"Offtopic-posts-topic" NSFW

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

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No comment necessary

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

I didn't know this about the DeLisle, the rear part of the original Enfield magazine is velvet lines and acts as a shell catcher, collecting the spent cartridges.

[Gippeto]

Somebody was thinking.

[MrCrowley]

You'll love this one Jack. I'm not quite sure how a page showing off the apparent good-looks of both men and women is sexist but someone is offended:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/beaut ... aze-sexist

If everyone's permission is sought before linking profiles to that page (I don't think is the case, however), I say let the idiots do what they please.

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

Somebody was thinking.

William Godfray de Lisle, quite a guy

You'll love this one Jack. I'm not quite sure how a page showing off the apparent good-looks of both men and women is sexist but someone is offended:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/beaut ... aze-sexist

*chuckle*

"Users clearly view the women and men differently even if the page pretends to present them similarly. The comments on the women are generally about looks, dress sense etcetera. The comments about the men are about their virility and other skills."

... says Arena Williams, the woman unlikely to be commended for her looks or dress sense.



Not that I'm questioning her motives, of course

Men are agents, women are objects, feminism is perpetuating that meme.

I'll quote a bit of GWW:

These perceptions also allowed feminism to essentially rewrite history, to craft palatable and believable lies about the nature of society in the past. For example, their claim that domestic violence against women was traditionally socially acceptable. This claim ignores easily accessible facts such as historical laws AGAINST wife battering, which provided for punishments from chain gangs to public flogging, incidences of vigilante justice against battering husbands that included lynching, and newspaper reports of convictions and sentences going back to at least the early 1800s. At the same time, utter falsehoods appear not only on blogs and in media opinion pieces, but in Feminist textbooks written by scholars, such as Domestic Violence Law, 2nd edition--which, according to Berkeley law school is the premiere textbook on the subject. This book brazenly states that the rule of thumb (described as a law limiting a man's right to beat his wife to sticks no wider than his thumb) was attributed to an emperor of rome who never existed (Romulus, son of the god Mars), and was perpetuated in English Common law and throughout Europe, even though no such laws have ever been found to exist.

These are easy lies to believe. Men are powerful and potentially dangerous agents who act upon others, while women are seen as objects at the mercy of outside forces who require protection. They are easy lies to tell even by those who know they are false, because there is no socially or instinctively ingrained taboo against attacking men--in fact, the absorption of violence and hostility is a man's natural place in the scheme of things.

These perceptions are what lead people to justify a woman beating a man in public by assuming he must have done something to deserve it: men are dangerous, women are harmless, men are appropriate targets of violence, and men act while women are acted upon. In order to maintain the agent/object dichotomy and all our other perceptions of men and women, we will actually manufacture justifications for such a woman, to turn her action into a reaction to some hypothetical action on his part--"I bet he was cheating on her."--to force the situation comply with our internal gendered narrative.

Also, I really like Bill Burr:

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[ToasT]

Ah feminism, cherry picking stats to make them seem inferior? If they just left it, they possibly wouldn't feel so bad about it.



And you can click the subtle link below the images to get over 600 more. Crazy.

One of the ones I saw there, women only own < 1% of worlds property. How does that figure change if you factor out all the property owned by governments and companies?

In my part of the world there isn't a problem with inequalities so I guess its hard to understand their clause. If anything (from my experience) its the other way round. For example, I get stared at every time I go into a shop, like am attempting to steal something. And once (maybe more) didn't get an engineering job because I wasn't female (not that being female would have made you any better at doing the job)

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

Crazy.

Insane. What is especially sad is to see the so-called "white knights" get involved.

Part of a larger movement: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/who-needs-feminism

One of the ones I saw there, women only own < 1% of worlds property. How does that figure change if you factor out all the property owned by governments and companies?

Good luck trying to find a source for that statistic. Emotional arguments are more important than logical arguments.

Because of this: http://www.womenactionmedia.org/faceboo ... -facebook/

In a world in which hundreds of thousands of women are assaulted daily and where intimate partner violence remains one of the leading causes of death for women around the world, it is not possible to sit on the fence.

http://gamapserver.who.int/gho/interact ... chart.html

It isn't even in the top ten.

The overwhelming number of victims of all types of violence worldwide are men.

