On 7/17/2012 9:04 AM, Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
David-Sarah Hopwood <david-sa...@jacaranda.org> writes:
On 17/07/12 02:15, BGB wrote:
so, typically, males work towards having a job, getting lots money, ... and
will choose
females based mostly how useful they are to themselves (will they be faithful,
would they
make a good parent, ...).
meanwhile, females would judge a male based primarily on their income,
possessions,
assurance of continued support, ...
not that it is necessarily that way, as roles could be reversed (the female
holds a job),
or mutual (both hold jobs). at least one person needs to hold a job though, and
by
default, this is the social role for a male (in the alternate case, usually the
female is
considerably older, which has a secondary limiting factor in that females have
a viable
reproductive span that is considerably shorter than that for males, meaning
that the
older-working-female scenario is much less likely to result in offspring, ...).
in this case, then society works as a sort of sorting algorithm, with "better"
mates
generally ending up together (rich business man with trophy wife), and worse
mates ending
up together (poor looser with a promiscuous or otherwise undesirable wife).
Way to go combining sexist, classist, ageist, heteronormative, cisnormative,
ableist
(re: fertility) and polyphobic (equating multiple partners with undesirability)
assumptions, all in the space of four paragraphs. I'm not going to explain in
detail
why these are offensive assumptions, because that is not why I read a mailing
list
that is supposed to be about the "Fundamentals of New Computing". Please stick
to
that topic.
It is, but it is the reality, and the reason of most of our problems
too. And it's not by putting an onus on the expression of these choices
that you will repress them: they come from the deepest, our genes and
the genetic selection that has been applied on them for millena.
My point here being that what's needed is a change in how selection of
reproductive partners is done, and obviously, I'm not considering doing
it based on money or political power. Of course, I have none of either
:-)
yeah.
don't think that this is me saying that everything "should" operate this
way, rather that, at least from my observations, this is largely how it
does already. (whether it is good or bad then is a separate and
independent issue).
the issue with a person going outside the norm may not necessarily be
that it is bad or wrong for them to do so, but that it may risk putting
them at a social disadvantage.
in the original context, it was in relation to a person trying to
maximize their own pursuit of self-interest, which would tend to
probably overlap somewhat with adherence to societal norms.
granted, that is not to say, for example, that everything I do is
socially advantageous:
for example, being a programmer / "computer nerd" carries its own set of
social stigmas and negative stereotypes (and in many ways I still hold
minority views on things, ...).
an issue though is that society will not tend to see a person as they
are as a person, but will rather tend to see a person in terms of a
particular set of stereotypes.
And yes, it's perfectly on-topic, if you consider how science and
technology developments are directed. Most of our computing technology
has been created for war.
yes.
Or said otherwise, why do you think this kind of refundation project
hasn't the same kind of resources allocated to the commercial or
military projects?
I am not entirely sure I understand the question here.
if you mean, why don't people go and try to remake society in a
different form?
well, I guess that would be a hard one.
about as soon as people start trying to push for any major social
changes, there is likely to be a large amount of resistance and backlash.
it is much like, if you have one person pushing for "progressive"
ideals, you will end up with another pushing for "conservative" ideals,
typically with relatively little net change. (so, sort of a societal
equal-and-opposite effect). (by "progressive" and "conservative" here, I
don't necessarily mean them exactly as they are used in current US
politics, but more "in general").
there will be changes though in a direction where nearly everyone agrees
that this is the direction they want to go, but people fighting or
trying to impose their ideals on the other side is not really a good
solution. people really don't like having their personal freedoms and
choices being hindered, or having their personal ideals and values torn
away simply because this is how someone else feels things "should" be
(the problem is that "promoting" something for one person also tends to
come at the cost of "imposing" it on someone else).
a better question would be:
what sort of things have come up where nearly everyone has agreed and
ended up going along with it?
people don't as often think as much about these ones, since then the new
thing simply shows up, spreads across society, and people largely forget
that it was ever any different.
but, conflict is inevitable:
just as there are people who believe that the government "should"
legislate if favor of one position or another (favoring either
"conservative" or "progressive" ideals), there are others who believe
that the government "should" not be involved with personal or moral
choices in the first place (like, just let everyone do whatever, and
whether it is right or wrong or productive or destructive is their issue).
so, for example, if the government were mostly laissez faire, both in
economic and social regards.
then it all self-regulates mostly with "invisible hand" magic or similar.
and, just the same, a person will come along, and claim that the
government "should" micro-manage both a persons economic and personal
choices (just as much as some of us might think this would suck... some
might also want it this way).
or such...
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