Happiness as a Multiparametric Optimisation.

Men usually find some degree of happiness in the satisfaction of their desires. The hungry man is a happy when fed, the thirsty man, after a drink, the poor man in the achievement of wealth. Human nature being what it is, is made up of a multitude of desires which are frequently in conflict with one another. For example, our desire for leisure is against our desire for for wealth which we achieve through work. Our desire to look attractive is opposed to our desire to eat lots of sweets, and so on.

Our happiness then can be thought of as the degree to which we have satisfied our desires. Considering the multifaceted nature of our desires, each "facet"being a parameter of happiness, our degree of happiness can be considered as a sort of reflection on the  multiparametric satisfaction of our desires.

As said before, some of our desires are in conflict with each other and therefore satisfaction of parameter X may come at the expense of parameter Y.  Philosophically speaking, the task at hand is similar to that of the engine designer; how do you optimise for happiness given conflicting human desires.

From a systems point of view, system optimisation will occur somewhere between the extremes of the conflicting parameters. In other words, total system optimisation will occur at a point where the individual component parameters may not be completely satisfied. Now this is very important, since it explains a lot of human cognitive pathology and folly.

Consider human sexual satisfaction. The hedonist may argue that sex is the ultimate pleasure and that satisfaction of this one parameter will lead to happiness. (This of course is a simplification, but bear with me). Consider the following "Sexual Happiness Decay curves", for three hypothetical women, a 10, an 8 and a 5 respectively.

We see that sex with a "10" is much better than sex with a "5" but over time, due to factors such as familiarity and habituation, over time  the pleasure from each act tends to diminish. There is nothing like the rush of the new. The natural strategy to then to optimise sexual pleasure is to try and recreate the "rush" of the new.  The following graph illustrates this strategy. (Each new curve is a new partner)

The theory being that by changing the partner a recreation of the initial satisfaction state can be achieved. In reality, the easier the "prey" is to catch the less pleasure that one gets from it. The strategy then for the sexual hedonist is to achieve a steady supply of new lovers to keep his sexual satisfaction at a high state. The problem is though, most humans do not live on sexual satisfaction alone, and need other things such as companionship and love from others. Now true abiding love, seems to be a time dependent phenomenon. A love/satisfaction curve could hypothetically be drawn as below.
(N.B love as opposed to infatuation)

Now consider a man who meets a "10" and sticks with her, a graph of the sexual pleasure/love curves could be visualised as follows:

Now note, his system happiness is greater than his potential sexual happiness after a while. Compare this to the "player approach":

By optimising for one parameter, sexual satisfaction, he has traded this off for deep abiding love. The rapid turnover of partners never lets deep abiding love develop. There is no doubt that he may be sexually more satisfied than than the man above, but his total "system" happiness is less than in the above graph. This is the dark side of "Game"; it's a uniparametric optimisation of the multiparametric human system.

Of course these graphs are simplifications, but they illustrate the logic behind a lot of human folly. The systemically optimised man, at any given point finds that any one of his particular desires remains unsatisfied, if he is unable to see the "big picture view" of his condition, he may be tempted to focus on one parameter at the expense of all the rest.

The thing to realise about earthly happiness is that it is not a satisfaction of every human desire, but a balance of them. A lot of human misery is caused by seeking a uniparametric solution to the problem of unhappiness. In trying to satisfy every one of our desires, or even one fully, happiness eludes us.

Supercharger.

In the post on engine design, commentator R Brockman made the following comment;

The interesting question is whether there are multiple stable equilibrium points. What happens when a society goes outside the set of parameters that it was "designed" for? Advanced technology has radically changed our life -- do the Old Design Rules still work?

I think that this warrants some further elaboration. It's my belief, and a cursory examination of history will confirm, that it is possible to have different type of societies (i.e equilibrium points) but only only within certain limits. The whole point about the "Tao of Life" is that there is more commonality amongst enduring societies than than there are differences.


I suppose the reason why there is limited range of equilibrium points within a human societal "system" is because the material from which human society is built, human nature, puts constraints on types of societal structures that can be maintained.  Human capabilities with regard to jealousy, trust, fear, love, friendship, etc. are the limiting factors with regard to human interaction.  In the same way that the parameters of car performance are derived from the properties of materials, so is human society limited by human nature.


A classic example of this is with regard to sexuality.  Most men naturally desire variety, and it would be expected that given this nature, societies would develop which would cater to this fact. Yet it's pretty obvious that any advanced polyamorous societies have failed to develop, since sexual activity occurs in the context of other parameters such as reproduction, love and investment. Any society that attempted to institute such a practice would be torn apart by feuds, lusts, jealosy etc.  Likewise, Communism, a great idea in theory, fails because it ignores the fact the human nature responds to incentives.


What we do tend to see however, is that amongst primitive peoples there does seem to be more latitude with respect to human nature and stable "society", but as a society becomes bigger and culturally advances, the potential for alternative normative behaviors lessens.


Indeed a theoretical plot could be made with regard to a societies proximity to the Tao Ideal and its advancement.

What we see here is the closer a society approximates the Tao point the greater its advancement and stability. Ancient Rome at its apogee possessed a different culture to Ancient Rome in its decline. It appears that in order for a society to survive and flourish it has to overcome a certain degree of barbarism or primitiveness. But once it establishes itself, it has to protect itself against decadence which destroys societal stability. Note, that a bit of primitiveness or decadence may not be too bad, but once the line is crossed, so to speak, the rot sets in. The trick in keeping a society stable, is in keeping it within a proscribed deviation from the "Tao point".


However, another point needs to be considered. Getting a society to within the desired range of the Tao point will get it only so far.  What I mean by this is, with the exclusion of Western Civilisation, the level of societal and technological advancements of all the other advanced civilisations of the world were roughly the same. The Chinese may have eaten and dressed differently to the Romans, but their societies were more alike than different. No, the one society that really stands out of the pack with regard to its "performance curve" is Western Society, compared to the others, it's supercharged.

Several books have been written about this phenomenon. What's so special about the West that made it the predominant power, not just militarily but intellectually, economically and artistically as well over the past five hundred years?

Well the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences was asked by their government to look into this very thing. An anonymous scholar provided their conclusions:

He said: “One of the things we were asked to look into was what accounted for the success, in fact, the pre-eminence of the West all over the world.

“We studied everything we could from the historical, political, economic, and cultural perspective. At first, we thought it was because you had more powerful guns than we had.

“Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system.

“But in the past twenty years, we have realised that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West is so powerful.

“The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and then the successful transition to democratic politics. We don’t have any doubt about this.”

A Digression.

To tell the truth, I'm not actually that interested in the Dominiqe Strauss-Kahn controversy. High powered officials have a long history of being stupid, especially when it comes to sexual matters. However what really struck me as absurd, is that the head of the IMF is a Socialist. In fact; a former communist.

It would be like putting Trotsky in charge of the Fed.

Life is stranger than fiction.

Engine Design.

Modern auto engines are marvelously complex pieces of machinery. Over a century of improvement has resulted in engines that are lighter, more powerful, more fuel efficient and more reliable than their original predecessors.

The engine designer has a hard task. He is usually given a design brief which on closer inspection is contradictory. For a given engine capacity, his engine must produce maximal power and yet he is also told to minimise fuel consumption, which is directly related to power output. He is told that the engine must be light and reliable, but in order to improve reliability he must make some of the parts heavier than what is needed. The engine must be cheap and simple to manufacture, but the high temperatures and pressure needed to achieve fuel efficiency mean more expensive alloys and cooling. And so on.

In the end, engine design like most other mutiparametric design, is an exercise in compromise amongst competing independent parameters. Things are a trade off.

