What do you think?
Two observations:
1. A male can mate with multiple females within a short timeframe, thereby maximizing his offspring. A female cannot do the same; a female can only spread her genes once every nine months. Thus, from an evolutionary perspective, it is more reasonable for a male to have multiple female lovers than vice versa.
2. Long-term relationships are kind of a hit-or-miss ordeal. A child only needs to be raised by both father and mother for a few years. After a certain point, the mother can fend for herself and her child just fine without the father. Thus, there really is no point in continued romantic involvement between the father and the mother unless more offspring are produced.
Taking the above into account, I would have to say that both monogamous relationships and marriages are without a basis in human nature.
Political Atheists Blog
krazy kaju, what explains the widescale adoption of monogamy with the rise of argiculture?
"I cannot prove, but am prepared to affirm, that if you take care of clarity in reasoning, most good causes will take care of themselves, while some bad ones are taken care of as a matter of course." -Anthony de Jasay
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygamy#Patterns_of_occurrence_worldwide
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygamy#Patterns_of_occurrence_across_religions
I think there is some cultural taboo, and that monogamy should be favored, but I have no problem with polygamy.
Freedom has always been the only route to progress.
I think there is a difference between polygamy and polyamory.
Polygamy is when men have long-term relationship or children with multiple women. In Islam and Mormonism, for instance, it is pretty much understood that you are locked in with vows and that leaving would mean ostracism. It is basically the male advantage. Whereas polygyny, one woman and more than one man, might mean that the men are in the stable.
Whereas I think polyamory is more about open relationships... no contracts, no family, no obligations, no jealousy, etc. Pretty much eternal college student. There is no distinction between ones in which the man has more partners or the woman. So it is more likely fairer to both's interests.
I don't necessarily see it as post-agricultural. The Piraha indians in the amazon, for instance, have marriages.
I have no moral objection to polygamy or polyamory or monogamy. Or monoamory, as it may be. Though, it doesn't seem to be people who are as 'sexy' as the title of this thread seems to indicate. (Though, I don't deny that some people are just that sexy.) Or perhaps more would do it. I bet if you searched craigslist, you wouldn't find a single person that seemed like someone you'd want to sleep wtih.... much less have a long-term 'trust' relationship with several other partners. It kind of creeps me out.
Natural is for nature worshipers, who cares about their apologetics
I wrote a blog post on this subject a long time back, you can read it here. I wasn't familiar with the Austrian idea regarding the "ideal mix" of factors of production when I wrote the post, so it goes into too much detail where that whole idea could be quickly summarized. Hoppe has discussed this topic (briefly) in his lecture "From the Malthusian Trap to the Industrial Revolution." Essentially, the human family permits privatization (or internalization) of the costs of reproduction. The author of the linked article characterizes this privatization in terms of possessiveness or male status competition (collecting property, servants, wives, etc.) but this is a mistake. It has nothing to do with status per se. Internalization of reproduction costs (onto males) is beneficial for exactly the same reason that internalization of any cost is beneficial - it forces the decision-maker to feel the benefits and costs of his actions.
In a tribal society, as described in the linked article, reproduction and child-rearing is "communal" but this leads to "over-population", that is, a state of affairs where population is controlled only through starvation, killing, and so on. When you introduce the human family, the male feels the costs of his own reproductive decisions (more kids = more expense) and he now must choose the right number of children to have. Have too few and your genes may die out. Have too many, and your children may starve and your genes may die out.
If the development of the human family is seen as an evolutionary innovation over tribal reproduction, then polygyny is the completion of that arc from monogamy. That is, we have first tribal reproduction, then monogamy, then polygyny. The standard narrative reverses the last two because it associates polygyny with tribal promiscuity and monogamy with private property exclusion (exclusive claim by the female on the male's genes). But this is the result of a failure to incorporate the obvious asymmetry between males and females pointed out above. Biologists call this "reproductive anisogamy" which means that the act of reproduction is a hell of a lot more costly for the female than the male. The result is that, by taking multiple wives, a man can be more reproductively successful.
