Would Humanity Be Better Off Without Men?

[Terrapin Station]

How do we wind up with people who believe that large populations of people think and behave more or less the same as each other just because they're men or women (or black or white or French or English or any category like that)?

Turn on your TV. Watch the news. Who is doing the violence the overwhelming majority of the time?

I never said all men are violent. In fact, most are peaceful.

What I actually did say is that to my knowledge no society in history has figured out how to keep the peaceful men while getting rid of the violent men. So to stick with the status quo means keeping the violent men.

What I actually did say is that the knowledge explosion is going to hand the violent men ever more powerful tools at an ever faster pace.

What I actually did say is that there is a consistent pattern of all out fight to the death wars going back thousands of years, and there's no rational reason to think that pattern has magically ended.

So, to keep men is to keep violent men, who will pose an ever bigger threat to modern civilization. The status quo is a recipe for civilization collapse. No one can say exactly when or how, but we can pretty confidently assert that is where we're headed.

If these claims seems speculative, keep in mind that a near immediate civilization collapse at the hands of violent men has been technically possible for decades. All it takes to make these claims true is one human being pushing one button one time.

I asked you earlier if you weren't aware that women can be just as violent as men. You just blew off addressing this.

If you're talking about wars and the like, you know that most modern cultures have been patriarchal and have oppressed women, right? Modern wars have mostly been started and perpetuated by men because men put themselves in charge. Not because women wouldn't start wars if they were in charge instead.

The notion that there are widespread personality etc. characteristics based on simply being a woman, simply being a man, simply being black, simply being white, simply being French, simply being British, etc. is nonsense. Any real world interaction with a variety of people should quickly teach you this.

[baker]

How do we wind up with people who believe that large populations of people think and behave more or less the same as each other just because they're men or women (or black or white or French or English or any category like that)?

Because humans tend to be cognitive misers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_miser

[baker]

What I actually did say is that to my knowledge no society in history has figured out how to keep the peaceful men while getting rid of the violent men. So to stick with the status quo means keeping the violent men.

You're looking at this the wrong way.

The issue is that natural resources are scarce, not that some (men, or women) are violent. It's because natural resources are scarce that people must cooperate in order to exploit them, and this requires hierarchy, division of labor etc. etc. which brings about complex socio-economic situations in which violence can thrive.

So, to keep men is to keep violent men, who will pose an ever bigger threat to modern civilization. The status quo is a recipe for civilization collapse.

No. To keep wasting natural resources like there's an infinite amount of them is what will make civilization as we know it collapse.

[Sy Borg]

... to my knowledge no society in history has figured out how to keep the peaceful men while getting rid of the violent men.

That is because any society without violent men will be taken over by those with violent men. Just as an ant nest needs warrior ants, our societies need their own warriors to protect them. So societies must keep producing violent men, and not all will be able to express their innate aggression in a productive way.

Maybe it would help if societies worked harder at vocational guidance, to match people to the vocations they prefer rather than the current situation where scientists are mindlessly serving meals and natural fighters are caged in offices.

I am acutely aware of this, being a creative type who readily deals with large concepts but poorly organised and weak with detail. I spent too many years stuck in a payroll job, making life hard for workmates and clients alike with my blundering. I worked as a legal secretary and I cannot organise my way out of a paper bag. But I could not land a suitable job until I'd been in the workplace for over twenty years.

But everyone is too afraid of government interference, and it is that choice that means violence will tend to be be allowed to fester in society as the price of "security" and "freedom". The situation may change with automation, whose potency requires mental aggression that can be found in all people.

[Papus79]

No, I don't think its like saying that at all.
"Pissing contests" are empty rituals usually performed when drunk.
I've studied enough anthropology to now it not the norm or universal. Masculine activities are more closely related to real life activities, where co-operation and competition do handin in hand.
Aggression varies encourmously. Ritual and violent perpetual warfare with the Yanomani to the gentle self-lessness of the San people.
You might like to see co-operation as a feminine trait, but in most societies through history a lack of male co-operation simply means coming home WITHOUT any meat.

I guess part of what I'm trying to figure out - why so many workplaces I've been at the credo seems to be this - you're to worship Satan with every in-breath, every out-breath, and every heartbeat, Violence is God, any other governing principle is too weak to exist and has only the right to be dominated out of existence.

When I see that I see Darwinian game theory twisting the dials. It's a place where if you show any public sign of good equilibrium or peace of mind it means you're a lazy slob who needs to be kicked until you're as miserable and high-strung as everyone else around you.

It seems like to let one bully have their way sets the tone where nearly everyone is forced into that mode.

This is what I mean though - to not have things get like that, ie. not have professional 'adult' life be defined by blood-drinking contests and deciding whose the libations, there'd have to be not just a cool-down but a dismantling of the sorts of behavioral incentive structures that lead to said environment. When I talk about 'pissing contests' that might have been too literally taken as two men outside a dive bar by their trucks pissing in the grass. I mean all of these social positioning and social climbing, or really dominating anyone whose inferior to you by either them being of inferior aggression or violence or simply just not being of the same genetic tree and deserving no quarter because human is just another meat to be chopped up and thrown in a bucket.