Once a multiparametric system has been optimised for a certain state, system integrity is dependent upon the system operating within certain design parameters. Operating mulitparametric systems outside their design parameters may result in loss of system integrity,  reduced system life or suboptimal system performance. Now most robust systems usually allow for some minor variation outside design criteria, but this becomes harder the more complex the system is.

For example and engine may have the following design criteria. (I've made these up)

1) Fuel consumption of 20mls @ minute at idle.
2) Cylinder head temperature not to exceed 160 degrees Centigrade.
3) Coolant flow at 10 liters a minute.
4) Oil temperature not to exceed 90 degrees Centigrade.
5) Maximum 9:1 fuel compression
6) Oil change every 200 hours of operation.and so on. 

The system, in order to be viable, has to stick to its rules of operation.

Car engines, for a given class of car, are more similar than different since the parametric constraints placed by by materials science and thermodynamics mean that there are only a limited number of compatible mutiparametric solutions to the engine design problem.

This does not apply just to cars. Cake mixers, bicycles, pens, passenger aircraft, etc. are more alike than different, its because as the state of the art improves and matures, it becomes apparent that there are only a limited number of viable solutions to the design problem. Initial ideas which were promising are found to be impractical from a variety of perspectives.

(There is rumour that the Volkswagen 1.4 TSI engine, a novel solution to engine design requirements, is going to be discontinued because it is too expensive to make. )

Now the point about all this is that society can be considered a multiparametric system, being composed of multiple competing and interacting elements, and as such, society can be looked at from a systems engineering perspective.

It was Jim Kalb's writings that got me thinking about looking at society this way. His battle against modernism is based upon a traditionalist perspective. The argument, as I see it, being that traditional cultures such as Islam and Chinese Confucianism have lasted because they cater towards human beings better than modernism does. After reading this, I asked myself the question, given the stability of Confucian and Islamic society, what sort of rules of operation produce a systemically stable society?

When you look at it from a systems engineering point of view you see that stable and relatively advanced societies seem to operate under a relatively narrow systems of rules; what C.S. Lewis called the "Tao of Life." In fact these rules can be don't actually have to be divinely inspired, rather they are relatively self evident to any man of moderate reflection. Christian writers would have called these operating parameters Natural Law. Anyone who is really interested should have a read of C.S. Lewis's Abolition of Man, where he quotes similar passages from Hindu, Norse, Egyptian, Roman, Jewish, Greek and Chinese texts.

Some of these rules of system operation can be summed up as follows:

The existence of a morality which is independent of the individual.
A belief in objective truth.
Censure of some kind for transgression of the rules.
Benefit of some kind for concordance with them.
Just and fair dealings with others
Consideration of others in our actions.
Preference for our own kind.
Sexual restraint.
Magnanimity.

The fact that these cultures, which lasted for centuries, separated both temporally and spatially should have broad common approaches to their operation suggests that stable complex societies may only be possible if run according to these broad principles. The fact that large scale promiscuity, institutionalised lying and moral relativism have not stood out as organising principles amongst surviving cultures suggest that from a systems perspective, these operating rules may be inimical to system stability. Relatively advanced stable societies may only be possible under a narrow set of system parameters.

Engine Failure.

In the previous post, I tried to illustrate, using the engine example, of how optimising for one paramenter in a multiparametric system, may result in a deterioration of the the system itself. The question is, why does this occur?

Most stable systems have negative feedback loops, in that any perturbation from the designed state is met with immediate corrective action by the system itself to ensure its stability. The real danger arises when there is no negative feedback system, here the system progressively deviates from the desired state to a point of self destruction.

Now an engine motor, like society, is a human designed thing, and its operation is effectively under supervision. It follows then that the human operator is part of the system itself and being a intelligent and sentient being, why doesn't the human recognise the dangers beforehand and take corrective action?

In the first instance, the human operator may not care about the system integrity at all, and may actually wish the system to fail. Marxists, for instance, pursued active policies to destroy traditional bourgeoisie society which were wildly successful. The Marxists believed they could build a better engine.

In the second instance, the operator of the system may be operating it under ignorance, either deliberate or innocent, and does not recognise that the system is in dangerous territory.  Perturbations from the desired state which are obviously malignant are easily recognised and corrected, but perturbations which in the short term appear benign, or positively beneficial, are the most dangerous. Here the danger is not recognised, and in instances where there is apparent positive benefit, actually encouraged, accelerating the system decline.

All societies recognise the socially destructive effect of murder and make prohibitions against it. Very few societies see the socially corrosive effects of inflation and sexual liberation, seeing them as a benign or even positive perturbations of the system.  Improvements in the same way that "chipping the engine" improves system performance.  Its all win-win until it isn't.

Here in Australia, we are very sexually liberated. Our statisticians tell us that only 75% of people will marry, and of those that do 50% will divorce. That's a lot of emotional pain, loneliness, disrupted childhoods, domestic violence, etc. Most people cannot see the link between "bonding failure" and sexual liberation, but it's there.  Great party, hell of a hangover.

Sexual repression was in many ways a bad thing, but sexual liberation, may in the long run, turn out to be a very, very bad thing. The problem with long run damage is that it is not noticed by short term minds.  Especially whilst the corrosion is "pleasant".

"Pleasant" corrosion is perhaps the most dangerous corrosion at all. In democratic societies, the mob, fixated on the here and now, refuse to believe that what is pleasantly beneficial and without consequence currently, will turn out to be malignant.

America's economic golden age spanned from the beginning of the 50's to the end of the 60's. The chairman of the Fed at the time was William McChesney Martin, Jr.  He was the man who saw the Fed's role as "to take away the punch bowl just as the party gets going". (Negative feedback against popular approval). He was your classic mulitparametric analyst. He did not believe that the Fed could simply base its policy on a single indicator, rather its policies should be based on a thorough analysis of the economy. He was big picture man of fierce independence. Check out the Wiki link.  This point struck me as rather pertinent:

Martin was a graduate of Yale, where his formal education was in English and Latin rather than economics.

Big picture long term man.

Chipping the Engine.

Modern passenger car engines, such as this one, are conservatively designed.  Their components are not stressed to their limits in order to preserve engine life and reliability. The fact that components are not pushed to their limits gives after-market component manufactures the opportuinty to exploit this phenomena to change the parameters of the engine operation. By reprogramming the engine's computer management system, frequently large boosts in power can be achieved.

(notice the parabolic "return" curve)

An engine that has been "chipped" usually has it warranty voided. As the "boosting" of the engine usually comes at the expense of engine life and reliability.

A primitive form of "chipping" was used during  WW2.  Some military aircraft had War Emergency Power setting. This setting pushed the engine beyond its intended design parameters with the following results;

In normal service, the P-51H Mustang was rated at 1,380 hp, but WEP would deliver up to 2,218 hp.^[3] The Vought F4U Corsair, not originally equipped for WEP, later boasted a power increase of up to 410 hp (17%) when WEP was engaged.^[2] ............. All WEP methods result in greater-than-usual stresses on the engine, and correspond to a reduced engine lifetime. For some airplanes, such as the P-51, use of WEP required the plane to be grounded after landing and the engine torn down and inspected for damage before returning to the air. (My italics)

The point about all this is that engines are mulitparametric systems and stability and long life expectancy is achieved by designing the engine within conservative parameters. The inbuilt "margin of saftey" in component design can allow at times for quite significant excursions from the usual design parameters but come at the expensive of system life and integrity.

