Oceans Yet to Burn

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[micdotcom]

Male and female brains aren’t wired differently

New research, published in October in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, concluded that despite size discrepancy, there’s no functional difference between men’s and women’s brains. “Male” brains and “female” brains simply don’t exist. In fact, there’s significant overlap.

[ascaloner]

This study had 1400 people in it… Remember that sample size matters. remember this when someone tries to rebuke this with a study that has 80 participants. Be as scientifically literate as possible so that we can debunk this nonsense one step at a time.

Here’s an article that talks about a paper which examined 6000 individuals and came up with similar findings.

[eyesocketsandsuits]

ALSO FOLLOW-UP.

[anosognosic]

I’m just gonna post the abstract of the paper (link) because there is no way in hell anyone should trust mic.com to get this right:

Whereas a categorical difference in the genitals has always been acknowledged, the question of how far these categories extend into human biology is still not resolved. Documented sex/gender differences in the brain are often taken as support of a sexually dimorphic view of human brains (“female brain” or “male brain”). However, such a distinction would be possible only if sex/gender differences in brain features were highly dimorphic (i.e., little overlap between the forms of these features in males and females) and internally consistent (i.e., a brain has only “male” or only “female” features). Here, analysis of MRIs of more than 1,400 human brains from four datasets reveals extensive overlap between the distributions of females and males for all gray matter, white matter, and connections assessed. Moreover, analyses of internal consistency reveal that brains with features that are consistently at one end of the “maleness-femaleness” continuum are rare. Rather, most brains are comprised of unique “mosaics” of features, some more common in females compared with males, some more common in males compared with females, and some common in both females and males. Our findings are robust across sample, age, type of MRI, and method of analysis. These findings are corroborated by a similar analysis of personality traits, attitudes, interests, and behaviors of more than 5,500 individuals, which reveals that internal consistency is extremely rare. Our study demonstrates that, although there are sex/gender differences in the brain, human brains do not belong to one of two distinct categories: male brain/female brain.

[mitigatedchaos]

Rather, most brains are comprised of unique “mosaics” of features, some more common in females compared with males, some more common in males compared with females, and some common in both females and males.

Statistical distributions, neither neurological uniformity nor essentialism.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[mitigatedchaos]

@obiternihili  And I lean towards that, and am asking for examples indirectly

The new masculinities are out there being formed right now in the vast chasms of the net, but many are too liquid now and not yet crystalized.

Some are pulling from the future, where gender is more dissolved than it is now, and mixing outwards transgressions with confidence.

Others pull elements from the past without taking the whole thing.  Some degree of sexual promiscuity has always been present in human society, but not always with the same rules, social punishments, and social status.

I don’t think new stable equilibria will be fully identifiable for a while.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[argumate]

dudebro is just a terrible word for any kind of progressive purpose given that it entirely concedes masculinity to the opposition.

[blackblocberniebros]

I think we’re more than prepared to concede masculinity to the opposition. What redeeming qualities does it have? Everything I’ve seen masculinity be is aggression, envy, or pride, all of which are, uh, mortal sins.

[mitigatedchaos]

…are you joking?

Or have you just already defined masculinity as everything you hate?

If it turns out that a significant number of straight women actually like masculine men and haven’t been brainwashed into it, what is your plan?  

How can a male build a healthy self-identity if to be male is nothing more than to be a flawed woman?

[obiternihili]

In that last line, being male and being a Man™ are different things. You can be male or female and you can be you by having your own goddamn identity and thinking for yourself instead of bullying the sick weak nerdy kid into it for not conforming to some arbitrary set of interests

like I might disagree with bbb on this because being a real man to me is just being an adult. But being a Man™ or even the subset of Men™, the dudebro - is giving up defining my own identity and giving up making maturity, not interests or the way I express myself, the performative element.

dudebro was pretty much always meant to refer the kinds of people we think of as stereotypical frat boys anyways. Dumbasses who don’t give a shit about consent or abuse or anything like that except fucking people ±over. That’s not being a man. That’s being garbage.

And if a lot of women are attracted to abuse, why? And are we sure? Are we sure underlying factors aren’t distorting the really important values?

And like if definitions differ definitions differ. Get over it. The line beginning with “Or” is not actually a point however smugly it’s phrased.

[mitigatedchaos]

Have you considered that maybe it’s your conception of masculinity which is very narrow and culturally limited, here?  

There is more than one way to be masculine and exploring and normalizing new masculinities could be very helpful (and still attractive to cishet women and thus not self-erasing on the long-term).  Conceding masculinity to the opposition is a terrible idea.

