Change My Mind Series

Call them resources then. Do the same attributes that led to resource acquisition in the bulk of human evolution translate to modern human wealth? You're asserting that there's a biological drive that attracts women to wealth - for some reason, I don't think you're saying that modern women are attracted to the human who has the largest store of yams and cattle bones.

None of these are measures of reproductive success. If a rich man has two children that survive to reproductive age and a poor man has two children that survive to reproductive age, they are equally successful.

Then it's up to you to show how prehistoric notions of wealth translate to modern human notions of wealth.

If a bower bird does not build a bower, it will not mate. Are you asserting the same thing about people who don't acquire wealth?

If those traits are independent of wealth, then wealth is not what's under selection.

You asserted that women are attracted to wealth, not me. Sorry your hypothesis doesn't hold up.

"I'm taking my ball and going home!" Pathetic.

 

And again you're constraining yourself to the very narrow modern period when discussing human evolution and particularly something as fundamental as mating. I suppose I should do the same when discussing things like bipedalism or conflict behaviours. I guess we stood upright to better see those screens which are everywhere.

And if I created a food shortage tomorrow whose children are most likely to survive?

And against you're still focusing on one minute part of survival characteristics.

Actually I was making fun of your ridiculous attempt to explain human behaviours by spouting 'just because.'

Except it can be both what is under selection because resources are beneficial, and as a heuristic for judging other fitness characteristics (athleticism, coordination, guile, etc.)

I asserted that women are attracted more to survival characteristics. Resources....good for survival....not have them....bad. That simple enough for you?

Yeah really pathetic that I'm not going to waste at least a month of my time pulling together a ton of studies on cross-cultural male/female trait selection and tying them all together all for nothing more than the satisfaction of being right, assuming you pay attention at all because lord knows explaining human behaviour as though there might be some sort of selection process behind it is the sheer height of insanity. How pathetic to have value for one's time.

Now I'm going to leave you the ball, because some of us have jobs in the morning, and perhaps you will choose to understand that the it is in fact round without me having to explain the entire field of geometry to you.

 

Your initial assertion was "If women select for the richer and more powerful males then this is what will happen isn't it?" If you're willing to qualify that with "richer and more powerful in the paleolithic era," then we've got a starting point for discussion.

It honestly depends. Are people who are accustomed to scrounging for food going to be better at finding it? Maybe. Are people who have vast stores of food going to be able to rely on those stores? Maybe. Couple this some data about how frequent these sorts of food shortages are and you have some sort of a selection pressure. Finding a gene or series of genes that contributes to people storing food and you've got the potential for evolution. Without those it's a just so story.

 

These kind of huge sweeping assumptions are a sticking point in the conversation for me. How do we know this? Would Gandhi and Einstein be kings in Sparta? How would you run such an experiement, and how would you control for variables?

Yes, it does... by shielding people's offspring from competition. Plenty of people born into wealth have to do no more than live off compound interest and asset value while playing at business, because they know they cannot fail. No "drive to the top" needed, because they are already there. If this were driving selection, wouldn't it be producing largely maladapted dodos, and not hungry wolves?

You're accusing Philosoraptor of focusing on recent history, but it is only very recently in the life of our species that anyone owned any resources to hand down to their offspring.

 

Would it perhaps not be fairer to say that many women are attracted to power? It's not the only attractive quality or even the most important one but it's there.

Power is also perceived differently by different people. Power could be a status or position in a group or physical power or even resources available.

I wouldn't say it's the most important trait women look for but it must be part of it for some women. Social standing/power. It's just as another quality trait that assnotherttracts a mate.

 

Certainly status is almost universally desired, but as you say, status means different things to different people.

If you're a hippy activist living in a van, then marrying a rich person will lower your status amongst your peers.

Some people equate high status with having other people do everything for them, and others equate it with doing everything for themselves.

 

Actually I'm trying to steer the debate toward some rational analysis, but you keep on debating evolution against a guy with a PhD in evolution.....