[Papus79]

Another really stupid example of the above in the immediate social sphere:

You run into someone in your circle of friends whose done martial arts a long time - hey I have too - love that stuff! Lets talk shop!

The only correct answer to that sentiment for most people - "My stuff is the be-all-end-all-greatest-system-ever and whatever you're doing is just wrong, it's crap - sorry about your luck". If you decide to compare techniques, even in good faith, they have to do whatever they can to get a physical shot on you to prove their point.

Another side - an older relative and yourself end up being in the same line of work. You try exchanging notes on it or talking apples and apples. The right answer from them is "I'm older than you - go **** yourself" or "know your place".

If this is the 'right' way to behave about every little thing you're remotely competent at - we've got something fundamentally broken in how we do these things.

[h_k_s]

In humans, other than with rape, the females choose the richest male they can find and manage to attract or seduce.

Your claim is overly cynical, giving the impression that women lack character. It's like saying that all men choose a partner based only on beauty, which is equally unfounded.

Each gender has simple baselines to tolerate - how poor, how ugly, how mentally unstable, how unreliable, how selfish etc. In each case, a person will draw a line, where they won't put up with a certain level of poverty, ugliness, instability etc. Once those baselines are met, personality, compatibility, character and common interests are important factors for many - women, men and anyone in between.

All men chose a woman based only on beauty.

Thank you, Greta, for pointing that out.

[h_k_s]

Another really stupid example of the above in the immediate social sphere:

You run into someone in your circle of friends whose done martial arts a long time - hey I have too - love that stuff! Lets talk shop!

The only correct answer to that sentiment for most people - "My stuff is the be-all-end-all-greatest-system-ever and whatever you're doing is just wrong, it's crap - sorry about your luck". If you decide to compare techniques, even in good faith, they have to do whatever they can to get a physical shot on you to prove their point.

Another side - an older relative and yourself end up being in the same line of work. You try exchanging notes on it or talking apples and apples. The right answer from them is "I'm older than you - go **** yourself" or "know your place".

If this is the 'right' way to behave about every little thing you're remotely competent at - we've got something fundamentally broken in how we do these things.

Actually I use this line a lot:

"I am 6X years old.

Old enough to be your (grand)father ... ."

[h_k_s]

... to my knowledge no society in history has figured out how to keep the peaceful men while getting rid of the violent men.

That is because any society without violent men will be taken over by those with violent men. Just as an ant nest needs warrior ants, our societies need their own warriors to protect them. So societies must keep producing violent men, and not all will be able to express their innate aggression in a productive way.

Maybe it would help if societies worked harder at vocational guidance, to match people to the vocations they prefer rather than the current situation where scientists are mindlessly serving meals and natural fighters are caged in offices.

I am acutely aware of this, being a creative type who readily deals with large concepts but poorly organised and weak with detail. I spent too many years stuck in a payroll job, making life hard for workmates and clients alike with my blundering. I worked as a legal secretary and I cannot organise my way out of a paper bag. But I could not land a suitable job until I'd been in the workplace for over twenty years.

But everyone is too afraid of government interference, and it is that choice that means violence will tend to be be allowed to fester in society as the price of "security" and "freedom". The situation may change with automation, whose potency requires mental aggression that can be found in all people.

Remember though, that ironic to this topic thread, warrior ants are all females.

[h_k_s]

No, I don't think its like saying that at all.
"Pissing contests" are empty rituals usually performed when drunk.
I've studied enough anthropology to now it not the norm or universal. Masculine activities are more closely related to real life activities, where co-operation and competition do handin in hand.
Aggression varies encourmously. Ritual and violent perpetual warfare with the Yanomani to the gentle self-lessness of the San people.
You might like to see co-operation as a feminine trait, but in most societies through history a lack of male co-operation simply means coming home WITHOUT any meat.

I guess part of what I'm trying to figure out - why so many workplaces I've been at the credo seems to be this - you're to worship Satan with every in-breath, every out-breath, and every heartbeat, Violence is God, any other governing principle is too weak to exist and has only the right to be dominated out of existence.

When I see that I see Darwinian game theory twisting the dials. It's a place where if you show any public sign of good equilibrium or peace of mind it means you're a lazy slob who needs to be kicked until you're as miserable and high-strung as everyone else around you.

It seems like to let one bully have their way sets the tone where nearly everyone is forced into that mode.

This is what I mean though - to not have things get like that, ie. not have professional 'adult' life be defined by blood-drinking contests and deciding whose the libations, there'd have to be not just a cool-down but a dismantling of the sorts of behavioral incentive structures that lead to said environment. When I talk about 'pissing contests' that might have been too literally taken as two men outside a dive bar by their trucks pissing in the grass. I mean all of these social positioning and social climbing, or really dominating anyone whose inferior to you by either them being of inferior aggression or violence or simply just not being of the same genetic tree and deserving no quarter because human is just another meat to be chopped up and thrown in a bucket.