[obiternihili]

I fail to see something better that convinces me to change it.

But it sounds like you’re widening the definition past the point of coherence, in which case we’re in the same camp but different labels.

[mitigatedchaos]

I’m not widening it past coherence.

There are multiple paths which are congruent with the male gendered trait cluster and are compatible with cishet sexuality.  Dudebroism in its original meaning and not a generic misandrist or outgroup insult is only one of them.  We can take the same colors and paint a different image.

It only appears incoherent if you already pre-define masculinity as only the “dudebro” version, which is a terrible idea if your goal is better men that are willing to work with your movement.

Of course, men themselves will have to build these new identities mostly.  Feminism cannot do so for them.  But you don’t want them to think Feminism is incompatible with them being masculine.  Remember the post I was responding to said masculinity was seen to be only of sins and just fine to let the opposition monopolize.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[argumate]

dudebro is just a terrible word for any kind of progressive purpose given that it entirely concedes masculinity to the opposition.

[blackblocberniebros]

I think we’re more than prepared to concede masculinity to the opposition. What redeeming qualities does it have? Everything I’ve seen masculinity be is aggression, envy, or pride, all of which are, uh, mortal sins.

[mitigatedchaos]

…are you joking?

Or have you just already defined masculinity as everything you hate?

If it turns out that a significant number of straight women actually like masculine men and haven’t been brainwashed into it, what is your plan?  

How can a male build a healthy self-identity if to be male is nothing more than to be a flawed woman?

[blackblocberniebros]

I don’t think people should build self-identities as men or women. I think they’re stifling. The notion that because I was born with a penis I should want to cultivate A traits and not B traits is silly to me. Let boys play with dolls if they want and let girls play with trucks if they want. Let men be tender, let women be slobs. None of this should mean they’re not doing a good job at being a complete person.

These conversations always get so abstract so tell me what you think masculinity and femininity are and I’ll explain what I dislike.

[mitigatedchaos]

Masculinity and Femininity are a partially socially-constructed, partially biological phenomenon.

Essentially, gendered trait distribution resembles two overlapping bell curves, controlled by hormonal levels at key points in development, along with genes, epigenetics, and environmental factors.

Pre-natal testosterone levels - in females, not just males - track with later toy preferences for mechanical/systems toys vs social ones.  While the effects of sex hormones are not simple, they are very much not a placebo.

Society then layers its gender roles on top of this, driven in part by previous economies and incentives that may no longer exist.  Often it exaggerates, or essentializes, and so for this reason people go “well dresses are obviously not biological and not all people like the assigned roles, therefore male and female are exactly the same and all apparent differences are caused by societal brainwashing.”

So we might think of masculine/feminine as the axis of opposition for gendered traits.  (Intelligence does not appear to be one of these traits, as the center point seems to be the same.)  Alternatively, we might think of it as the center points of the respective bell curves.

It’s important to remember, however, that the masculine woman and the feminine man are both legitimate, as well as various other mixes on more than one trait.  Humans are complicated and biology is quite noisy and also complicated.  But the clustering is still real.

The issue with your plan is that cishets seem to actually want someone who differs on the gender axes from them in that masc/femme way in terms of their attraction (which they don’t consciously control), and the idea that we’ll abolish gender and not have them identify as the labeled gender clumps associated with their respective sexes (cishets in specific) in the name of some modern idea of liberation… well I’m confident that won’t work out very well.

[blackblocberniebros]

What I’m saying is that the very idea of masculinity and femininity will inherently invalidate the masculine woman and feminine man.

I don’t care if it just so happens that most men will prefer one thing and most women will prefer another thing, I don’t think we should try to cram people into holes so there’s some kind of sameness.

But if you even put masculinity and femininity up on the pedestal as goals for men and women should aspire to, that will inherently invalidate the masculine woman and feminine man. The ideas themselves should be annihilated, the idea that people born into certain different types of bodies SHOULD want certain different things. If, later, of their own free will, they do naturally end up mostly wanting those things, that’s no skin off my ass.

There should be no gender roles whatsoever. Everyone should be told they can be whatever kind of person they want to be and do whatever things they wanna do.

[mitigatedchaos]

The existence of straights as a category does not invalidate the existence of gays, and it’s possible to prepare people for the default of being straight, which we’re talking 90%+ probability here, while still saying “yeah also you could be gay, which is okay too, here is some information about gays”.

