Sex and shopping - it's a guy thing
newscientist.com
newscientist.com
But to go back to our usual question of women-in-tech, people often remark that women tend to go into fields that are more "helping" i.e. medical professions, non-profits. In general, I think the implication that women go into more "helping" fields and men go into more revenue generating fields is used to paint men in a bad light; but here they've shown that women are being just as selfish when they appear to be more altruistic than men. After all, they're much more likely to do charity when a potential mate is watching.
Most of human behavior, I would argue, is not conscious. We're conscious of the decisions we make, but not always about the ultimate (evolutionary) causes. And why should we? It's completely unnecessary for the evolutionary reasons for our behavior to be conscious, only that we act in a manner that will produce more copy of our genes.
My cousin's wife just became a nurse. 2 years of schooling, and her first job started her off at $80K a year. And since she doesn't work at a hospital, that's $80K for regular hours.
And she is just a regular nurse fresh out of school.
It makes sense. The contest for status (i.e.. access to women) among men makes men a lot more mean-spirited and despicable than they would like to be, so a woman who is, or seems to be, "above the fray" is very attractive.
This explains the appeal of the female healer, the angel in the house, etc.
I was hanging out with this girl when this random guy approaches us in the parking lot asking for gas money, saying how he's forgotten his wallet at home. I am super wary of his story and am about to walk off. The girl with me doesn't. She wants to go in the ATM and get him some money. I let her do that and like you said, knowing the girl would go out of the way to help some random guy added brownie points for her in my book.
Of course, if I was being totally rational I may have considered the move dumb on her part. But my gut reaction was "cool chick!".
http://www.givewell.net/charities/top-charities """ GiveWell was founded in 2006 by former hedge-fund workers Holden Karnofsky and Elie Hassenfeld. Frustrated by the absence of evidence provided by charities that they are delivering the goods in terms of their charitable ends, the pair decided to use their data-analysis skills to evaluate charities' effectiveness. They were appalled at what they found. Evidence-based charity lags far behind evidence-based medicine: virtually no charities do randomised, controlled trials regarding which interventions work. In fact, almost no charities collect any systematic data on whether or not their well-intentioned activities are actually doing any good. """
As for downplaying a sports car, it's not very likely you'll do that. Possible, of course, but just not very likely.
I like to keep a low profile for the most part. I don't want to attract the wrong kind of attention, look like a "young hot-shot kid" at work, etc. There's nothing wrong with women appreciating your success and ambition, but nobody wants to be a meal ticket.
I think women like confidence more than money, but having both never hurts. I once joked to a friend that my luck hadn't improved significantly despite earning much more; he quipped "you were still a guy who was going to make a lot of money back then, you just didn't have it yet."
The most interesting signaling behavior to me is being a hipster. Not having to work is really showing familial wealth and status. Most people don't come from a background where they can spend all day finding cool music and weird clothes rather than working a 9-5.
In short, I'm proposing that it could be one of those examples of an out-of-evolutionary-context kind of behavior.
For a much better and full explanation, read http://zhongwe2.serverpros.com/cs/cs-final-rje.pdf
Is that not a completely hypothetical scenario? You might buy a highly functional item and downplay it (e.g. I wore my expensive dive computer as a watch for a while because my regular watch was off for repair, but I didn't intend it as a means to start conversations with people about my last dive trip) but the only purpose of a high status item is to telegraph high status - there's literally no other reason for it (to continue in the same vein, no real divers wear Rolexes!).
The fact that women are even capable of conceiving of short-term sexual relationships is a sign that our society is impotent and dying.
Everyone knows I'm right. A society that fails to impel people to better themselves is next to useless.
It might be from the combination of proof-by-assertion and people disagree with you. Take your first comment:
"The fact that women are even capable of conceiving of short-term sexual relationships is a sign that our society is impotent and dying."
See, I'm not sure that's quite right, but I'm always open to being convinced. If you cited, for instance, the fall of Rome when making your point, or GDP per capita growth in traditional/modern societies, or population growth rates, well you might make a point. Instead you're just asserting that you're right.
> Everyone knows I'm right.
Like that. That doesn't work so well. Data, evidence, argument, counterargument. You've actually got some good arguments on your side - replacement rate in population growth, birthrates of the Islamic world vs. the rest of the world, and so on. I just got a copy of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and I think Gibbons points to changes in Roman family life as one of the big causes. So, you could probably make a really interesting and nuanced argument that challenged our beliefs and made us think more.
Now, it goes against a lot of people here's base views, so it would likely receive mixed feedback, but it would definitely get some positive points and discussion going. Heck, I'd be up for reading and discussing with you if you made those arguments because I'm not sold either way on what's going to happen to modern society 100 years out - it's a fascinating and interesting topic. I think data, citations, research, books, and a more flushed out argument and you could really make some interesting points and get some good discussion going.
The danger of accepting and encouraging casual sexuality is that it inexorably leads to strong-man polygamy and the subjugation of women, which most people would consider a regression.