Men want beauty, women want wealth, & other unscientific tosh

[RainbowUnicorn]

https://aeon.co/ideas/men-want-beauty-wo...tific-tosh

EXCERPT: . . . Many evolutionary psychologists put this trend down to the power of innate biological drives. Their argument is that women have a primeval urge to hang on to wealthy men to provide for their children during the long period of pregnancy and childrearing. Men, meanwhile, are mostly concerned about a woman’s fertility, for which beauty and youth serve as helpful cues. In the distant past, this behaviour was adaptive, and so evolution selected and encoded it in our genes, forever. [...]

However, there has been a tectonic shift in gender roles over the past 50 years. [...] are we still at the mercy of our biological destiny, as evolutionary psychologists claim?

The results from the research are clear: mating preferences among men and women look increasingly similar. The trend is directly tied to increasing gender equality, as women gain greater access to resources and opportunities in business, politics and education. In more gender-unequal nations, such as Turkey, women rate the earning potential of partners as twice as important compared with women in the most gender-equal nations, such as Finland. As with Josh and Mia, Finnish men are now more likely than Finnish women to select partners based on their high level of education.

Of course, sexism varies within each society [...] But if mating preferences are biologically predetermined, individual sexism shouldn’t have an impact. However, research carried out in nine nations proves the opposite. The more gender-unequal men’s personal attitudes, the more they prefer qualities in women such as youth and attractiveness; and the more gender-unequal women’s attitudes, the more they prefer qualities in men such as money and status. This evidence points to some serious flaws in the evolutionary psychologists’ narrative. If genes determine our mating preferences, how is it that these supposedly hardwired instincts erode in line with societies’ and individual’s gender-egalitarianism?

MORE: https://aeon.co/ideas/men-want-beauty-wo...tific-tosh

In the distant past, this behaviour was adaptive, and so evolution selected and encoded it in our genes, forever.

If genes determine our mating preferences, how is it that these supposedly hardwired instincts erode in line with societies’ and individual’s gender-egalitarianism?

some serious flaws in the evolutionary psychologists’ narrative.

However, there has been a tectonic shift in gender roles over the past 50 years.

are we still at the mercy of our biological destiny, as evolutionary psychologists claim?

biological destiny

evolutionary psychologists claim

Psychology is a science requiring artistic ability relying on the recording of data using mathamatics.
effectivly we could render that down to simply say art requires math
however...
extrapolating a little more...
The effective documentation of the mind & society & how it works, operates and functions, requires some rough edges to be hammered in to present a "narative" called communication.
thus all persection is subjective.

in the modern world
Given the time line of 50 years being generically a single generation, it is quite hard to formulate a genetic preference when the average person has atleast 2 signifigant long term relationships with breeding.

being able to quantify that data and then process it to show mating preferences is highly problematic.
not to mention the 2 basic differences between
1 mating
2 mating for the purpose of breeding

given that around 50% of all children in the modern world are un-intended pregnancys(vastly higher in the usa), that too makes it even more complex.

what would be helpful yet extremely costly to perform is
a study on intended pregnancys and the peripheral mating bonding relationships & duration cross matched with financial & power atributes of the males.

conversly, a female from a poorer community ...
is she more likely to mate with a male of a higher level of afluence even if that level is not collectively deemed "high".
is it comparative ?

one would need the abortion statistics of young wealthy single females also.

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Do mutual feelings, albeit disrespectful, create an aura of admiration?

That only seems to work on women.

Is flattery something women trust in more than men? Where on the list does honesty sit?

Could never figure out how some women end up with control freaks. Are women fooled easier than men?

excellent question.
keep in mind 3 things
evolutionary biology
power to protect the tribe(other food gatherers, babys, pregnant cows, sacred bulls etc yadda yadda)
power to aquire food & shelter


control freaks tend to be a valuable resource if they are possible to control or negotiate with to utilise their productivity.
the negative aspects of them becoming homicidal & violent are the dominating issues of popular social construction... along with excess testosterone which potentially destroys and/or inhibits the higher mind.


being a control freak use to be a basic requirement of leadership up until 30 to 40 years ago and is still a basic requirement of all financial CEO level socially percieved paradigms for the board to rubber stamp.

generically the social hysteria used to signal total control by a CEO is all about crowd surfing a social media wave.