Well now you have wandered into the non-philosophical non-scientific realm of religion.

Satan is the Hebrew word for the Greek word Diabolical, and for the Latin word Lucifer, and for the English word Devil.

He is a character in the Judeo-Christian duality struggle between good and evil, as you all know, but I am just reminding you.

He pops up occasionally in the Hebrew narrative.

He pops up more in the Greek Christian narrative.

I am not sure these narratives about this role of evil is relevant in science or in philosophy.

[Papus79]

I am not sure these narratives about this role of evil is relevant in science or in philosophy.

I always forget to literalism-proof my writing, I find it to be a chore TBH.

There are ways you can hot-wire your nervous system with BS. There doesn't have to be a real 'Satan' for people to worship violence and malevolence as superpowers or use him as a symbol to pin their delusions of grandeur about their own capacities for deception and cruelty.

I'm going to guess that most people knew what I meant by that but... you know... for the stragglers....

[NukeBan]

I asked you earlier if you weren't aware that women can be just as violent as men. You just blew off addressing this.

Most of the posts in this thread don't merit much engagement, imho. This is a philosophy forum. If you should for some reason want my attention, please raise your game.

[NukeBan]

There has of course been much discussion of the Covid vaccines. How about a violence vaccine?

Papus79 raised the subject of DNA editing. Point being to remove the violence instead of the men. I agree violence is the target here, not men.

Imagine a drug which makes men feel really good (necessary for wide adoption) and dramatically reduces the inclination for conflict. This would destroy philosophy forums but could greatly benefit society more generally.

2 million have died from Covid over the last year. Hundreds of times that many could die in minutes in a future war. The carnage from male violence is already unspeakable in normal times.

It seems it might be a wise investment to fund a building full of experts who work on nothing other than a search for a violence vaccine.

[Papus79]

Sam Harris actually said something in one of his Waking Up / Making Sense conversations, I think around the hedonic balance of existence and grappling with some of the human exterminist claims made by David Benatar. What he said about the future is that he was hoping that we wouldn't eradicate drugs but rather the hope was that the drugs would just get better all-around.

I'd actually agree with him.

For one, when I brought up psychedelics earlier, that's a place where the inspiration and meaning pumps get hit strongly, and it's also a place where people can significantly broaden their understanding of what reality has in its container. There's also the obvious historical knowledge, as both Jamie Wheal and John Gray (the philosopher, not pastor or 'Men are from Mars') would clarify, that there were plenty of quite violent cultures that also had formalized entheogen use.

I find John Vervaeke et al's discussion of 'The Meaning Crisis' interesting because it touches on a lot of what's so easily manipulated by people less scrupulous in our culture. So much of what drives people back to fundamentalist religion is a need for rules and a need for some sort of organizing principle as far as larger meaning is concerned. A really obvious example of where this can go wrong is where you can tell one race that they come from a holy or 'pure' line and that its their birth right to take the world back from other races, and you also have this where certain cultures practicing polygamy in a theocratic context can teach the losers of the family wealth game that they can blow themselves up and get 72 virgins, it clearly makes them both marginally useful to someone else and also helps shield those who won out over them from incurring damage where the inequality actually gets levied.

It seems like then, if there has to be some public shot for at least establishing some sort of public and civil meaning or purpose, even without attempting claims at cosmic meaning and purpose, it has to be something that can breathe and change with incoming facts. Being able to breath and change with incoming facts is something that science has been able to do for the most part, just that it also abstains from making any claims as to what people actually 'should' do with their lives. That might be where we do need some sort of attempt at moral philosophy reinstating things that intrepid men and women can both do in order to make themselves 'better', more well-rounded, more complete as human beings, etc., and actually have that sort of thing treated for adults in the same ways that Eagle Scouts was treated for teens. In a way I feel like I'm describing Freemasonry but... for one reason or another that's been vacating and it seems like a lot of younger masons are there for the esoterica, which is fine but that tends to be something a lot of people can't relate to - if we had new schools or mystery traditions we'd have to perhaps have different versions for different interests and things that a purely secular humanist could enjoy and things that a died-in-the-wool Hermeticist could enjoy.

[h_k_s]

I am not sure these narratives about this role of evil is relevant in science or in philosophy.

I always forget to literalism-proof my writing, I find it to be a chore TBH.

There are ways you can hot-wire your nervous system with BS. There doesn't have to be a real 'Satan' for people to worship violence and malevolence as superpowers or use him as a symbol to pin their delusions of grandeur about their own capacities for deception and cruelty.

I'm going to guess that most people knew what I meant by that but... you know... for the stragglers....

Whenever I read any post here on this philosophy forum, I start from the first word at the top on the left, like most if not all readers in English do. Obviously if in Hebrew or Arabic it would be different.

So, from the first word at the top left corner of the page, I start to read.

The minute I come to B/S, I stop, reply, comment, and post.

Then I stop reading.

I never read further once I have hit B/S.

Just FYI.