The real change from tribal culture to monogamy and polygyny has to do with female promiscuity, not male promiscuity. In order for the costs of reproduction to actually be internalized onto men, especially in the face of paternity uncertainty, it is the female who must mate with only one male. If a man mates with many women, all of whom only mate with him (as in the case of a polygynous harem), it is known that he is the father of all the resulting children and his investment into those children is an investment into his own genes. But if a woman mates with many men, then paternity is unknown and no male will want to invest resources into the resulting child (his genes "fear" that he may be propagating another man's genes). A great deal of ugly human behavior can be explained from just this one insight.
When looked at in this light, you can see that forced monogamy is essentially a kind of "price-control" on reproduction, limiting the number of women with which a man may reproduce to one. But, as biologists have long observed, humans have never stopped being polygynous, we just do it "one at a time" in forced-monogamy societies. Evolution doesn't care whether you reproduced with three women all at the same time or three women in a row, either way, the promiscuity and polygyny genes get propagated.
In fact, I believe that guilt regarding human sexuality (the feelings of guilt experienced by those who engage in non-monogamous sex) is the psychological well from which communism draws. "One man, one woman" is not so different from "one man, one house, one car" or even "one man, one vote." Sexual freedom is not an end in itself but it is a necessary waypoint on the journey to human freedom. Until individuals are free to form any sort of sexual arrangement* they please, we really won't be able to break the forces which oppose human freedom more generally.
Clayton -
*With the obvious understanding that every sexual arrangement does have real, legal consequences especially once you start producing children.
I have nothing against polygomoy/polymory per-se, and agree its probably not what our bodies were evolved for. But our bodies also wernt evolved to drive cars, sit at computers, live in air-conditioned houses, etc. So while monogamy may not be what we evolved for, it will probably be the norm as long as we live in civilized conditions(I doubt anybody here wants to see us return to a hunter-gather lifestyle)
Interestingly, biologists have found that humanity is already evolving to meet our new enviroment. The problem is its a very slow process, but in a few million years or so(assuming humans and human civilization survive that long) we probably will be adapted to living a monogamous lifestyle
we probably will be adapted to living a monogamous lifestyle
We won't be adapted to such a thing, we'll be dead, all that matters is what you are "adapted" for. Science is a valuable employee but a worthless owner.
A survey once had a third of people claiming to have secret partners.
With my appearance I could probably pull off polyamorous relationships if I wanted to, but there isn't much point, except maybe in the case where I find someone good to live with but bad in bed and someone else bad to live with but good in bed. But if I could do that I could find someone good for both anyway. On the other hand, monoamory is putting all your eggs in one basket. (Pun unintended.) That can be a bad thing in more ways than one.
Any links between private property rights and cheating spouses? I figure one reason why there are so many divorces and cheating spouses is the butchering of private property rights by the state. It seems like most people don't respect private property rights these days, so it makes sense to me that many spouses cheat partly because they couldn't care less about respecting the marriage contract.
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
It seems like most people don't respect private property rights these days, so it makes sense to me that many spouses cheat partly because they couldn't care less about respecting the marriage contract.
Yet at the same time people also feel that their spouse is their property. People go as far as killing for it.
@Daniel: Yes, I think there is a connection but it is very complex. Marriage is a set of expectations - rights and responsibilities - that have become a part of law. In the West - with our socialized, centrally-planned statutory law - divorce law* no longer has any mooring to reality. It is largely just a set of dictates handed down by the State, enacted by activist social engineers. The result is the declining marriage rate since anyone in their right mind realizes that it's insane to get married when the parties to the marriage cannot stipulate the terms of divorce that they would want. So, we are saddled with a one-size-fits-all divorce law that only actually serves the needs of the wealthiest who can afford all the pre-nups and other legal machinations required to protect one's marriage contract from meddling by the State.