CEO's have been forced to become more generically female in their personality projections and management style to maintain their global prominance.

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Do mutual feelings, albeit disrespectful, create an aura of admiration?

That only seems to work on women.

Is flattery something women trust in more than men? Where on the list does honesty sit?

Could never figure out how some women end up with control freaks. Are women fooled easier than men?

I would actually assume women distrust flattery more than men, since they naturally pay a potentially higher price for sex and they typically hear enough flattery to devalue it.

Women do seem especially susceptible to disrespect, partially due to their self-esteem and partially due to their attraction to "bad boys". Women often aren't aware that their professed desires do not match their subconscious/instinctive desires.

and yet men and women cheat on each other equally yet women never get caught anywhere near as much as men do...
plus women innitiate the vast majority of relationship break ups when men are happy to continue in a broken relationship with no honest emotional communication.

thus one could equally propose the same for mens subconscious desires, 'being' 'unknown to them'.
though when one of 50% of the total sum has physical power over the other.
it is easier to simply take what they want... capitalism ? how long has rape been illegal between a husband and wife in modern countrys ?
in the usa 10 years ?
maybe 20 ?
so we are talking about 10 & 20 year old mens psychology ? evolutionarily speaking...

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I don't really care what women want and I'm not even sure what it is I bring to the table. But when this mutant meets that other receptive mutant, we're not fooling anybody, least not ourselves. 

Men are generally more aggressive and ostentatious.  This is inadvertently mistaken for confidence. As far as control freaks are concerned, they can appear to be organized, responsible, and upstanding.

I think the article is on point, though.  My friend is financially independent and one hell of a cougar.  I always try to get her to date someone closer to her age but she says she still has to sit across the table from them.  

Nietzsche was right.

"Finally, women. If we consider the whole history of women, are they not obliged first of all, and above all to be actresses?"-Nietzsche

We are better actresses, and a little more empathetic, but we notice.  

Grey hair; sexy on a good looking man. Wrinkles; minor ones are sexy on a good looking man.  Everything else, we simply tolerate for the same reasons that you do.

Nietzsche and MR were right.

"It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages."-Nietzsche

"You can take my word for it, that for men like me, a marriage after the type of Goethe's would be the best of all—that is to say, a marriage with a good housekeeper! But even this idea is repellent to me. A young and cheerful daughter to whom I would be an object of reverence would be much more to the point. The best of all, however, would be to have my good old Lama again. For a philosopher, a sister is an excellent philanthropic institution, particularly when she is bright, brave, and loving (no old vinegar flask like G. Keller's sister), but as a rule one only recognizes such truths when it is too late."-Nietzsche

Do you know why he called his sister Lama?

Do you know why he called his sister Lama?

im going to guess because she spat at people.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/OAWKB2IIaRA

[Zinjanthropos]

Do you know why he called his sister Lama?

I'm going to guess also. Is it in reference to The Dalai Lama? Perhaps his sister was called Dolly within their household and he just changed it because he pronounced Dalai like many of us have....Dolly. 

[Yazata]

Men want beauty, women want wealth, & other unscientific tosh

I'm not convinced that it is.

I've wondered about that fact that in most animal species, males have more brightly colored feathers, have bigger antlers, or put on other anatomical or behavioral sexual displays. Evolutionary theory's sexual selection provides us with a plausible answer for why that is.

But among humans, it's typically the females that adorn themselves and put on the more obvious sexual displays.

So, are humans an exception to the more general rule? Or is there a characteristic kind of human male sexual display that we are missing?  

Their argument is that women have a primeval urge to hang on to wealthy men to provide for their children during the long period of pregnancy and childrearing.

I don't think that female humans select only for wealth. They like power, dominance, intelligence, creativity and all that kind of stuff too. Masculinity isn't just hunkiness, it's behavioral too.

My hypothesis is that the fact that that monarchs, generals, government hierarchs, philosophers, scientists, inventers, business entrepeneurs, artists, religious leaders and intellectuals have typically been male, all around the world, in all periods of history for which data exists, is precisely the missing human male sexual display that we were missing. In paleolithic times, I think that female protohumans basically bred male protohumans to be inventive or powerful or successful like that. (Just like female birds bred male birds to be sexy and colorful.) It might be one of the more important reasons why the human species has developed such a competitive advantage over the other animals.