Now human society can be considered a multi-parametric system that only maintains its long term cohesion as long as its constituent parts operate within conservative limits. The conservative limits can be pushed for a time, and given the large degree of "conservatism"in the system, can appear "apparently stable", much like an engine that's been chipped.  With the same consequences: the engine breaks down suddenly and without warning.

The intrinsic problem with systems with a large degree of component redundancy is that fatal changes in system operating parameters can occur and initially appear quite innocuous and beneficial, their true malignancy being manifest sometime later on.  Intelligent men who understand the system will try to take corrective measures to restore it to its initial state. But to the man possessed of a short time horizon or inability to extrapolate in the future(most of humanity), the "boost in system power" is without consequence as he cannot see that the "engine" is rapidly wearing away. Likewise many social changes are accepted by the bovine masses because they are pleasant and unable to see how they can be harmful in any way. When the critics of the social changes point out that the system is going to fail, they look around them and see everything working perfectly and dismiss them. Until it doesn't

The Law of Parabolic Returns.

There are several intellectual assumptions which I feel are at the root of many of society's maladies. One of the them is what I would call is the misattribution of linearity.

The erroneous logical process runs as follows. Let's say something called X is good, then even more by implication, is better. It's  runs on the assumption that systems are linear and predictable. It's common error that's seen in many facets of life. Take for example vitamins.  Small doses of vitamins are definitely beneficial to individuals who are vitamin deficient, but at ever greater doses, the effects become  negligible and some instances harmful.  Likewise with exercise, many people,  especially sportsmen, are of the the opinion if a little bit of exercise is good for you even more is better and you can never really get too much of it. Public policy makers, who view education in the same light as motherhood, extrapolate its benefits in the same way.

It's a common intellectual pathology and it exists amongst both the left and right to varying degree.

Very few systems of any complexity are linear in their effect. In fact, most systems obey what I call the law of parabolic returns. Here, what happens initially, is there is a bit of a linear effect which after a while peters out and then finally becomes negative. The more you think about complex systems, the more you recognise the effect.

My interest is as to why this phenomenon exists in the fist place. After thinking about it for a while I believe that it is due to three things:

1) Limitations in intelligence. (That is the ability to process information)
2) Limitations in knowledge, which can either be from ignorance or from a lifetime of specialisation.
3) Superficial thinking. (Sentimental thought)
4) Ideological bias. (Thought-filtering)

Understanding multi-parametric systems is hard and therefore, given the relative scarcity of deep and broad thinkers in our community, linear thinking is more likely to be the predominant mode of thought. Hence, in community based decision systems, there will be a deep bias towards linear explanations of complex phenomena. The simple solution is more easily grasped than the complex one, especially when it needs to be explained by the moronic media to the bovine masses.

Ontologically, linear models frequently bear some relation to reality under some conditions, in other words, there usually is a degree of truth to them. This is why some of the claims of Marxists, Libertarians, Keynesian's etc have some validity; they are not outright fantasy. The problem is that their model is only valid under a limited set of conditions.  Conservatives err when they dismiss leftist claims reflexively; sometimes there is a degree of truth to their claims.  In doing so they make themselves look stupid.

The phenomenon of linearity also explains a lot of the idiotic polarisation in our society at the moment.
Take for example, the two extremes: Communists and Libertarians.

Both of them engage in a denial of reality. The communists fail to see that collectivisation has negative consequences just as much as the rabid libertarians can't see that individualisation is just as socially destructive. In many ways they are similar having the same cognitive blinders, just different cognitive models.  As the general levels of intelligence decline and Facebook becomes the information source for the majority of the voting population,  simplistic solutions to complex problems will assume greater political force.

Charles Munger, Warren Buffet's partner, was a meteorologist prior to him becoming a lawyer. Meteorology is hard probably the ultimate multi-parametric discipline He describes the problem of linearity as the problem of "the man with a hammer". To a man with a hammer every problem is a nail. He has written and excellent and easily readable essay on the importance of multi-parametric knowledge: Academic Economics: Strengths and Faults After Considering Interdisciplinary needs. It's well worth a read.

An Interesting Article.

One of the reasons why I think the Modern West is in decline is because the political theory upon which it is premised is based on a misunderstanding of human nature. One of the great fallacies which is incorporated into western political and legal theory is the myth of the "rational man". By which I mean, the theory that the average man is a sober and reflective judge when it comes to political judgment. The myth is actually a composition of two fallacies:

1) The effective doctrine that each man's political deliberation is just as valid as another's. This denies the validity of experience, study and IQ.
2) The myth that men are impartial judges of data. Whereas in reality both conservatives and liberals "filter" away data that is inconvenient and effective have a rationalisation hamster that justifies their beliefs in the face of contradictory evidence.

One of the hardest things to do, when attempting to think, is to try and eliminate one's biases from one's reasoning. It is possible, but what it requires is a devotion to the totality of data present and not filtering data away which is inconvenient.

For example, I am an anthropogenic climate change skeptic. Not because I have some emotional agenda which I want to keep intact, rather its because the totality of the data that I have seen makes the CO2 argument appear a bit weak. Now the Medieval warm period had lower CO2 levels than today. This in itself does not invalidate the CO2 argument, since it is quite possible that there are several mechanisms of climate change, and good scientist  trying to understand how climate actually works will acknowledge this. He will not try to deny data which is inconvenient to his preferred theory, rather he will modify his theory to incorporate the data. When a scientist tries to "hide the decline" I know that he is more committed to his ideology than to understanding the truth.

Its not a scientific paper but a good article (from the left wing perspective) of how a lot of people are "biased" when it comes to processing information.

The truth of the matter is that the majority of the population "feel-think" instead of "truth-think" and and any political theory or constitution which fails to take this into account is a bit like an civil engineering course which neglects soil mechanics: It's going to eventually fail.

Our political process has not been corrupted as a result of outright conspiracy, the problem is more fundamental. As political power is passes from the few to the many, the likelihood of policy being decided on sentiment instead of reason becomes greater. Feel good policies become predominant over are-good policies. 

Perhaps the reasons why democracies eventually fail is because, by becoming every more inclusive, they become incapable of making the hard decisions that ensure their survival. Universal suffrage paves the way for political instability.

Speculation on Beauty.

A week or so ago, Roissy linked to another series of female facial composites. Here, beautiful actresses were paired together over several iterations to produce a final result. ( See below)

Looking at the pictures, I get the impression that while the final facial composite is attractive, she is not as attractive as nearly all of the originals. I suppose what I'm getting at is that true beauty is perhaps some  ideal proportion combined with some unique markers of identity. These unique markers i.e. shape of nose, eyes, lips etc may be the finishing touches which make a woman exceptionally beautiful rather than just pretty.

Homophily and Psychological Entropy.

Following up on the previous post I thought I would link a few studies on the subject of homophily.

(I've decided not to provide an exhaustive list of references because this is a blog post and not a formal paper. People interested in pursuing the subject in more detail can try putting the term homophily into Google Scholar and more than enough references can be found)

Homophily is the preference for things which are similar to ourselves. Sociological studies looking at how humans form relationship networks show that humans, nearly always, prefer to associate with people who are similar to themselves. Be that in race, class or custom. Furthermore this preference is observed from a very early age and across all races, well before the affects of socialisation kick in.

An interesting review paper, Childrens Developemental Understanding of Ethnicity and Race is long but worthwhile reading. Paralleling their cognitive development from concrete to more abstract, it appears that children become aware of the differences between individuals from as young as three years of age, and as they mature they become more specific with their understanding of differences. With further cognitive maturity they are able to abstract and  generalise these differences upon groups. It appears that this process is natural, in that it is not the result of parental education or socialisation but rather something that is innate. Attempts to try to thwart this process by trying to de-emphasise the differences only seems to exert a paradoxical effect, in that it results in a greater awareness of them.