*Note that marriage is really about divorce... getting married is setting up a contract for what happens in the event of separation. The terms of this contract are all-important, they all but determine whether the marriage will work or not.
Clayton:
"In fact, I believe that guilt regarding human sexuality (the feelings of guilt experienced by those who engage in non-monogamous sex) is the psychological well from which communism draws. "One man, one woman" is not so different from "one man, one house, one car" or even "one man, one vote." Sexual freedom is not an end in itself but it is a necessary waypoint on the journey to human freedom. Until individuals are free to form any sort of sexual arrangement* they please, we really won't be able to break the forces which oppose human freedom more generally."
I think you're on to something. I've argued elsewhere that guilt is one of the main psychological factors driving statism.
On the sexual issue, here is what another seductionist named Gunwitch has to say in his pickup guide. Nevermind whether it is accurate, it's just interesting that others would come to similar conclusions independently [this is for illustration purposes and I again don't endorse these views or facts; also crass language warning].
"Women think VERY similarly, and operate biologically quite the same sexually as men. Since biblical times, women have been conditioned by society that this is wrong though. They put on a mask that conforms to social norms. The "slut," "whore" or promiscuous woman who has many sexual partners is actually superior in her lack of suggestibility compared to regular women who maintain monogamous relationships because of societal expectations. Things had not been this way in the human mating ritual prior to the last 2-5000 years. Beta (inferior, less attractive) males who happened to be intellectually superior set up misogynistic arranged marriages, barter systems for financial ownership of wives, religious persecution and moral persecution for women who enjoyed sex with the alpha (superior more attractive) males, as a means of being able to secure sex for themselves with no alpha competition.
"Today, religion, moral conduct, and societal expectations cannot RULE the female sex drive, nor her instincts and her desires by force. This leads us ALL to a problem. Women seek and choose long term relationships with only the most desirable of men. They often try to entrap the alpha male into unnatural sex commitments, while giving the beta male no sex because they want to have one partner, and do not want it to be a beta male. Kinda backfired on them cheeky little shit heel betas didn't it?
"Now women "cheat" when they want sexual variety and then are scorned by society as "sluts" or "unfaithful bitches", despite the reality that it's just natural for a sexually healthy human being to want variety in sex partners.
"It is VITAL to have the understanding that women (sexually healthy non frigid women) LOVE sex and desire it just as much as we do. YET they cannot come out and admit it or be labelled a slut, AND cannot act on it consistently (outside of long term relationships or with multiple partners) with anyone's knowledge or be labelled the same far faster. Of course, as of late, more and more women are admitting their desire for sex and acting on it more casually."
I've noticed a pretty strong anti-establishment sentiment among the pickup community. Perhaps this means fastseduction.com would be a great place to try to win people over, rather than revleft.
Why anarchy fails
There is a pick-up dude that is a semi-frequent caller to Free Talk Live, so I think you might be on to something with this connection between pickup artists and libertarianism.
Certainly the move away from statism would have been a lot harder before I discovered what I did about relationships.
AJ, what did you discover about relationships?
If human behavior was as controlled by genetic reasons ( and I don't mean hereditary traits, I mean procretional reasons) as people are talking on here, then why hasn't every male donated sperm to a sperm bank? There isn't much cost in terms of time, and low odds haven't really stopped men from trying to procreate before.
I absolutely second your thoughts on pickup arts and libertarian leanings. Many famous PUAs have made a business out of their theories, they have mastered entrepreneurship and marketing. There's also some serious criticism of statist feminism in PU circles. It's no surprise, really, if you think about the traits and attitudes PU attempts to promote: self-reliance, self-confidence, pursuing one's own goals, minimizing dependence on others. Sounds a little Randian to me.
So, you are saying that pick-up artists are trying to circumvent psychological programming by beta-males? I thought the pick-up art was for beta-males.