Why bother with the truth though

In my part of the world there isn't a problem with inequalities so I guess its hard to understand their clause. If anything (from my experience) its the other way round. For example, I get stared at every time I go into a shop, like am attempting to steal something. And once (maybe more) didn't get an engineering job because I wasn't female (not that being female would have made you any better at doing the job)

“Women are constantly patting themselves on the back for how difficult their lives are, and no one corrects them, because they want to f**k ‘em”

I think that sums it up entirely. The sooner we develop realistic enough sex androids the better! The only reason the womens' movement is given any credence is the appeal of what is essentially a wet hole you can slide your cock in and out of. Who would put up with them otherwise?

[ToasT]

and no one corrects them

I understand correcting a woman is not unlike putting an elephant into a safeway bag...

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

But there's no "f" in "wa...

[Gippeto]

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

Yep

Hehe just heard this one from a (female!) colleague:

I got home from work to find an note on the fridge from my wife, "This isn't working, I'M LEAVING!!!".

I don't know what she's on about, I've been checking it for the past hour and it cools just fine.

oh FOR F***S SAKE!!!!!!

The features that men find attractive in women are markers of health and fertility - so if they historically found younger women more appealing, then it must be because older women were less healthy and fertile!

How the hell have they managed to get this upside down theory published?!?!

[MrCrowley]

How the hell have they managed to get this upside down theory published?!?

Well it does seem to be backwards as stated in the article, backwards at least to current thought.

Also, it's published in a PLoS journal of computational biology and a 'wrong' theoretical hypothesis can still be published, publishing doesn't make it fact. If it's a legitimate theory (which, it is) then it can be published. Even if it's only to provide an insight from an alternative view, it could be useful for all sorts of reasons.

The features that men find attractive in women are markers of health and fertility - so if they historically found younger women more appealing, then it must be because older women were less healthy and fertile!

Another thing, there is no norm or standard for human mating. Some societies are monogamous, other societies have extremely complex social relationships. You can't really generalise human relationships across the board. Often men will pair with much younger women in some societies, but this is when they're also quite young (late teens, twenties) and is due to social dynamics. It's not quite the same as we would have it, where older men really do choose between multiple younger and older women; sometimes for mating and sometimes for fun.

It also gets a bit more complex when you factor in things like Residual Reproductive Value, a younger mate isn't necessarily the best mate, even in the human species.

The features that men find attractive in women are markers of health and fertility

This is even questionable. Again, societies differ drastically, you can't look at everything from a western perspective.

Keep in mind that (it appears) the BBC chose the title and not the researchers. At worst, it would've been stated in a press release, I highly doubt the authors themselves would include 'blame' in their research article.

I personally think the hypothesis is wrong, but there is no true theory at this stage. The grandmother hypothesis has a lot of support but I find it questionable. G.C. Williams has written a lot of good stuff about this back in the 60s and 70s and the topic is more complex than it appears at face value. I think senescence, RRV, and culture play a large role. Culture and kinship would really be the only factors that would make menopause beneficial in any meaningful sense. We don't even know if it is an evolved adaptation, I'm sure a lot of people are annoyed that this research was conducted from that perspective rather than the bit about blaming men.

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

If it's a legitimate theory (which, it is) then it can be published. Even if it's only to provide an insight from an alternative view, it could be useful for all sorts of reasons.

We'll have to agree to disagree on how "useful" this malarkey is

Another thing, there is no norm or standard for human mating. Some societies are monogamous, other societies have extremely complex social relationships. You can't really generalise human relationships across the board. Often men will pair with much younger women in some societies, but this is when they're also quite young (late teens, twenties) and is due to social dynamics. It's not quite the same as we would have it, where older men really do choose between multiple younger and older women; sometimes for mating and sometimes for fun.

Apparently it will be better for everyone if we stopped chasing younger women

We're talking about what is desirable - if you have 5 young women, 15 menopausal women and 30 men in a tribe, it's pretty evident that even if they would all prefer to shag the younger women, some of them are going to be lumped with the older ones.

Don't tell me that most people have the best mate they could desire. They have the mate they could obtain.

I'm willing to bet that if you showed men across the globe women with similar features but across the age spectrum, by far the most common choice would be those in their early twenties at the peak of their fertility.

It also gets a bit more complex when you factor in things like Residual Reproductive Value, a younger mate isn't necessarily the best mate, even in the human species.

A woman who has children after her late thirties has a much higher chance of having a child that will be a burden to society. In evolutionary terms, a community that has a majority of older women having children is not going to last very long.