McPherson et al, performed a rather large review of the subject, and their findings indicated that:

Homophily in race and ethnicity creates the strongest divides in our personal environments, with age, religion, education, occupation, and gender following in roughly that order.

It therefore appears that when we compare other individuals to ourselves we compare them against some predetermined hierarchy of values. It seems that we seem more attuned to racial differences than we do to educational ones and the fact that differential traits can be stratified in their importance is intself an interesting fact. I imagine that evolutionary biologists would invent some explanation to account for the phenomenon. I myself, prefer to acknowledge its existence and leave unto others speculations as to why it exists.

It appears that we are genetically biased to prefer "similars" overs "differents" and whatever the mechanism involved, there must be some form of cognitive/biochemical imperative that drives this: The selection is favoured by "psychological entropy", in other words, there is some psychological benefit for these choices.
 
This does not mean that this psychological imperative cannot be overcome. Other studies have demonstrated that in small groups, where there is limited choice in friendship formation, there is less homophily than in large groups. In other words, given a small group of people, a fellow similar person may possess traits which are in the net repulsive, and hence the individuals repulsion may overcome any homophillic tendency towards them, while a different may posses multiple attractive traits which overcomes the homophillic bias.  

I'm white but Halle Berry possess more than enough positive traits for me to choose her over Meryl Streep: always.

However in large groups, where there are more homophillic "choices" available, statistical probability prevails and people tend to gravitate towards similar individuals

An anonymous commentator sent me a fascinating link to a "turtle and frog experiment";

The social implications of this model are easier to see than the zoological ones. And the most interesting observation to come out of it is that even a moderate preference for living among your own kind can give rise to a dramatic pattern of segregation. What starts out as a salt-and-pepper mixture gradually evolves, over a few hundred iterations, into large blobs of almost uniform composition. Even though none of the individuals insist on racial purity, most of them wind up living with a very high percentage of neighbors like themselves.

It is a human tendency to extrapolate from the particular to the universal, thinking what works locally will work globally, and I think this is source of many of the problems in the West. Because Bill (the Black man) is very good friends with Peter (the Asian) whom he met at work( where there is a limited pool of homophilic choices), we generalise from this particular instance to assume that Asians and Blacks will naturally want to live together.  But this generalisation is flawed because given more choices, Bill and Peter will as a group, chose similars over differents en masse. The natural psychic energy works towards differentiation, even though there may be local areas of mixing.

What these latter processes have in common is that they tend to minimize surface area (or the area of interface between phases). It's not implausible that racial segregation also shares this tendency, and the discovery of a connection between a social process and certain physical systems would be illuminating.

The minimisation of surface area is an attempt to minimise the "energy" of the system. Now I think that there is this analogous "psychological energy" in human beings and it affects human behaviour in such a way that humans drift towards the lowest energy state (Happiness, calmness, etc) I imagine that when people are grouped with other similars,  it results in a low psychological energy state and are hence happy, while when grouped with differents (all other things being held constant) they exist at a higher energy state. There being a psychological imperative towards a lower state which results in happiness and less anxiety.

Now while relationships with similars results in a lower energy state. a similar who has other disagreeable features may may result in a higher "psychological energy state" than a different with lots of agreeable features. In this instance, a relationship with a different is relatively favoured. But this relationship would be at a higher energy state than a relationship between two compatible similars and hence still more prone to separation. This is confirmed in the studies which show that mixed groups have higher rates of dissolution than similar groups. The worker and the capitalist may join forces against the Nazi, but once the Nazi threat disappears they separate into their " entropically favoured" groups.

Now dissimilar groups can be bought together, but it comes at a cost. Since the psychic energy required to live amongst similars is lower than with differents, there is a natural tendency of dissimilar groups of people to seperate and self-identify, the only way to bring differents together is by pushing them together. An overriding power has to push against their natural inclinations and furthermore, the greather the dissimilarity between the two groups, the greater the overriding power that needs to be applied. Take away that power and the groups will seperate again.

Contrary to popular belief, the Serbs and the Croats do not have a long history of bloodshed with each other. Nearly all of it happening in the 20th Century, when they were joined together as a result of a variety of cultural and political forces. Within the former Yugoslavia, the differences between the two groups became more marked as the result of a bloody history and it required the repressive communist state to keep the country together by the application of extremely harsh penalties. When the Communist Government failed and this force was removed, the society reverted to its "least psychic energy" state, it broke apart. Paradoxically, the "ethnic cleansing" may have contributed to some of the stability of the region by separating the dissimilar groups. The only area of the former Yugoslavia that is still relatively "tense" is Bosnia where the groups have been forced to live together.

A multicultural state will only survive as long as it is strong enough to overcome the natural tendency of its constituent members to seperate, the more diversity the stronger the government needs to be to "keep it all together". Should the government fail, the state fractures.

Conservative thinkers have for too long been looking at multiculturalism as a racial issue instead of a human nature one. Pitting race against race instead of the realities of human nature against the fantasy of Leftist thought. People are homophillc in the same way that women are hypergamic, it's a fact of life.

Apologies and Commentary.

Apologies to my readers in not getting back to you earlier. Let's just say its been an incredibly hectic few weeks and jet lag has not helped.

The first thing that I want to say is that after putting up the post I realised that I had made an error. As some of the commentators correctly pointed out, Sammy Davis Jr was sitting down when compared to the others, this therefore biased the experiment, as he is both black and sitting down, therefore he was more likely to be picked, biasing the result.

There was no correct answer for this experiment. The purpose of the experiment was to see who people identified as different when asked to make a choice. From the comments section, it appears that some individuals differentiated people by their prior knowledge of them. As some commentators mentioned, Peter Lawford was born in England and the rest of group were born in the U.S., and yet, there is no way you could tell that just by looking at the picture. In other words, people were differentiating on the basis of their pre-concieved knowledge of the subject material. They weren't differentiating on what they saw they were differentiating on what they knew.

What's interesting to see is who wasn't picked as different:  Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Peter Lawford.  Dean Martin appears the tallest standing member and yet he was least likely picked. Why?
Frank Sinatra is the shortest guy standing so one would suppose that at least a few votes would have gone his way.

Joey Bishop and Sammy Davis Jr were the most likely to be picked. Clearly Sammy Davis Jr. is black and the only guy sitting down. While Joey Bishop doesn't have a tie.

As I said, this experiment was biased and therefore it's difficult to draw many conclusions from it but perhaps we could say that stature is less of a discriminating factor than clothing and skin colour.

......................................

The reason I put this post up was because of reflection upon the events in the New Orleans Superdome during Hurricane Katrina.  It was set up as a refugee center and it soon became apparent that people who were complete strangers associated on the basis of skin color. Colin Powell, who has probably been America's best and most dignified Secretary of State recalled that that during his time as a national security advisor:

KING: Were you ever racially profiled?

POWELL: Yes, many times.

KING: And didn't you ever bring anger to it?

POWELL: Of course. But, you know, anger is best controlled. And sure I got mad.
I got mad when I, as a national security adviser to the president of the United States, I went down to meet somebody at Reagan National Airport and nobody recognized -- nobody thought I could possibly be the national security adviser to the president. I was just a black guy at Reagan National Airport.
And it was only when I went up to the counter and said, "Is my guest here who's waiting for me?" did somebody say, "Oh, you're General Powell." It was inconceivable to him that a black guy could be the national security adviser.

KING: How do you deal with things like that?