Whatever the origin of guilt and shame regarding sexual desires, PU tries to free practitioners from such troubling inhibitions. "Alpha males" generally have the confidence to bend these rules. "Beta males" tend to be insecure and ashamed about their sexuality, and so they're more likely to be influenced by cultural imperatives about monogamy and chastity. That's the main difference between the two groups, in my opinion, and PU is just a means to catch up with and act on one's inner desires, regardless of what "society" may think.
I think what is being said is that from an evolutionary perspective, we are trying to examine how mating habits came about and what humans evolved to do. Joe, contraception is also a by-product of evolution from a naturalist view, so there's no intentionality in evolution. Procreation isn't the end-all-be-all, but in order to get here, procreation was important to some degree. An uneducated ape from millions of years ago procreates because it feels good and over time evolves traits that are conducive to rearing the offspring (or they probably go hand in hand, I don't know).
It seems to me that monogamy is a relatively new invention. Not sure why or how it came about, but I guess humans suffer from competing drives to have sex with other people and developing attachments to sole individuals. Religion really pushes an anti-sex agenda for whatever reason, but I have my own unfounded theories about that . It could be similar to governments because it seems the first states were evolutionarily hierarchical as most human social conventions are, but also intertwined with some primitive "divine right of kings"-esque justification (the pharaoh can do what he wants because God wants him there). If religion initially pushed monogamy, our current situation could be a "secular monogamy" just like our States are mostly today secular.
An uneducated ape from millions of years ago procreates because it feels good and over time evolves traits that are conducive to rearing the offspring (or they probably go hand in hand, I don't know).
Traits evolve randomly from mutation. The ones that can roll over a generation are the good enoughs. Despite that, specimens of any sort can continually occur. There need be only enough "good enoughs" in the litter to sustain the population. The population grows though a few percent are homosexuals, serial killers and other sorts that don't have kids that live to have their own kids.
<quote_user="Consultant">AJ, what did you discover about relationships?</quote>
Basically that everything I'd ever learned or heard was wrong, and that there are many types of easy ways to get whatever kind of relationship you want with just about whomever you want, very quickly (hours or minutes), if you're reasonably brave and have some basic knowledge and understanding. I suppose that sounds like a parlor trick of sorts, but it's a game-changer as far as how one looks at that part of one's life. Men who understand female desire (and women who understand male desire) have such a tremendous advantage that it's just, well, gratuitous. Unfortunately, there are still not that many who do, or they understand some parts but have learned other distracting elements that are counterproductive.
It's kind of like how everyone knows deep in their core that politics is a rotten, dirty business, and if they didn't know all the other stuff they think they know, they'd be inclined to say, "Let's ditch this politics thing altogether!" In other words, they'd reach the right answer. But there are too many other things distracting them.
With male-female interactions, both men and women are exposed to absolutely awful "advice" and suggestive content in magazines, movies, sitcoms, and even from friends and family (although way more for men than women). When you realize a few episodes of That 70s Show (random example; nothing against the show) internalized by a young impressionable male is enough to ruin his chances of ever finding and keeping a really compatible, satisfying partner...forever, if they get no better guidance - and most don't...you can see that this isn't really a laughing matter. I've seen the casualties of this time and time again, all over the place.
The flipside is that, routinely, a few well-chosen words are enough to change people's lives. I don't know how many emails I've gotten from people a few months after I fired off a quick mail to them where they were asking me how they can get this one girl, saying I literally changed their life. Yeah they never get that one girl, but they always get other better ones. So for me it really underscored how amazingly important education can be.
And in relationships, just like in political thinking, it's mostly about exploding myths, rather than teaching anything in particular. Most guys just have so many wrongheaded notions about women and about the state. Like John Hasnas says, the argument for anarchy is obvious: just look around. Take off the blinders, cast off the mysticism, and it's not hard to see the truth.
Which set of myths is more deeply ingrained? Hard to say. In both cases people invest a lot emotionally into their beliefs being right, to the point where they actually start to think of their political orientation (and their philosophy on the opposite sex) as part of their identity. And they always think their view is so unique, but to the anti-statist/seductionist it's utterly typical and predictable, cut straight out of the usual molds from popular coverage of these topics where they just pick and choose a few meaningless variables (like wedge issues) and think they now have a very special stance on the matter.