This is even questionable. Again, societies differ drastically, you can't look at everything from a western perspective.

Care to share some examples where this isn't the case?

I'll quote wikipedia:

Men, on average, tend to be attracted to women who are shorter than they are, have a youthful appearance, and exhibit features such as a symmetrical face, full breasts, full lips, and a low waist-hip ratio.

Why is this view questionable? Certainly it would seem evident that men who preferred to copulate with infertile women didn't have their genes passed on, not sure if I'm being too simplistic but on a basic level this seems to follow logically.

Keep in mind that (it appears) the BBC chose the title and not the researchers. At worst, it would've been stated in a press release, I highly doubt the authors themselves would include 'blame' in their research article.

The feminist BBC is certainly good at trolling, no doubt

We don't even know if it is an evolved adaptation, I'm sure a lot of people are annoyed that this research was conducted from that perspective rather than the bit about blaming men.

Canadians eh...

[MrCrowley]

We'll have to agree to disagree on how "useful" this malarkey is

Well it's not malarkey, remove the BBC editing and it's legitimate research (as far as I'm aware). It's not useful to you in any sense, but neither is most research conducted by scientists. I'm not that familiar with the specific research area myself, but I don't see how this hypothesis should be treated any different assuming it's based on sound reasoning. I'm skeptical because it sounds weaker than other arguments, not because it says that menopause evolved due to male preference.

And even if it was male preference that was the driving force, WHO CARES? It makes no difference. Maybe a radical feminist will use it out of context but it shouldn't affect many people's lives outside the research area. I swear you're mostly pissed because of the BBC editing and not the research. Again, I assume the research is sound because it's published in a PLoS journal, I don't have time to read it.

Apparently it will be better for everyone if we stopped chasing younger women

Says a journalist? Don't pay attention to it, most news and journalism is rubbish anyway. That has no bearing or sway in the scientific disciplines that actually focus on this stuff.

We're talking about what is desirable - if you have 5 young women, 15 menopausal women and 30 men in a tribe, it's pretty evident that even if they would all prefer to shag the younger women, some of them are going to be lumped with the older ones.
Don't tell me that most people have the best mate they could desire. They have the mate they could obtain.

Depending on the geography, I'd say the five young women should prepare themselves for a bad few years. This just shows your bias towards western ideals, this is not a realistic scenario in many respects but also you're assuming the relationships are at least going to be temporarily monogamous. Some societies believe that different men's sperm each contribute to the same baby as they've all slept with the same women.

This is a lot more complex than it seems (partially why I don't have much interest in the topic), check out Dual-Inheritance Theory, it can be full of mathematical models that most of my professors struggle with. Don't assume this research is about western cultures, or cultures you see on NatGeo or may have read about. You would probably find it very difficult to relate to the social dynamics of some of these cultures without having lived with them or done research on them, they're not simple people by any means. And we can't forget that we're inferring information about past societies based on contemporary models.

I'm willing to bet that if you showed men across the globe women with similar features but across the age spectrum, by far the most common choice would be those in their early twenties at the peak of their fertility.

I didn't dispute this. These are not realistic scenarios. Some societies will pair a 20-something male with a ~13 female and they'll mate exclusively. Another society will be completely different, there will be multiple mates, arranged pairing, unknown fathers, group families that aren't related, etc, etc. Many females will be expected to give birth by about 17-19 or so.

My point is that even if younger girls are preferred, this may not be what is displayed in the society due to a whole host of reasons. We're not solely instinctive animals, there are social dynamics, culture, and politics that can dictate who will be with who or whatever. It's hard to explain the variation you see in all these different cultures, they factor in things that we don't think about or are not applicable to us. We don't have to worry so much about who is who's child or what tribe they are from or who they are friends with or what one of their friends did or how reliable they are or how good a mother they might be or how many men they have recently slept with etc etc etc.

So while younger women may be favoured (if it is women in their early 20s, I doubt it's solely due to peak fertility; I'd expect a much younger women to be preferred if we're only factoring in fertility) universally, this does not mean this is actually what happens in society. Why? Because things are far far more complex than just fertility. Culture can be maladaptive, remember.

A woman who has children after her late thirties has a much higher chance of having a child that will be a burden to society. In evolutionary terms, a community that has a majority of older women having children is not going to last very long.