As such I don’t think it invalidates the femme/masc for there to be masc/femme, and if you don’t do a default and just abolish all the roles and scripts and so on instead, what you’re going to find is not a paradise of liberation, but a bunch of confused people struggling with introspection over their preferences,

like Rationalists wondering why their sex drives aren’t ‘logical’ after hitting a wall of personal experience.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[argumate]

dudebro is just a terrible word for any kind of progressive purpose given that it entirely concedes masculinity to the opposition.

[blackblocberniebros]

I think we’re more than prepared to concede masculinity to the opposition. What redeeming qualities does it have? Everything I’ve seen masculinity be is aggression, envy, or pride, all of which are, uh, mortal sins.

[mitigatedchaos]

…are you joking?

Or have you just already defined masculinity as everything you hate?

If it turns out that a significant number of straight women actually like masculine men and haven’t been brainwashed into it, what is your plan?  

How can a male build a healthy self-identity if to be male is nothing more than to be a flawed woman?

[obiternihili]

In that last line, being male and being a Man™ are different things. You can be male or female and you can be you by having your own goddamn identity and thinking for yourself instead of bullying the sick weak nerdy kid into it for not conforming to some arbitrary set of interests

like I might disagree with bbb on this because being a real man to me is just being an adult. But being a Man™ or even the subset of Men™, the dudebro - is giving up defining my own identity and giving up making maturity, not interests or the way I express myself, the performative element.

dudebro was pretty much always meant to refer the kinds of people we think of as stereotypical frat boys anyways. Dumbasses who don’t give a shit about consent or abuse or anything like that except fucking people ±over. That’s not being a man. That’s being garbage.

And if a lot of women are attracted to abuse, why? And are we sure? Are we sure underlying factors aren’t distorting the really important values?

And like if definitions differ definitions differ. Get over it. The line beginning with “Or” is not actually a point however smugly it’s phrased.

[mitigatedchaos]

Have you considered that maybe it’s your conception of masculinity which is very narrow and culturally limited, here?  

There is more than one way to be masculine and exploring and normalizing new masculinities could be very helpful (and still attractive to cishet women and thus not self-erasing on the long-term).  Conceding masculinity to the opposition is a terrible idea.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[argumate]

dudebro is just a terrible word for any kind of progressive purpose given that it entirely concedes masculinity to the opposition.

[blackblocberniebros]

I think we’re more than prepared to concede masculinity to the opposition. What redeeming qualities does it have? Everything I’ve seen masculinity be is aggression, envy, or pride, all of which are, uh, mortal sins.

[mitigatedchaos]

…are you joking?

Or have you just already defined masculinity as everything you hate?

If it turns out that a significant number of straight women actually like masculine men and haven’t been brainwashed into it, what is your plan?  

How can a male build a healthy self-identity if to be male is nothing more than to be a flawed woman?

[blackblocberniebros]

I don’t think people should build self-identities as men or women. I think they’re stifling. The notion that because I was born with a penis I should want to cultivate A traits and not B traits is silly to me. Let boys play with dolls if they want and let girls play with trucks if they want. Let men be tender, let women be slobs. None of this should mean they’re not doing a good job at being a complete person.

These conversations always get so abstract so tell me what you think masculinity and femininity are and I’ll explain what I dislike.

[mitigatedchaos]

Masculinity and Femininity are a partially socially-constructed, partially biological phenomenon.

Essentially, gendered trait distribution resembles two overlapping bell curves, controlled by hormonal levels at key points in development, along with genes, epigenetics, and environmental factors.

Pre-natal testosterone levels - in females, not just males - track with later toy preferences for mechanical/systems toys vs social ones.  While the effects of sex hormones are not simple, they are very much not a placebo.

Society then layers its gender roles on top of this, driven in part by previous economies and incentives that may no longer exist.  Often it exaggerates, or essentializes, and so for this reason people go “well dresses are obviously not biological and not all people like the assigned roles, therefore male and female are exactly the same and all apparent differences are caused by societal brainwashing.”

So we might think of masculine/feminine as the axis of opposition for gendered traits.  (Intelligence does not appear to be one of these traits, as the center point seems to be the same.)  Alternatively, we might think of it as the center points of the respective bell curves.

It’s important to remember, however, that the masculine woman and the feminine man are both legitimate, as well as various other mixes on more than one trait.  Humans are complicated and biology is quite noisy and also complicated.  But the clustering is still real.