One thing though, there are many more pickup artists (and I'm limiting it to actual successful ones) than there are anti-statists, and that was true even before the seduction education boom that started ten years ago. Hopefully that will change with the nascent education boom here at LvMI.
The relationship problems of guys isnt due to lack of knowledge, but lack of imagination. Pretty much every guy subconsciously knows all the bread-and-butter pua methodology(cocky&funny, negs, demonstration of higher value,social proof, perseverence, etc) but they lack the imaginative power to apply that to themselves which is evidenced by the beta/chump/afc behaviour
I see this is turning into a thread about pick-up arts.
nandnor:
The seduction methods you listed, while not ineffective in the right hands, don't really mean jack if you still have the pernicious myths ingrained in you, just like how all the knowledge of political corruption and the atrocities of war hasn't helped people see past the state, because the pernicious myth that society would fall apart without the state is never even open for question. It is instead a basic assumption of all political analysis. It's never whether to make a law, it's which law to make. It's never whether to elect, it's always who to elect. It's the great man fallacy, the recurring delusion that "this time it will be different." Just like the fantasy that both males and female entertain, causing unspeakable harm for both, where the soul mate magically appears and everything happens just like in the movies and they live happily ever after (of course, the same end result can be made to happen if you know how). Most people are just as deep in fantasyland on one issue as the other.
Again, in common with both pursuits, it's not what people don't know as much as what they think they know that keeps them from seeing the truth. It's the basic assumptions ingrained deeply in them that they never question. It's things they never even realized were beliefs they held at all. And it's things they have emotional investment in, and sometimes even stake major life decisions on.
The young woman who would have become a brilliant entrepreneur of tremendous benefit to society but decides against going into business because "capitalism is evil" has a messed up model of the world; the young man who wastes his life on frivolities and pursuits he has no real passion about in hopes of impressing the ladies, then marries one who makes him miserable, got that way because he had a messed up model of male-female interactions. I also don't think either of them got that way by accident.
I have read too much PUA in my lifetime. I believe PUA only made me more weird than I was. Although PUA techniques may work, any techniques may work just as good because males and females naturally attract.
I do thank the PUA community for showing me NLP. I haven't used NLP for ladies, but I have used NLP more like a drug.
"krazy kaju, what explains the widescale adoption of monogamy with the rise of argiculture?"
I am under the impression that this is not an agricultural development. I know of no evidence to support this, personally. In fact, I am under the impression that there is a widely held theory that bipedal locomotion (2 footed, upright walking) was a development of monogamy.
(Something about the man having to carry the food home, and the men who were able to carry their food home the best [the ones who could walk upright the longest] were able to pass on their seed. I don't remember how 1 man, 1 woman fit into it, but I'm sure you can find it out there.)
Also, Kaju said "male can mate with multiple females within a short timeframe, thereby maximizing his offspring. A female cannot do the same; a female can only spread her genes once every nine months. Thus, from an evolutionary perspective, it is more reasonable for a male to have multiple female lovers," works in the opposite as well. It is more reasonable for a woman to take 1 man, the most fit she can, and have her children with him.
In States a fresh law is looked upon as a remedy for evil. Instead of themselves altering what is bad, people begin by demanding a law to alter it. ... In short, a law everywhere and for everything!
~Peter Kropotkin
Our bodies, minds and sexual habits all reflect a highly sexual primate. Research from primatology, anthropology, anatomy and psychology points to the same conclusion: A nonpossessive, gregarious sexuality was the human norm until the rise of agriculture and private property just 10,000 years ago"
Source?
It is related to the size of the testicles in compared to the entire body
Wow, this is an insightful thread. I'm enjoying reading all your posts, AJ's and Clayton's in particular.
I agree with the sentiment that the PU community is strongly anti-establishment. A friend of mine went to a David DeAngelo seminar and talked with him off-set later. Turns out he's a libertarian.