Every high-school boy knows that he is never going to get laid unless he shows some signs of that stuff. So boys compete endlessly for female attention in no end of inventive ways.

However, there has been a tectonic shift in gender roles over the past 50 years. are we still at the mercy of our biological destiny, as evolutionary psychologists claim?

That looks like a rhetorical straw man to me. I don't think that evolutionary psychologists have ever argued that. The fact that there has been a "tectonic shift" in sex roles obviously argues against it.

I don't think that instincts manifest in humans as robotic hard-wired sub-routines the way they might in worms or sea-anemones. In humans, instincts are more likely to manifest as broad tendencies to think and behave in generally similar ways. So I think that while human males and females tend to gravitate on average towards sexually stereotyped kinds of behaviors, it's obviously possible to deviate from that script if there's enough parental and social pressure or inner motivation to want to. But doing so might arguably lower reproductive efficiency, as illustrated in the declining birth-rates in the "developed" world.

This thread, or at least its OP, looks like a not-very-original replay of the extraordinarily heated 1980's 'sociobiology' controversies.

[Syne]

Men want beauty, women want wealth, & other unscientific tosh

I'm not convinced that it is.

I've wondered about that fact that in most animal species, males have more brightly colored feathers, have bigger antlers, or put on other anatomical or behavioral sexual displays. Evolutionary theory's sexual selection provides us with a plausible answer for why that is.

But among humans, it's typically the females that adorn themselves and put on the more obvious sexual displays.

So, are humans an exception to the more general rule? Or is there a characteristic kind of human male sexual display that we are missing?  

That doesn't seem to be true of any primates. It's female primates, like baboons, that have colorful sexual displays.

[RainbowUnicorn]

Men want beauty, women want wealth, & other unscientific tosh

I'm not convinced that it is.

I've wondered about that fact that in most animal species, males have more brightly colored feathers, have bigger antlers, or put on other anatomical or behavioral sexual displays. Evolutionary theory's sexual selection provides us with a plausible answer for why that is.

But among humans, it's typically the females that adorn themselves and put on the more obvious sexual displays.

So, are humans an exception to the more general rule? Or is there a characteristic kind of human male sexual display that we are missing?  

Their argument is that women have a primeval urge to hang on to wealthy men to provide for their children during the long period of pregnancy and childrearing.

I don't think that female humans select only for wealth. They like power, dominance, intelligence, creativity and all that kind of stuff too. Masculinity isn't just hunkiness, it's behavioral too.

My hypothesis is that the fact that that monarchs, generals, government hierarchs, philosophers, scientists, inventers, business entrepeneurs, artists, religious leaders and intellectuals have typically been male, all around the world, in all periods of history for which data exists, is precisely the missing human male sexual display that we were missing. In paleolithic times, I think that female protohumans basically bred male protohumans to be inventive or powerful or successful like that. (Just like female birds bred male birds to be sexy and colorful.) It might be one of the more important reasons why the human species has developed such a competitive advantage over the other animals.

Every high-school boy knows that he is never going to get laid unless he shows some signs of that stuff. So boys compete endlessly for female attention in no end of inventive ways.

However, there has been a tectonic shift in gender roles over the past 50 years. are we still at the mercy of our biological destiny, as evolutionary psychologists claim?

That looks like a rhetorical straw man to me. I don't think that evolutionary psychologists have ever argued that. The fact that there has been a "tectonic shift" in sex roles obviously argues against it.

I don't think that instincts manifest in humans as robotic hard-wired sub-routines the way they might in worms or sea-anemones. In humans, instincts are more likely to manifest as broad tendencies to think and behave in generally similar ways. So I think that while human males and females tend to gravitate on average towards sexually stereotyped kinds of behaviors, it's obviously possible to deviate from that script if there's enough parental and social pressure or inner motivation to want to. But doing so might arguably lower reproductive efficiency, as illustrated in the declining birth-rates in the "developed" world.