POWELL: You just suck it up. What are you going to do? It was a teaching point for him. Yes, I'm the national security adviser, I'm black. And watch, I can do the job. So, you have this kind of -- there is no African-American in this country who has not been exposed to this kind of situation.
Do you get angry? Yes. Do you manifest that anger? You protest, you try to get things fixed, but it's kind of a better course of action to take it easy and don't let your anger make the current situation worse.

 My point here is not to get into the rights or wrongs of racism but to try and understand the phenomenon. It would appear that tallness and shortness is less of a discriminating factor than clothing or skin colour. And why, in the Superdome, where people were complete strangers, did people divide  themselves spontaneously according to skin colour? I have difficulty believing that all the Blacks in the Superdome were bad and that all the Whites good.

What I'm getting at is that our brains may be wired to weight certain differences more than others  and that there may be default associative behaviours based solely upon appearances. Racism may be more about appearances than genetics. In much the same way females are wired to respond sexually to alpha traits, perhaps people are wired to respond positively to people who appear similar to themselves and negatively to people who look different. That is not say that this attraction/repulsion cannot be overcome, rather it's a force that may be ever present in the human psyche that needs to be taken account of by any student of human nature.

These maps of U.S. cities are stark illustration of how racially divided the country is, and yet I image many people have friends from different races. Here is an interesting map of London. These maps may not necessarily be reflections of a deliberate policy of racial segregation, rather they may be the natural effect of human beings wanting to associate with similar individuals because it is psychically beneficial.  Prolonged personal contact with individuals of different races may be able to overcome our wired genetic bias, but it is a bias that remains each time we are confronted with an unknown individual/s. What this means is that while we may like and feel comfortable around a  particular example of a people who look different,  we may still be uncomfortable with the rest.

Experiment.

I want to perform a little experiment.

Pick the odd man out from the picture below. It's not meant to be a trick question and spend less than 20 seconds on your answer. (Click on the polling widget in the right sidebar)

 

Commentary in two days.

Housekeeping.

Just want to let my readers know that I will be away for the next two and half weeks. Will resume blogging after then.

Kamikaze

Many Australians don't like the Japanese for what did to our Servicemen and their behaviour towards our allies. Still the generation that wrought those atrocities is nearly dead and guiltless generation has taken its place.

Whilst I have my reservations about Japanese culture, I've been quite impressed by the way in which the Japanese have handled the disaster. Where's the looting? Instead, the images that keep coming back are that of dignified people taking it on the chin.

I'm quite the proponent of nuclear power, especially of this form, and I don't suffer from the anti-nuclear hysteria that the majority of the population seem to possess. Still, it's one thing to overplay dangers and yet another to minimise them, and facts are facts, being around the Fukushima's nuclear plants at the moment is not likely to be conducive to one's health.

The Daily Mail reports on the Fukushima Fifty, a group of men who've stayed at their posts, at real danger to themselves, to try and limit the damage at the nuclear power plant. Officially they are being exposed to "regulated" amounts of radiation, but in reality, the doses they are being exposed to are probably much higher. What will happen to them, who knows for certain, but I image there will be a lot of early deaths from cancer.

I can express nothing but admiration for these men, most of whom it would appear, are volunteers. Tonight before I go to bed, I face towards Japan and raise my glass to them.

I can recognise courage when I see it.

Caveman Love: Some Interesting Papers.

It been a rather busy few weeks and so I have not been able to blog as much as I would like.   But I found a few papers that are quite interesting and might be worth a few comments.

The first article I quickly want to look it as by Roy Baumeister and Jean Twenge,


The Cultural Supression of Female Sexuality.

Interesting paper from the evo bio point of view. I'm not a fan of this approach to psychology and the frame of reference from which it approaches things. Still Baumeister and Twenge put forward a good case that it is other women who have the strongest influence on female sexual behaviour. An interesting quote

The researchers reported that women cited external pressures of gossip and reputation as forces that pushed women to hold back sexually.

The crucial items, however, concerned where the support for the double standard was perceived to reside. Millhausen and Herold (1999) asked their respondents “Who judges women who have had sex with many partners more harshly?” (p. 363). The answers reflected a strong perception that women enforce the double standard. The most anti-sexual of women’s groups advocated the single standard of sexual purity for both genders. Thus, support for the double standard is not a matter of anti-sexual feeling or an instance of the general pattern of lower female permissiveness. 

and

Only 12% of the women responding to the survey stated that men were the harsher judges, whereas 46% identified women as harsher. (The rest reported that men and women judged equally harshly.) The authors seem to have concurred that their findings pose a challenge to the theory that men stifle female sexuality: “Why is there a belief that men are controlling women’s sexuality, yet women perceive other women to be the harshest judges of their own behavior?” (p. 367).

Women's social psychology can best be understood from the dynamics of the herd. The alpha females of the pack set the rules and "inclusion" in the group  is dependent upon adopting their norms. The pressure to conform it just a woman's natural tendency to belong to the group.

Another interesting paper is by Critelli and Bivona;

Women's Erotic Rape Fantasies: An Evaluation of Theory and Research.

Rape fantasies tend to be surprisingly common by Women. Just in case there are any Aspergoids reading this,  This does not mean women want to be raped. A fantasy is a controlled mental excursion, not an uncontrolled physical act. For the retards out there, there is a difference. Still, what the rape fantasy implies that female sexual pleasure is in someway stimulated by loss of control, compulsion and and a sense of being dominated. Now it needs to also be understood that in the fantasy the woman is raped by a man of her choosing, in other words, she gets to vet the "rapist". Still what the fantasy shows is domination by a desired man.

Following this theme is another interesting paper based on a small sample of women;

Turning on and Turning Off: A Focus Group Study of the Factors That Affect Women's Sexual Arousal

Some interesting comments were made in this study, particularly the following:

Style of Approach/Initiation and Timing

Women described various styles of approach/ initiation
as potential turn-ons or turn-offs but the importance
to their own arousal of how a partner approached them
was a key theme:

P: I want to say his “game” . . . you know, how the man
approached you, how did he get me to talk to him
longer than like, five minutes? How did he get me to
be interested in him and the ways he went about it.
[African American group]

Being “surprised” or “overpowered” by a partner was
described as arousing by a number of women:

P-1: It could be because I was raised Catholic and
everybody jokes to me, comes up behind me, you
know “I’m not responsible” then, and he comes up
behind me and puts his arms around my waist and it’s
like, well “it’s not my fault.” If they’re going to take
me from behind, it’s not my fault.

P-2: I’m not Catholic and that is very sexually arousing.
P-3: I totally agree. [46+ group]

A potential turn-off was a partner who was too “polite” or
who asked for sex:

P: If somebody askedme to do something. I hate that. Like,
“will you go down on me?” and stuff and like blatantly
ask me . . . It will eventually get there, they don’t have
to ask me, but like the asking is . . . the biggest turn-off
ever. [18–24 group]

Although being able to communicate about sex with a
partner was often seen as positive, particularly in the older
age groups, a partner verbally “asking” for sex was widely
regarded as a turn-off:

P-1: My husband, as long as we’ve met . . . he’s just a very
polite young man and he just would, you know, while
we are in the throes of sexual passion, he would just
say “May I have sex?” or something like that, and I
wish [he] wouldn’t ask. That’s a turn-off.
P-2: It’s like, just do it.
P-3: Even now. . . he’ll say something like . . . “Well,
tonight can we have sex?” or something like that, and
I’m like “Why don’t you just come and you know,
kiss me and like that.”
P-4: Make love to me.
P-5: Exactly.
P-6: Seduce me.
P-7: Don’t make me say okay.
P-8: It’s not something that’s a turn-on. [25–45 group]
 were less aroused

I this age of equality, when it comes to life's more primitive functions a man's gotta lead.