Just from an economic perspective here, doesn't polygamy actually benefit women more than men? Consider that in our society, women slightly outnumber men. Thus, in monogamy (where the exchange rate of men to women is restricted at 1:1), women must cater to men to avoid the slim chance that their genes will die out. However, if polygamy were practiced by at least a portion of the population, the situation would be reversed, as the responsibility would now fall on the man to make sure that he is more desirable to the woman than the man with one or more partners already.
I never lost hope and the truth has finaly come out
Of course women are the primary beneficiaries of polygamy... so long as you don't mix polygamy with arranged marriage. ;-) Most people conclude that - absent arrangement - polygamous unions would never happen but that's downright silly. Biologically speaking, we have always been polygamous (one individual reproducing with more than one other individual) and I think, over generations, humanity is only going to become more polygamous* than it has ever been in the past.
*By "more polygamous", I mean "more formally acknowledging the reality of polygamy and establishing customary legal precedents regarding non-monogamous families"
When a person gets benefits in forms of goods or services or direct satisfaction from another person, any occurrence of change in the behavior of that second person causes the first person to take some action to prevent such occurrence. What actions will he take depend upon his previous experiences, biological attributes and availability of persons who may be able to provide similar goods or service or direct satisfaction to him. No doubt the essence of human plays a role, but that remains in an abstract sense.
Acquiring more or maintaining satisfaction requires increase or maintaining the current state of availability of the items which provide that very satisfaction. A human prefers more humans to achieve that goal as long as those extra humans do not snatch from him more than what he thinks he himself deserved or required to consume. Procreation is a major way of increasing that helping hands. From this perspective polygamy would be sought after by any human.
Pleasure is a complex phenomenon. Once an activity or method produces desired results, human puts some extra value on that method. With recurring application of that method it will yield "pleasure" or "feel good" in following that method. This is similar to how Ludwig von Mises explains valuation of money, both as an economic good and medium of exchange. So, procreation may have resulted in a pleasurable procedure or practice. When another person is trying to take that pleasure away from you in part or full, you may react in aggresive or other way depending upon previously mentioned factors. From this perspective relative transition of polygamy to monogamy might be the result of increasing association of pleasure or advantage attainment from sexual intercourse. But at the same time one may share that person with other if that gives him pleasure/satisfaction of another kind.
Another possible aspect might be the raising of the infants. If a community of people feels the neccessity or gets the advantage of raising newborns in a communal way without putting restriction of origin of the newborn, they may prefer polygamy or rather may be ignorant of any such polygamy or monogamy ideology. But again, when they will watch the relative differences of newborns due to genetical factors based upon their originating parents and the difference of capability of various individuals to raise children, they may tend to prefer a more biologically and mentally active human and stick with him, creating a monogamous behavior. But, when one person does not find a desired one, he will prefer to keep on finding the one which may result in polygamous behavior.
So, a mixture of polygamy and monogamy is always possible in both scenario. A society or community may seek monogamous behavior or may be ignorant of any such views. The origin of preferring one practice upon other might be found in their economic system and historical experiences on sexual practices. Hence, monogamy may not be considered unnatural for our species, instead it might be advantageous in attaining some goals depending upon the circumstances.
*grunch*
I've gone back and forth on this. Currently, I think monogomy rules. I'm not 100% Christian, but I believe in God/the Great Spirit/the Universe. I think the Bible contains much wisdom---as I'm sure do the holy texts of other religions. Yes, we can lust and cavort with many others. But I think spiritually we profit by avoiding these things. I've spent a lot of years being a-spiritual, and life seems much better to me now that I honor the spiritual once again.
What makes monogamy more spiritual (whatever you mean by that)?
My experience is that the act of sex, at its best, is a gateway which connects two souls. I interpret this as a liminal, sacred experience. The Bible warns to 'guard your heart'. Whether one believes in a Christian God, or not, I think this is sound advice.
would a menage et trois connect three souls?