This thread, or at least its OP, looks like a not-very-original replay of the extraordinarily heated 1980's 'sociobiology' controversies.

are you calling me a  sexually stereotyped sea-anemone ?

reproductive efficiency

speaking seriousely...  i am quite fascinated by this aspect as it relates to over population & infant/maternal mortality as a process direclty influencing investment return per person/baby.

contrasting with social accountability as a process of managing sexual reproduction
via sexual behaviour that adds undue risk to pregnancy.

i have read some data somewhere(not sure how easy it is to find)
that did add some interesting concepts around promiscuety of finacially poorer males having some balance effect to infertile richer older males and the distribution of breeding females with enough resources to secure a comparative level of health & education for the offspring.

it was a little tounge in cheek as you could imagine as it compared the data sets for purely entertainment examples of bad statistical correlation principals.

i do tend to beleive there is an evolutionary development for greater investment into offspring, and thus equating to longer term survivability...
this is apparent to educated females.
thus the potential to put off breeding to gain more wealth and a better long term outcome for mother & offspring makes perfect sense.
not to mention the massive increase in life span roughly doubling in 70 years.

can we equate this data to be concurrent intellectual knowlledge motivating behaviours  ?

over population means a lot to modern civilised society.
it means more power to 3rd & 4th world countrys and mentalities.

[Secular Sanity]

im going to guess because she spat at people.

Or stubbornness, right?  I can see how a lot people might think that, perhaps even she, but a Lama is a Camelid.  

I'm going to guess also. Is it in reference to The Dalai Lama?

No, I don't think so.  IMHO, I believe he was referring to a domesticated Llama (camel).  It was a term of endearment. She was his Lama (beast of burden).  

The Three Metamorphoses

And much of what people are on the inside is like an oyster, namely disgusting and slimy and hard to grasp—so that a noble shell with noble ornamentation must intercede for it.  But one must also learn this art; to have a shell and seemly sight clever blindness!

Once more what is deceiving about people is that many a shell is meager and sad and too much a shell.  Much hidden goodness and strength is never guessed; the most exquisite delicacies find no tasters!

Women know this, the most exquisite ones: a bit fatter, a bit thinner—oh how much destiny lies in so little!

But whoever wants to become light and a bird must love himself—thus I teach.
Not, to be sure, with the love of the sick and addicted, because among them even self-love stinks!
One has to learn to love oneself—thus I teach—with hale and healthy love, so that one can stand oneself and not have to roam around.
Such roaming around christens itself “love of the neighbor”: these words so far have produced the best lying and hypocrisy, and especially from those whom all the world found heavy.
And truly, this is not a command for today and tomorrow, this learning to love oneself.  Instead of all arts this is the most subtle, cunning, ultimate, and most patient.
For one’s own, you see, all one’s own is well hidden; and off all buried treasure, one’s own is the latest to be dug up—this is the spirit of gravity’s doing.
Almost all cradle, grave words and values are imparted to us, “good’ and “evil” this dowry calls itself.  For its sake we are forgiven for being alive.
And for this reason one lets the little children come to one, in order to restrain them early on from loving themselves: this is the spirit of gravity’s doing.
And we – we faithfully lug what is imparted to us on hard shoulders and over rough mountains! And if we sweat, then we are told: “Yes, life is a heavy burden!”
But only the human being is a heavy burden to himself!  This is because he lugs too much that is foreign to him.  Like a camel he kneels down and allows himself to be well burdened.  
Especially the strong human being who is eager to bear and inherently reverent; too many foreign words and values he loads upon himself – now life seems a desert to him!
And true enough, much that is one’s own is also a heavy burden!  And much of what people are on the inside is like an oyster, namely disgusting and slimy and hard to grasp—so that a noble shell with noble ornamentation must intercede for it.  But one must also learn this art; to have a shell and seemly sight clever blindness!
Once more what is deceiving about people is that many a shell is meager and sad and too much a shell.  Much hidden goodness and strength is never guessed; the most exquisite delicacies find no tasters!
Women know this, the most exquisite ones: a bit fatter, a bit thinner—oh how much destiny lies in so little!