You still have this mindset of western perspective, you need to go and read about a sample of societies that have different subsistence patterns (hunter-gatherer, forager, pastoralist, horticulturist) from different regions of the world. If I remember correctly, peak fertility for Hadza women is just before they reach 30, they continue having children up until menopause (mid-40s).

Before I studied anthropology, I used to think about lots of things in "evolutionary terms", thinking it was so simple as evolution simply wouldn't allow this and wouldn't allow that. It's not so simple. There's a reason scientists use models and mathematics to test these hypotheses. Often hypotheses are simply favoured because they make mathematical sense and evolutionary sense, not because they've been demonstrably proven (which is impossible or difficult in many cases). When things don't make sense, we may end up with new models and paradigms. Kin selection and reciprocal altruism are relatively recent concepts, the relevant fields that study human behaviour and culture are about the same age as these two concepts. Rarely is anything so simple as "in evolutionary terms", especially when it applies to humans.

As I said before, culture can be maladaptive. Even if there is a negative selection coefficient (which, there may not be when it appears there is), it could be so small that it has little effect. Even if there is a strong coefficient, older women giving birth aren't going to all die, maybe there children will, but they will have plenty of other children who have survived. So it may not matter if a woman and child die during childbirth at 40, as long as she has offspring of decent age.

Men, on average, tend to be attracted to women who are shorter than they are, have a youthful appearance, and exhibit features such as a symmetrical face, full breasts, full lips, and a low waist-hip ratio.

Why is this view questionable?

Well to start with, one of the main sources used for that statement states: "The data used are from Britain’s National Child Development Study, which is an ongoing longitudinal investigation of social, economic and health outcomes for all of the children born in Great Britain in a single week in March 1958".
A second main source is the Guardian.
A third main source used Caucasian and Japanese participants.

Not exactly representative, that's what's questionable about it. Sure, things like height and stuff may be found in some societies in Africa and South America but they don't usually share the same set of characteristics for attractiveness that we do.

You know what Hadza women do find attractive in men? Successful hunters who share meat (no, not that meat) with their group. Among other things of course, just providing an example that you wont find in any WEIRD-population study. Western men might prefer slim women, Hadza might prefer fuller women with larger hips.

Just look at portraits from the last few hundred (or thousand) years, we don't share all of the same characteristics for attraction that they do. Look at the Venus figurines from 30kya.

If you want to generalise about western populations, we'll probably agree. If you want to generalise about humans, we're wasting each others time as we're both out of our depth; I'm just not sure if you realise it yet. If you want to be able to infer our evolutionary history, you best start reading up on some of these African, South American, Pacific, and Asian societies that are used as contemporary comparisons for past humans. If you want to refute the BBC article and similar research, read some articles by G.C. Williams, K Hawkes, EA Smith, H Kaplan, M Hurtado, Richard Dawkins, etc. There's a ridiculous amount of information on this stuff, it's not something that can be done justice in a forum discussion by two non-experts.

In conclusion: I don't know why women have menopause, researchers are still arguing over why it exists, it may be adaptive, it may not be adaptive. What I can say, based on what I've read and been taught, its probably not due just to preference for youth and fertility. "In evolutionary terms" there isn't much harm in continuing female fertility until death, so there must be a benefit of menopause that is not directly related to reproduction. Hence the popularity of the grandmother hypothesis. GC Williams even suggested the Mother hypothesis as more likely, at the time of reading it I was swayed by his reasoning but I'll have to go back and have another think about it since I've forgotten a lot of it. I believe it's discussed in his article "Pleiotropy, Natural Selection, and the Evolution of Senescence".

edit: longest post in SF history? Potential contender. I'll gladly accept an "agree to disagree".

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

I don't see how this hypothesis should be treated any different assuming it's based on sound reasoning. I'm skeptical because it sounds weaker than other arguments, not because it says that menopause evolved due to male preference.

Personally, I don't see the reasoning as being sound. This is not my area of expertise though so you'll have to put up with my Western layman arguments.

And even if it was male preference that was the driving force, WHO CARES? It makes no difference. Maybe a radical feminist will use it out of context but it shouldn't affect many people's lives outside the research area. I swear you're mostly pissed because of the BBC editing and not the research.

You're right here in that I object to what I perceive to be an illogical study being used as another stick to beat my gender. If it had made sense to me, I would be less ticked off.