Finally,  another interesting paper (which I couldn't get the PDF link to) by DeMaris, 

Elevated sexual activity in violent marriages: hypersexuality or sexual extortion? 

This is a fascinating paper with several interesting links. DeMaris basically notes that couples in abusive marriages have intercourse approximately 4.33 times a month more than non-abusive couples. It would appear that DeMaris explains this discrepancy by postulating that this increased frequency is due to male coercion of the women.

Although conflict and violence are positively correlated (DeMaris, 1993), conflict per se diminished sexual activity. Nevertheless, at a given level of conflict, the use of violence by husbands served to elevate sexual frequency. This appears to make most sense only when one assumes that a husband's violence has a coercive effect. Otherwise, if conflict generally "turns partners off" to sex, it would not be reasonable to assume that violence--often the result of conflict--turns them back on

He does however issue this caveat,

Another limitation of the study is that sexual coercion has only been inferred but not measured directly. Essentially, the analyses have relied on sociological "detective work" to build a case based on circumstantial evidence alone. I have argued, based on theoretical reasoning, that sexual coercion, or extortion, should be revealed by an interaction between sexual frequency and violence (including injury) in their effects on wives' depressive symptomatology. To the extent that this was found, that reasoning is supported. However, without wives indeed acknowledging that they were coerced into having sex, that inference remains somewhat speculative.

Personally, I think DeMaris's theory needs some more work. Arguing, which is a rational phenomena seems to turn women off sex, where as violence and agression operates on a more "primitive" level seems from the data available.  DeMaris assumes a cognitive model of aggression where it is the end point of a series of deliberately escalating chosen activities. Information is interpreted through one channel.  Perhaps a better understanding of this phenomena is made by considering a two channel (I'd say three) model of female cognition. Here women filter information through  rational and primitive  channels where on the rational level women are repulsed by violent men but on the other more primitive channel women are aroused by overt machismo.  This approach easily explains how a woman can be both repulsed and yet attracted to a man. It also explains why the "nice guy" is percieved as "rationally good" but the primitive channel is not stimulated by his actions and as such the relationship is viewed as asexual.  Another interesting paper, looking at sexually inactive marriages, 

Sexually Inactive Marriages, by Denise Donelly (Sorry could only get the abstract) noted that low sexual activity was correlated with low violence .   Now it is possible that all the increased coital frequency is a product of coercion, but interesting paper posits and alternative hypothesis. Shitty marriages may be kept together with good sex. In other words, a woman may not like her marriage but the sex may be good.

Exploring Relationships Among Communication, Sexual Satisfaction, and Marital Satisfaction, by Litzinger and Gordon seems to suggest so.

Now there are other studies which show that women are sexually unhappy in abusive relationships but one of the fundamental problems with abused women is getting them to separate from the abuser. They quite frequently go back. I my limited experience, women have no trouble leaving a nice beta but seem to have a hard time leaving an abusive bad boy.  Perhaps the "psychic benefit" that keeps women in abusive relationships comes about from stimulation of primitive centers of the brain by alpha behaviour.

Now I'm not suggesting that the way to fire up a flagging marriage is for a man to beat his wife, rather displays of over displays of traditional masculinity and some playful physicality, (throwing her over your shoulder etc) may help.

Good Post by Roosh V.

I think Roosh V gives the definitive account of why some men are refusing to "grow up". I think there's more to life than screwing in Dad's basement, but if I had his philosophy..........

Hymonwitz's snowflakes.

Much to the disgust of some of the men in the manosphere, I have lent some support to Hymnowitz's assertion that some men are stuck in permanent adolescence. I suppose where I and Hymnowitz differ is that I also assert that the the standards of women have also fallen and that many of them are stuck in a permanent adolescence as well.

Psychologically, adult maturity can be thought of the completion of a process starting in childhood, when the individual is solely focused on his self and finishing in late adolescence when the the just mature adult is able to engage in society as a socially conscious member. The narcissist can then be thought of as someone who is stuck in adolescence, someone who has not matured.

Apparently my town is hosting a conference on Personality Disorders.  One of the main speakers will be Dr Jean Twenge, a psychologist with an interest in Narcissism. According to Dr Twenge Narcissism is on the increase and compared to generations before, much more prevalent now. Some people might assume that this is simply the old just whining away as the old are prone to do, but Dr Twenge has studies which go back to the 30's which show a definite change in the prevalence of this anti social vice. The changes are objective. To quote Dr Twenge.

If we assume that the NPI still has a normal distribution, this shift in the mean score means that there are now more college students at the top end of the original distribution. For example, 24% of 2006 college students score 1 SD above the 1979–1985 narcissism mean, compared to 15% during that original data collection. (One SD above the 1979–1985 is a score of 22, representing someone who answers the clear majority of items—22 out of 40—in a narcissistic direction.) It is also interesting to note how recent means compare to data collected on a sample of celebrities such as movie stars,
reality TV winners, and famous musicians (Young & Pinsky, 2006). This celebrity sample had a mean NPI score of 17.84, not much higher than the 2006 regression equation mean of 17.29. Thus, recent college students approach celebrities in their levels of narcissism.

(Egos Inflating Over Time: A Cross-Temporal Meta-Analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory )

The Narcissist is self absorbed and frequently overrates their own self worth and achievements. Being so focused on themselves ,they lack empathy towards others, especially when their actions hurt them. It's a profoundly solipsistic vice, turning the individual in on themselves to the exclusion others. When a Narcissist loves, it's the love of percieved benefits from the other, not the love of the other.

What Dr Twenge has also noted that combined with an increase in narcissism has also been loss of sense of control, the modern narcissist loves themselves and their achievements but feels not in control of their lives. In other words, when something bad happens to them its someone else's fault.

To quote Twenge,

Two meta-analyses found that young Americans increasingly believe their lives are controlled by outside forces rather than their own efforts. Locus of control scores became substantially more external (about .80 standard deviations) in college student and child samples between 1960 and 2002. The average college student in 2002 had a more external locus of control than 80% of college students in the early 1960s. Birth cohort/time period explains 14% of the variance in locus of control scores. The data included 97 samples of college students (n = 18,310) and 41 samples of children ages 9 to 14 (n = 6,554) gathered from dissertation research. The results are consistent with an alienation model positing increases in cynicism, individualism, and the self-serving bias. The implications are almost uniformly negative, as externality is correlated with poor school achievement, helplessness, ineffective stress management, decreased self-control, and depression.

and,

The results clearly support the alienation model outlined in the introduction. As individualism has increased, locus of control has become more external. These data cannot determine the exact origins of the increase in externality; however, several trends seem relevant. Greater cynicism and alienation leads people to believe that their personal actions mean little. Blaming others for negative events has also become more popular, and people are less likely to believe that anyone can be a success despite obstacles in the way. Rather than leading to independence, the increasing individualism of American culture has led people to believe that there is little they can do to change the larger world.