[Yazata]

The animal, a small South American camel relative, is a 'llama' (2 l's).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llama

'Lama' is a Tibetan word for a supposedly inspired religious teacher in their Tantric Vajrayana Buddhism. The same kind of figures are called 'guru' in Hindu India.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lama

[Syne]

"He called her ‘Llama’ after a book they had read as children, and she came when called to ease his life of nine-day migraines and what appears to have been a near autistic incapacity to deal socially with the world." - https://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n18/jenny-disk...it-was-her

Llama is spelled "lama" in German.

[RainbowUnicorn]

im going to guess because she spat at people.

Or stubbornness, right?  I can see how a lot people might think that, perhaps even she, but a Lama is a Camelid.  

I'm going to guess also. Is it in reference to The Dalai Lama?

No, I don't think so.  IMHO, I believe he was referring to a domesticated Llama (camel).  It was a term of endearment. She was his Lama (beast of burden).  

The Three Metamorphoses

And much of what people are on the inside is like an oyster, namely disgusting and slimy and hard to grasp—so that a noble shell with noble ornamentation must intercede for it.  But one must also learn this art; to have a shell and seemly sight clever blindness!

Once more what is deceiving about people is that many a shell is meager and sad and too much a shell.  Much hidden goodness and strength is never guessed; the most exquisite delicacies find no tasters!

Women know this, the most exquisite ones: a bit fatter, a bit thinner—oh how much destiny lies in so little!

But whoever wants to become light and a bird must love himself—thus I teach.
Not, to be sure, with the love of the sick and addicted, because among them even self-love stinks!
One has to learn to love oneself—thus I teach—with hale and healthy love, so that one can stand oneself and not have to roam around.
Such roaming around christens itself “love of the neighbor”: these words so far have produced the best lying and hypocrisy, and especially from those whom all the world found heavy.
And truly, this is not a command for today and tomorrow, this learning to love oneself.  Instead of all arts this is the most subtle, cunning, ultimate, and most patient.
For one’s own, you see, all one’s own is well hidden; and off all buried treasure, one’s own is the latest to be dug up—this is the spirit of gravity’s doing.
Almost all cradle, grave words and values are imparted to us, “good’ and “evil” this dowry calls itself.  For its sake we are forgiven for being alive.
And for this reason one lets the little children come to one, in order to restrain them early on from loving themselves: this is the spirit of gravity’s doing.
And we – we faithfully lug what is imparted to us on hard shoulders and over rough mountains! And if we sweat, then we are told: “Yes, life is a heavy burden!”
But only the human being is a heavy burden to himself!  This is because he lugs too much that is foreign to him.  Like a camel he kneels down and allows himself to be well burdened.  
Especially the strong human being who is eager to bear and inherently reverent; too many foreign words and values he loads upon himself – now life seems a desert to him!
And true enough, much that is one’s own is also a heavy burden!  And much of what people are on the inside is like an oyster, namely disgusting and slimy and hard to grasp—so that a noble shell with noble ornamentation must intercede for it.  But one must also learn this art; to have a shell and seemly sight clever blindness!
Once more what is deceiving about people is that many a shell is meager and sad and too much a shell.  Much hidden goodness and strength is never guessed; the most exquisite delicacies find no tasters!
Women know this, the most exquisite ones: a bit fatter, a bit thinner—oh how much destiny lies in so little!

as i have discovered over time, most highly functioning minds have all sorts of side effects/quirks.
it appears the higher the level of mind functionality the potential greater discordance with some commonly phrased normative social disposition.


sounding boards, grounding rods(stubbornness, indeed)... etc.. i was pondering along those lines...

[Secular Sanity]

The animal, a small South American camel relative, is a 'llama' (2 l's).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llama

'Lama' is a Tibetan word for a supposedly inspired religious teacher in their Tantric Vajrayana Buddhism. The same kind of figures are called 'guru' in Hindu India.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lama

I don’t think that Nietzsche would have thought of his younger sister as his teacher. Have you read any of his work, Yazata?

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"He called her ‘Llama’ after a book they had read as children, and she came when called to ease his life of nine-day migraines and what appears to have been a near autistic incapacity to deal socially with the world." - https://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n18/jenny-disk...it-was-her

Llama is spelled "lama" in German.

The Lama 

Yes, but it's a little more interesting than that. The thing that's interesting isn't just from her book, "The Young Nietzsche" by Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, but it’s probably only interesting to those who have read his work.

Anyone?