Says a journalist? Don't pay attention to it, most news and journalism is rubbish anyway. That has no bearing or sway in the scientific disciplines that actually focus on this stuff.

Unfortunately, public policy is much more highly influenced by the media than by obscure studies. Indeed, I would never have heard of this study if it wasn't for somebody with an agenda digging it up.

Depending on the geography, I'd say the five young women should prepare themselves for a bad few years. This just shows your bias towards western ideals, this is not a realistic scenario in many respects but also you're assuming the relationships are at least going to be temporarily monogamous. Some societies believe that different men's sperm each contribute to the same baby as they've all slept with the same women.

The point I was making is that it is the younger women that are the most desirable, which according to the above you agree with.

This is a lot more complex than it seems (partially why I don't have much interest in the topic), check out Dual-Inheritance Theory, it can be full of mathematical models that most of my professors struggle with. Don't assume this research is about western cultures, or cultures you see on NatGeo or may have read about. You would probably find it very difficult to relate to the social dynamics of some of these cultures without having lived with them or done research on them, they're not simple people by any means. And we can't forget that we're inferring information about past societies based on contemporary models.

Far beyond my level of knowledge or interest in the subject.

We don't have to worry so much about who is who's child or what tribe they are from or who they are friends with or what one of their friends did or how reliable they are or how good a mother they might be or how many men they have recently slept with etc etc etc.

We don't? Hmmm...

So while younger women may be favoured (if it is women in their early 20s, I doubt it's solely due to peak fertility; I'd expect a much younger women to be preferred if we're only factoring in fertility) universally, this does not mean this is actually what happens in society. Why? Because things are far far more complex than just fertility. Culture can be maladaptive, remember.

I have only lived in Western culture so this is the only experience I can speak of, but I don't think I'm being close minded to think that based on this I can dismiss the conclusions of the research out of hand.

Before I studied anthropology, I used to think about lots of things in "evolutionary terms", thinking it was so simple as evolution simply wouldn't allow this and wouldn't allow that. It's not so simple. There's a reason scientists use models and mathematics to test these hypotheses. Often hypotheses are simply favoured because they make mathematical sense and evolutionary sense, not because they've been demonstrably proven (which is impossible or difficult in many cases). When things don't make sense, we may end up with new models and paradigms. Kin selection and reciprocal altruism are relatively recent concepts, the relevant fields that study human behaviour and culture are about the same age as these two concepts. Rarely is anything so simple as "in evolutionary terms", especially when it applies to humans.

I wil ladmit that I am taking a bit of a simplistic view, but then again this is a spudgun forum

Not exactly representative, that's what's questionable about it. Sure, things like height and stuff may be found in some societies in Africa and South America but they don't usually share the same set of characteristics for attractiveness that we do.

Interesting study: http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hbe-lab/acr ... 0waist.pdf

You know what Hadza women do find attractive in men? Successful hunters who share meat (no, not that meat) with their group. Among other things of course, just providing an example that you wont find in any WEIRD-population study.

That fits the idea that men are evaluated based on what they can offer in terms of resources as opposed to physical attraction, and indeed features considered to be attractive in men are usually markers of health and strength which conventionally indicate a man's potential as a contributor of resources.

Western men might prefer slim women, Hadza might prefer fuller women with larger hips.

In the study I linked to, it appears Hadza men associate slim women with a low waist to hip ratio with ill health - this if true would make them poor candidates for reproduction and therefore less desirable as a mate. This supports my opposition to the study - men are attracted to features which indicate a good chance of reproductive success. This means it makes much more sense that attraction to younger women is due to the fact that older women are less fertile, as opposed to older women becoming infertile since men were chasing younger women.

Just look at portraits from the last few hundred (or thousand) years, we don't share all of the same characteristics for attraction that they do. Look at the Venus figurines from 30kya.

I wouldn't, but to whoever made it, she was the model of fertility.

There's a ridiculous amount of information on this stuff, it's not something that can be done justice in a forum discussion by two non-experts.

"In evolutionary terms" there isn't much harm in continuing female fertility until death, so there must be a benefit of menopause that is not directly related to reproduction.

Isn't there? Greater risk of infant or mother mortality, greater risk of birth defects, having to raise a child with diminishing physical prowess, probably not living long enough to see the child reach adulthood... it sounds to me that a woman is more likely to survive without the pressure of having to reproduce, especially beyond the years she is considered a desirable mate by the menfolk.