These data also suggest that the outside environment has a strong effect on children. This is contrary to the usual view of children as isolated within their homes and influenced primarily by their families. Children as young as age 9 demonstrate change over time in locus of control, probably because of changes  n the larger social environment. Of course, the effect of the larger environment might be mediated by the  children’s parents; if parents become more external over time, they may pass these attitudes along to their  children. The cynical cultural lesson that one’s fate is determined by outside forces apparently reaches children at an early age

(It’s Beyond My Control: A Cross-Temporal Meta-Analysis of Increasing Externality in Locus of Control, 1960–2002)

Twenge has noted that the level of narcissism has risen for both sexes but to quote Twenge again,

We also analyzed single-sex means when they were reported. Because not all studies reported means broken down by gender and some unpublished single-sex means were obtained directly from authors, these analyses represent a subsample of the data that may
not be representative. Thus, these analyses should be interpreted with caution. College men’s NPI scores are not significantly correlated with year (b5.16, ns; k544, d50.12), but college women’s scores are (b5.46, po.002, k544, d50.28). The sex difference in
NPI scores has also declined, b5 .46, po.001; k543 (we conducted this analysis by computing the effect size d for sex differences and weighting the regression by w, the standard weight for d). In 1992 (the first year for which sex difference data were available), men scored 0.45 standard deviation higher than women on the NPI, but
by 2006, men scored just 0.15 SD higher. Thus the sex difference in narcissism has declined from half a standard deviation (a medium effect size) to one-seventh of a SD (a small effect size)

and 

The most recent college students score about the same on the NPI as a sample of celebrities (Young & Pinsky, 2006). The change is linear and steady, with the correlation significant when the analysis is limited to certain years only. It also appears that women are driving the increase in narcissism, consistent with the finding that the generational
increase in agentic traits and assertiveness was stronger for women

(Egos Inflating Over Time: A Cross-Temporal Meta-Analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory )

In the space of two generations women, Hymnowitz's "mature women"  have become as narcissistic as men. 

Twenge, in her papers, goes on to speculate about what has caused this rise in narcissism. She is more nuanced than most and recognises that it is multifactoral but puts a good deal of blame on modern psychology, with its emphasis on self-esteem, especially the unearned variety. Twenge also notes that narcissism seems to vary amongst races and cultures. With Blacks having the highest rates, followed by whites and then Asians. Interestingly she blames a lot of the current financial troubles, not just on the banks, but on a narcissistic society that feels it was owed more than it made and is unable to see its own complicity in its misfortune, preferring to blame the "Bankers" for everything. Once again the avoidance of responsibility.

Personally, I think the Modern Anglo culture of individualism(which is malignantly creeping throughout most of the West) is probably to blame a lot for this phenomena. The endless emphasis on personal rights instead of community obligations tends to reinforce the idea of being a "special snowflake"  to whom everyone owes a living.  Not having a community also enforces the ideal, multiculturalism, creating societies devoid of a common identity,  tends to reinforce the notion of everyman for himself.

What really interests me is the rapid female "advancement" in narcissism to which feminism must be given its rightful due. It's continual emphasis on right's without responsibilities I think, is the prime accelerent in this case.  Mark Richardson recently put up a post which illustrated this quite nicely, it's also why the Modern U.S/Canada/UK/Australian girl is such a risky bet. Hymnowitz's female maturity seems elusive.


The political implications of this rise in narcissism are troubling and I really don't want to go into them further now, but just how considered is a vote by man who refuses to acknowledge that he is responsible for anything and yet is "owed something". The future is going to be ugly.

Hymnowitz Interview

Kay Hymnowitz was involved in a live chat over at the Wall Street Journal. I've excerpted some of the comments and for those who are interested, added some commentary.

Ms. Hymowitz, Your essay draws a number of generalizations from anecdotal evidence, and while it may not be far from the mark, let me respond with an anecdote of my own. I'm a 20-something guy with a bachelors from Harvard and (soon) a law degree from Columbia. I eat healthy, work out, am reasonably good-looking; I have a job lined up at one of the top firms paying $160,000 per year; and I'll be clerking for a federal judge. And after spending years looking for the classy, ambitious, and charming gal that your essay proclaims to be the norm, I've all but given up the hunt. I've met girls at bars and parties, through blind dates and friendly set-ups, and here are the results of my own informal survey. At least two-thirds are far more interested in the "hookup scene" than I am, and couldn't care less about "sensitivity" or "smarts." The other third is either looking to be a Stepford wife, or is so inflated by her own sense of accomplishment that the only suitable match would be a billionare financier or a royal prince. So to put the question back at you: where have the good women gone? [SP: This was my experience as well when I was dating. Lot's of girls acted cheap, but what  used to disgust me the most were the women who would not give me the time of day before I was a doctor but were fawning over me after I became one. I suppose they saw me as a potential income stream. In order to "screen" for this type, when people asked me what I used to do, I'd reply "Human Resources".]

2:05

Kay Hymowitz: I got a lot of questions in this vein: where have all the good women gone? As I said in my earlier response, I'm not crazy about using the notion of blame here.[SP: Hymonwitz avoids any judgement of female behaviour. I honestly think that she has swallowed the idea that a woman living the Sex and The City lifestyle is mature.] Men and women are reacting to huge changes in our economy and culture and there aren't a lot of clear rules anymore. But to answer a little differently: yes, I think women are sending a lot of confused messages to men and are quite confused themselves[SP: Agreed] in many cases about what they want.

2:07

[Comment From Denise JonesDenise Jones: ] Don't you think that feminism has played a large role in creating the discrepancy between women's academic achievements [SP: I'd like to see the breakdown of those academic achievements. How many of them are in the hard sciences, math and the classics and how many of them are mickey mouse degrees in office management and creative dance. The deindustrialisation of the West has hit men particularly hard, it perhaps may not be that women have improved as much as men have job opportunities disappear]and men's and in creating the "pre-adult male"? The anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better attitude of women's libbers, or women in general, has put more high school girls in calculus classes than boys. I recall a time when I was the only girl in a roomful of males in the only calculus class offered (the other two girls enrolled withdrew --to many males). Feminism seems to have backfired.

2:08

[Comment From Richard CummingsRichard Cummings: ] You wonder where the real men are. Don't you think that the women's movement, which denounced overly masculine men for being dominant, has something to do with the feminization of the culture? [SP: Nope. I don't respond to the feminist movement. I ignored them. It was a bunch of stupid males who bought into that crap and rolled over.]

2:09

Kay Hymowitz: Feminism has played a huge role in the phenomenon I describe in my book Manning Up. Feminism made it possible for women to achieve as well as they have, of course. But some of the less appealing (to my mind) strains of the movement encouraged a kind of "I don't need men" attitude. The truth is women need men just like men need women. [SP: There is a logical error here. How does the I don't need men movement lament that there are no good men?]

2:11

Kay Hymowitz: To add to that previous point, feminism also made it so that women were sure they could and should act just like men when it came to sex.[SP:True] Some women were fine ith that, but a lot are not. I hear from young women all the time that the hook up culture is part of the problem in meeting good guys. Some women assume hooking up will lead to real relationships. Sometimes it does. But usually not.

2:12

[Comment From Single in the CitySingle in the City: ] As a woman in her mid-twenties living in Washington, DC, I find myself forced to navigate an unfulfilling--and almost non-existent--dating scene full of these exact 'guys', these post-pubescent boys as I refer to them. My question is what are my alternatives for graduating into adulthood--dating, finding a partner, being respected for being more than a "disposable estrogen toy", other than just giving up on the idea of a husband and family life or making the choice to "got to a sperm bank and get the DNA"--neither of which I find to be a satisfying solution. Is there any alternative for young, professional, heterosexual women other than being victimized by our own privilege?[SP: Victimised by their own privilege. That comment alone tells a whole lot about her mating failure.]

2:14

Kay Hymowitz: Single: I think most women would agree with your preference here. And it's also, I would argue, good for men to have the responsibilites - and pleasures - of family life. My essay might have left the impression that there are no good men out there. That is just wrong. There are many and you will surely meet one of them. Hang in there!

2:15

[Comment From DKRDKR: ] Why do video games have such a bad reputation among women? As a young male professional video game developer, I find that bringing up my career is akin to saying I have an STD. Despite my work being creative, challenging, engaging, and very well-paying, my date's uterus shuts like an airlock when she hears what I do. Are women just offended that men have interests that they don't share? And how is this different from the masculine interests of our fathers, like sports, or poker?[SP: Date's uterus shuts like a airlock? Sauve, No?]