The issue with your plan is that cishets seem to actually want someone who differs on the gender axes from them in that masc/femme way in terms of their attraction (which they don’t consciously control), and the idea that we’ll abolish gender and not have them identify as the labeled gender clumps associated with their respective sexes (cishets in specific) in the name of some modern idea of liberation… well I’m confident that won’t work out very well.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[argumate]

dudebro is just a terrible word for any kind of progressive purpose given that it entirely concedes masculinity to the opposition.

[blackblocberniebros]

I think we’re more than prepared to concede masculinity to the opposition. What redeeming qualities does it have? Everything I’ve seen masculinity be is aggression, envy, or pride, all of which are, uh, mortal sins.

[mitigatedchaos]

…are you joking?

Or have you just already defined masculinity as everything you hate?

If it turns out that a significant number of straight women actually like masculine men and haven’t been brainwashed into it, what is your plan?  

How can a male build a healthy self-identity if to be male is nothing more than to be a flawed woman?

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

There are only two genderS: GAMERS and NORMIES

GET OVER IT SNOWFLAKeS

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[argumate]

Against all reason I’m fascinated by the friendzone discourse, seriously.

It’s closely related to something you hear less about: the bonezone, which despite its name is not opposite the friendzone, but rather adjacent to it, not far from relationship town; someone’s really gotta diagram this stuff out.

“I can’t believe they put me in the friendzone!”

This complaint can have layers of meaning, but it starts with disappointment. The speaker was hoping to make it to relationship town, or maybe just a quick visit to the bonezone, but instead ended up in the friendzone, where they’ve already been many times before. It’s identical to a similar complaint that is also very common, although typically not in these words:

“I can’t believe they put me in the bonezone!”

The speaker was dreaming of relationship town, or perhaps a long stay in the friendzone, and had a rude awakening to find themselves here instead. Logic suggests a third complaint which you also may have heard:

“I can’t believe they want to take me to relationship town!”

The implications of this one are obvious.

But why does disappointment over mismatched expectations around friendship, sex, and relationships, attract so much heated debate?

The first wrinkle is that disappointment can turn to angry accusations. They led you on! They were deliberately ambiguous about the destination! They have ulterior motives!

While miscommunication is regrettable and sad, deliberately deceptive conduct can be infuriating; no one wants to have their time wasted and their emotions toyed with by someone who isn’t being honest with them.

But this is self-evident, why would it attract debate? Unless… 

[mitigatedchaos]

Consider: dating and relationships often run on subtext in which actually revealing your hand is a huge turn-off, unless you’re dating some kind of nerd or other unusually direct person.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[the-grey-tribe]

If there is a gay gene, gay marriage and adoption will pull it out of circulation soon.

[mailadreapta]

This is the usual and obvious response to people who say that gayitude can’t be genetic because otherwise it would have been selected out already. Bruh, before we had gay liberation being gay was not a major knock on fertility since you would probably be having kids anyway. Fortunately, now we do have gay liberation so we can weed the queers out of the gene pool as Darwin intended.

[mailadreapta]

Cochran goes off against the “gay uncle” theory and other cockamamie schemes which claim that gayness is not selected out of the population because of some offsetting benefit, by making the entirely true point that the benefits to your family have to huge in order to compensate for taking you out of the gene pool entirely. However, this objection loses a lot of its force if the fertility loss from homosexuality is small. If homosexuals reproduce at rates similar to heterosexuals, then having the gay gene becomes all-upside from a Darwinian perspective.

Seen in this light, homophobia is a eugenic cultural institution which keeps gay genes in the gene pool by forcing even obligate homosexuals to marry and have children.

[slartibartfastibast]

Personal anecdote indicates that Cochran is probably on so something:

http://slartibartfastibast.com/post/159672281259/i-imagine-one-of-those-big-complex-things-being

It’s semi-heritable but non-genetic:

http://slartibartfastibast.com/post/114665865499/being-suspicious-of-gmos-is-only-irrational-if-you

I think it’s an alternative developmental trajectory that can reduce intermale competition for mates or something. Seems like it could be more influenced by early environmental triggers than anybody wants to admit. In-utero tuning to the parental environment is probably part of it. Cochran goes so far as to say that it has to be partly communicable, which would upset a lot of people.

I mean, Alzheimer’s is apparently bacterial/microbiomic in origin, but nobody treats it like it’s communicable because it really doesn’t look like it is. The vector would have to be extremely convoluted and indirect.

Also, humans are probs eusocial:

http://slartibartfastibast.com/post/160728219904/contra-scott-alexander-on-prestige

[mitigatedchaos]

I don’t think we’ll lose the gays for another reason - by the end of the century, we will have figured out how to make new people gay or bisexual on purpose. That has to be factored in to the calculations.