 

I didn’t complete my PhD.

 

Slacker

 

And with the money saved, you'll be a target for all the money hungry women!

 

Lucky for me that isn't true!

 

I think IQ and whatever contributes to it is generally a common thing among successful people. So to get rich you have a much better shot with a higher IQ than somebody with a lower IQ. There's certainly a chance the IQ doesn't pass down to the next generation where generational wealth is concerned (queue opening for trump is an idiot xD). How far IQ goes in tangible data for this sort of thing I believe is up in the air a bit, or at least in certain areas of thought where it's applied or attempted to be.

I don't like the spin on wealth and potential mates in the thread. I think the notion that women go after rich guys is true of a certain minority of women and isn't a measure you could apply to the whole "this is what women do to seek a mate" argument. I think saying something more along the lines of "women generally seek competency for potential mates" is a broader definition that even all the stereotypes can fit under.

Your comments about saving are interesting. That was a theme in my recent economics class. I have a hard time considering anything coming from evolutionary psychology as it's so new and some of the studies as @philosoraptor has shared with me over messages are so ludicrous I can't imagine the mind it took to think up the hypothesis. Reminds me a lot about sociologists who postulate reasons for outcomes on data due to their personal bias without considering other factors not in their study that might be contributing to the cause.

Don't save your money too much. If you don't use it to build yourself up you actually save less. #EconomicProfessorAdviceWhoHadACoffeeShopBusinessThatFailed?

 

The view that IQ is genetic doesn't follow the evidence. IQ points have gone up significantly over time... and I was going to go on, but here you can see a Stefan Molyneux interview before he went full... Stefan Molyneux:

Your parents' social status can affect your social status for up to a millennium, maybe more: This is the proof that the 1% have been running the show for 800 years

 

I don't think IQ is entirely genetic. I think genetic factors play into IQ. I don't think our brain is any different than our body. Unless there is a genetic defect, we can all be strong, we can all be fast, we can all have endurance and way more of these things than we'll probably ever need. Genetics plays a big part in how successful you are in physical areas when it comes to seeing the difference between groups with certain markers for certain things, or what area you lean more towards in proficiency. The genetic difference plays out dramatically at the professional level (look no further than sports). And some people just have a terrible body, just like some people really are just dumb (for lack of an appropriate term on MAP).

I have no data to support my position here. I have taken multiple standardized tests, some IQ related, and I've always gotten significantly better at them every time I take them. I wouldn't say it's because I'm getting smarter either, it's just I've learned the game. I think there's a lot of good information to be gained from measuring IQ, but I don't think it needs to be a deciding factor in how we view people.

I think in the world population, the majority of America is in the top 1% of how much income we have to spend on average. We need some adjustments to how much monies people are allowed to keep out of the economic system, but I don't think we necessarily need to redistribute the wealth to poorer people in order to do that.

 

I've always thought this was a good article that highlighted some of the fallacies associated with IQ and genetics:

Why People Keep Misunderstanding the 'Connection' Between Race and IQ - The Atlantic

 

I have aa question!

The most obvious and easiest example of a pay gap is sports. Female football players get paid next to nothing compared to their male counterparts. Is this fair or is it market dictated?

 

So I think this is where some of the misconceptions about racism/sexism/homophobia/etc. start to appear; male dominated sports may have higher audiences, which command higher prices for advertisements, translating into higher pay. This seems 'fair' or impersonal under the system in which we are living, but take a step back and question 'why' audiences are more interested in male sports and that's when you start interrogating the entire system as a sexist edifice. Go back to the pay gap argument at large - studies have dismissed it saying that it's a product of choices women make and the amount of time that they spend at home, but that's not dismissing it at all, that's simply explaining how women navigate through a sexist society.

 

Why do we watch mens sports more? There's only a few things I can think where women are watched as much as men. Olympics and MMA. The Olympics really seems closer to 50/50 for sports coverage than any pro sport.

 

So there's no other possible explanation other than sexism? Nothing at all?