2:17

Kay Hymowitz: I thinkf your question answers itself. Most women would rather you didn't talk about their uteruses - that is, at least until the second date. (joking) Could it be that video games do not encourage the kind of manners and thoughtfulness that a lot of women might want?[SP: No, it's just plane old dorkiness]

2:18

[Comment From RP Westchester CountyRP Westchester County: ] I enjoied the article as it really hit home. My son is 28, single, living inthe city and has yet to grow up. He grew up in an affluent household( father is MD, mother administrative RN. His is very brite but took 5 yrs to get throug college because of partying etc. He is narcisistic but very popular socially. Girlfriends are numerous but never last more than a month or two. He has a good job on wall street with room for advancement .[SP: And what are you trying to prove? Most young men would say that you have raised him perfectly, for most men he is living in Nirvana. He has no complaints.] My husband and I keep waiting for him to grow up so to speak. We both have a guilty conscience about this and feel that his behavior is as a result of us spoiling him as a child. Interestingly, we have a daughter who is exactly the opposite, very mature, married and quite successful age 30. Should we feel quilty ? RP

2:20

Kay Hymowitz: RP I keep hearing this sort of story. No, you should not feel guilty. Clearly there is something in the culture that is not doing well by young men.[SP: From the perspective of the average young man, this is what is best about modern western culture, it's an endless cornucopia for the pre-adolescent. ]That's what we're trying to discuss here today.

2:31

[Comment From OffTheCuffOffTheCuff: ] I'd like to give the perspective of the guy women *claim* to want. I'm a parent of three young children, and I met my wife when she was 18 and I was 20, and married her a few years later. Guys like me get out of the dating scene very quickly, because it's clear to us by then, most women our age prefer to sleep with "bad boys" than men of character. We then have a choice: So I got out, and got out fast. The longer it takes for women wait to learn to choose men based on character, rather than tingle, the more difficult it will be to find us, because the pool shrinks and shrinks fast. Men like us don't want to be your fallback-choice when you're 35 and have slept with half the city. What do you think about women's responsibility to prioritize the kind of men they choose, while still young?

2:32

Kay Hymowitz: Off the Cuff; This is a theme I've heard a lot from men. Women don't seem attracted to the nice guys. I think this is truer for women in their early and mid twenties. [SP: Here the dark Id of the female pscyhe is opened. With the near absence of any censure or restriction by society, the woman today is free to choose to her hearts desire. The choice of bad boy is not due to faulty character of the woman but simply by the desire generated by his traits. Girls who think with their vagina act on their impulses. Churchy girls feel the same desire but they have other social and cognitive forces enable them to choose otherwise. But the "good" boy without any alpha features will, for the Churchy girl,  be a lukewarm love ] By later in their pre-adulthood they may have grown out of the bad boys but a lot of the good boys are taken.[ SP: They fall off the carousel]

2:33	Allison Lichter:  We have a few questions on the same topic....

2:33	[Comment From CharlesCharles: ] Plz enlighten the ignorant....why should a young man want familial responsibilities?[SP: At its most primitive, a man wants to leave a legacy, a bit of himself to the future. It's a primal desire]

2:33	Comment From HankHank: ] Why is a lack of family responsibilities a state of limbo?

2:33

[Comment From DianaDiana: ] Why does a man need to be married to be considered an adult? I know PLENTY of men who are single and aren't living at home, have a great job, dating... etc. I consider for them to be adults. But they aren't married.[SP: Anecdote is not argument.] So Kay, do you consider them pre-adult because they're not married? And if so, how many guys are married and still play video games, love Will Farrell, and have unclean houses? [SP: And the divorce rate is 50% for what reason. Retarded commentator, women initiate divorce because they find their husbands unsatisfying.  Most women don't leave their husband to run to another man, its just that perpetual adolescent and irresponsibility is a turn off to women. As  a greneralisation, women don't like responsibility, that does not mean that they can't be responsible, it's just that they like to be a relationship where the other party is capable of acting in a way that is responsible. They don't have to carry all the psychic load.]Probably the same number... they just have a wife that keeps it under wraps from the rest of the world.

2:35

Kay Hymowitz: A man does not have to be married to be an adult, nor does a woman. But adulthood has always been intertwined with marriage and children IN EVERY SOCIETY. That's because rearing the next generation is about the most important thing we do. I don't mean that in a sappy way. I'm thinking in terms of social needs here.

2:35

[Comment From BozBoz: ] Kay, but don't most professional women who have gone to the trouble to get a solid education want to wait until their 30's or later to have kids anyway? What's the point of marrying in your twenties, or growing up and settling in your twenties[SP: Legitimising the carousel] when you will live to be 80-90 yrs old. Especially considering that most women don't even know who they are until their thirties?

2:37

Kay Hymowitz: Boz; you're right. A lot of women want to wait.[SP: Experience life, euphemism for riding the carousel.] Here's the problem: women in their thirties do not have the same pool of men to choose from that they have in their twenties. It's a sad and painful truth that men in their thirties remain attractive to younger women. Women do not attract younger men, by and large. This is what I describe in my book as a mismatch between biology and culture.[SP: Or fantasy clashing with reality]

2:38

[Comment From Grady StebbinsGrady Stebbins: ] This is an interesting topic. I honestly think men will adapt to whatever circumstances around them dictate is necessary for (sexual) success. If women desire a family-head, "old fashioned" type of mate (as their fathers likely displayed), men will adopt that role. With women insisting on a more serious role for their own lives, possibly they respond more positively toward juvenile and entertaining (funny) behavior in men. Admittedly I fall partially in your demographic, 26, college education, successful at work, and in a long term relationship with no immediate intent to marry. My girlfriend responds much more to me making her laugh then if I were to balance the checkbook exactly (which I do anyways, for good measure.) I'm curious what you think the effects of women changing their responses to male behaviour would be?

2:39

Kay Hymowitz: Grady; I share your belief that men pretty much adapt to what women demand of them.[SP: Bingo, feminism would have been stopped dead in its tracks if men stayed to the script. Yet feminism's greatest triumph was intertwining female "liberation" with sexual liberation. Most men, worshipers of the the pussy God, were more than happy to tear down the Western Edifice for a chance at a greater amount of poon.] This is a sore point among a lot of women; they don't see why they should be in charge of "civilizing" men. [Most women realise that they can manipulate a man with sex. And once they can manipulate him they having noting but contempt for him. Hint. libido killer.] But that irritation doesn't change the equation.

2:39

[Comment From NicholasNicholas: ] There's an assumption in the original article that marriage is for the purpose of having children- which is largely not true in American society any longer. I wonder if some of the rejection of commitment is tied to a similar rejection of having children. I know it is true for myself.

2:41

[Comment From StuStu: ] Hi Kay, previous generations didn't marry and settle down because of social needs, they did so due to cultural norms with respect to roles of men and women. I am skeptical that men of 200 years ago were any more interested in marriage and monogamy than they are now, it's just that it was more difficult then to have access to sex without marriage and kids.

2:42

Kay Hymowitz: Interesting comment, Nicholas. My reading of history and anthropology is that     marriage was designed largely for the purpose of raising children. A lot of young men - and women - in their twenties think they don't want kids. I get it. A lot of people are having a good time and enjoying their careers. The women, at least, often change their minds when they reach their thirties. According to most surveys, though, the large majority of men and women say they want to marry and have children - someday.[SP: IVF allows one to postpone the day of reckoning.]