestel also highlights our essential, existential animality in his opening comments with fellow editor, Hollis Taylor. "A key question now is to know how the human of the 21st century can reactivate his animality and animalize himself anew when all Western thought since the Greeks tells him that he is human precisely because of this rupture with animality," Lestel suggests, building on his critique of the very philosophical foundations of the ethological tradition. "To be human does not mean to have fled animality, but on the contrary to live within it and to let it live within us…we are animals and animals are us.""

Where animality is not only allowed but made the basis of politics, we get Nazis, Fascists and the like.   Animality means the acceptance, facilitation and enhancement of instincts without any consideration for the victims.   

Recent German history is a good example for the political animality of the Nazis.     

• Under the ingroup-outgroup instinct, members of outgroups were murdered, exploited and driven from their territory.   
  
• Under the hierarchy instinct, the most stupid men cultivated their physical fitness and fought by aggression to the top, while the intellectual elite was killed and driven away.    Those at the top were ruthless in keeping their position of power.   
  
• Under the procreation instinct, women were reduced to be wombs, abused for breeding as if they were rabbits.  
  
• Under the gregarious instinct, people willingly merged with the obedient masses.  
  

We need a better world, where humanity is prevalent, and where animality is restricted and controlled by cognition and rationality.  

665. Possible Disruptions When Avoiding To Harm

665.   Possible Disruptions When Avoiding To Harm

As mentioned several times already, I consider the Epicurean principle of not harming as the basis of how I want to interact with other people.  I prefer to avoid those, who are determined otherwise like for example religious people, who justify harming by an alleged reward in the afterlife.
 

 
When two persons respect each other as equals and are consciously motivated to avoid harming each other, this does not automatically mean the absence of disruption by involuntary harming.

Harming includes hurting the other's feelings.   This implies the involvement of two sides, one person behaving in a specific way and another person perceiving this behavior as painful.

Some causes of disruption:

1.  Misunderstanding of the situation.    

Both can be guided by disparate and incongruent implicit expectations and unverified imaginary options.   
Well meant behavior based upon one set of such implicit presumptions can be perceived as for example betrayal, disappointment, disregard or depreciation by someone with another set.     This is the case for proactive and reactive behavior. 

2.  Not knowing the other well.    

Not harming by consideration is not possible without knowledge of the other's individual resilience and sensitivities. 
The responsibility of behaving morally according to one's own standards does not suffice to avoid, that the other feels hurt by the subjective perception of for example offense, slight, humiliation or rejection.    

3.  Misinterpretation due to lacking trust.  

Trust or the lack thereof has an impact upon the interpretation of the other's behavior and utterings as either benevolent or as a cause for suspicion.   Someone not trusting and feeling slighted can jump to the conclusion, that there really is a slight.

Some methods to avoid such disruptions

1.   Avoiding ambiguity.   

Clear agreements, explicit consent and outspoken options can lead to congruity and realism of expectations.    It allows a rational choice between pursuing or abandoning an endeavor.

2.   Adding consideration to responsibility.   

Acquiring sufficient knowledge about the other's value system, focus of identity and the impact of past experiences enables people to behave with consideration.   Involuntary hurting can best be avoided by knowing as much as possible of the other's subjective perception of all relevant behaviors.    

While responsibility can be regarded as a general moral obligation, consideration adds deliberate care for the other's wellbeing.

3.  The benefit of the doubt.   

Restricting all evaluation of the other to using the most trustful interpretation of his behavior avoids to mistake distrusting interpretations as indicating and even evidence for the justification of distrust.   Acting as if trusting enables real trust to grow, while this does not preclude to be nevertheless prepared for discovering the justification of the distrustful interpretation.  
Someone feeling slighted can ask back for further explanation in the awareness, that what he feels is only subjective and can be based upon wrong premises.

These methods constitute a learning process accomplished by rational and constructive communication, outspoken, direct, blunt and to the point of the matter.   

It is a learning process for both sides.   Learning how to be considerate is only possible, when the one feeling hurt acknowledges and admits the own vulnerability and refrains from blaming, grudging or accusing.  

I am aware that this does not sound very romantic.   But the special situation of beginning a contact by written messages and thus void of all non-verbal information asks for specific proceedings.  

The first step is a reciprocal consent and awareness concerning the options.    This means reciprocally ascertaining, that what each wants and needs as a goal is principally indeed offered by the other.      
The second step is a phase of constructive communication, which can lead to either the planning of a real life meeting or to the decision to abandon this goal.    
 

A well prepared meeting is then also the moment to start becoming romantic.

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.   

663. Rational Feminism And Female Demisexuality Are Two Sides Of The Same Coin

663.  Rational Feminism And Female Demisexuality Are Two Sides Of The Same Coin

Rational feminism and female demisexuality have the definition and recognition of women as being predominantly persons with a brain in common.   Interactions between the genders are determined by intelligence, personality, talents, skills and other cognitive, non-physical traits.    

Usually, female demisexuality comes first.  The perception and awareness of own needs, including avoidance needs, can be strong yet at the same time vague and unreflected.   

A demisexual woman experiences a strong emotional need for the dignity of being recognized as a cognitive person, before a man is considered as a potential match.   Her non-physical needs for appreciation and respect have priority.  Physical needs can only follow, when these needs are met.  

Not feeling attracted to mere bodies appears as natural, until women start to be the target of predators, who cause suffering, annoyance, fear and a constriction of liberty.   For demisexual women, the frequent male attempts to abuse them as toilets for male body waste are incomprehensible (until the sad truth is revealed by learning about evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology).  

As soon as women with self-esteem and self-respect start to think thoroughly about the initially vague feeling of outrage, rational feminism is the only logical conclusion.  

The cognitive identity is the core value of rational feminism, represented as appreciation and respect for the mind of women. This value rejects all forms of degradation, objectification and commodification as an indignation and as inappropriate.     When some women behave as brainless animals just as many men do, when they agree to copulate like dogs from the gutter, they do establish a form of low level equality.   But even if some people claim this to be a variety of feminism, it is certainly not rational feminism. 

On men's side, rational feminism is an attitude, on women's side it is also an emotional need to be treated by men in accordance with the attitude.  

Female demisexuality can lead to rational feminism, and rational feminism only suits those women, whose needs as demisexuals are congruent with this attitude.

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.