Strategies of Human Mating (2006) [pdf]
weimag.ch
weimag.ch
it's especially difficult in modern times, where so many people are discouraged from settling young and experimenting till you are into your late 20s or early 30s - while ignoring emotional well being and stability that are so important later on.
sex-ed is generally fubared in almost every country on the planet.
The best way to resist temptation is to give in to it :D
> Because in humans fertilization occurs internally within women, men can suffer a lack of certainty in their paternity. In contrast, women are always 100% certain that their offspring are their own. Sexual infidelity, of course, is the event that can compromise a man’s paternity in offspring.
> Although women have never confronted the problem of maternity uncertainty, an infidelity by a woman’s mate can be extremely damaging. The woman whose husband is unfaithful risks losing his time, resources, and commitments, all of which could get channeled to a rival female and her children.
> For these reasons, evolutionary theorists have predicted that men, more than women, would get upset about signals of sexual infidelity. In contrast, women, more than men were predicted to get upset about signals of emotional infidelity
> In an American sample, 61% of the men, but only 13% of the women judged the sexual infidelity aspect of the betrayal to be the most upsetting. Conversely, only 39% of the men, but 87% of the women, judged the emotional attachment to the other person as more upsetting. Similar sex differences have been obtained in Korea and Japan (Buss et al., 1999), China (Geary et al., 1995), and Sweden (Wiederman & Kendall, 1999). In studies of memory, men can more easily recall cues to sexual infidelity, whereas women can more easily recall cues to emotional infidelity.
Men and women are not the same, and this is why they place differing values on sexual fidelity and the often-correlated concept of promiscuity.
And as female promiscuity increases in various developed parts of the world, you will absolutely see a decline in marriage rates, as men subconsciously process a greater evolutionary risk to their genetic investments.
EDIT - oh boy, this article really is full of gems that would offend the sensibilities of the egalitarian crowd:
> Married men tend to engage in especially vigorous mate retention efforts when their spouse is young in age and physically attractive. In contrast, women tend to engage in especially vigorous mate retention efforts when married to men who have good jobs, high incomes, and devote a lot of time to status striving.
What we value in a nutshell, whether we want to admit it or not.
That is unless government steps in to guarantee 50% claim of men's resources regardless of retention efforts.
Its widely known in the literature.
It turns out that humans are somewhere in between tournament and pair-bonding species and this is probably root of a lot of confusion. The rules are not as clear as in the two extremes, and in addition there is a lot of variability in behavior anyway because the generality of the neocortex basically allows us to adopt arbitrary rules. Some cultures are more puritanical, some are less. Some males get more excited about parenting and cute animals, while others are rather focused on achieving high status and thus fare well with traditional gender roles to achieve that. But what status means is itself variable, e.g. high status can include the appeal to some egalitarian paternal parenting meme. A lot of the results, e.g. gender-specific appreciation of good jobs, high incomes might reflect both cultural and genetic factors.
We should at least try understand the basic rules that shape our lives and not give in to simplified (and often misleading) models presented by ideology.
Society and its picture of the human person will (and must) change fundamentally upon the results we concieve by proper scientific study. This will not go down easy.
I've got to try this.
If too many people everyday have the same idea for the same person, it may become unpleasant for that person, even if each individual approach was non-obtrusive. (It's like if you meet someone with a funny name: even though it's harmless to point it out or make a light joke about it, you generally abstain because you assume that maybe too many people are doing it already, so it may become tedious. Same thing for someone whose physical appearance is unusual.)
My point wasn't about what you are "free" to do -- of course you are probably free to say nice things to people unless they tell you to leave them alone. The question is about what it is polite to do. (It's a bit like what XKCD says about freedom of speech: https://xkcd.com/1357/)
Suppose that people actually took your advice. Those desirable people, along with everybody else, would soon be lonely. In the long term, population would decline.
In some situations in some countries, especially in the workplace, it is unwanted sexual attention and it will cause problems for you.
And btw, it was “Hi, I’ve been noticing you around campus, and I find you very attractive.”; which has a non threatening tone and gives off a completely different vibe.
I watched him demonstrate. He stood behind a petite woman who's height was practically at his navel level. She eventually turns around. At first she was confused to just find a wall-of-man behind her, and then slowly started to raise her gaze until she finally reached my brother's big friendly grin. Half way through she already started to smile.
I tried the same only to get a nasty why are you standing next to me look. And I'm not bad looking.
Seriously, I think minimalist pickup strategies are a winner take all situation.
(As used in the theme-tune to "As If", a TV show from the UK.)
Lava is natural, and food coloring is synthetic. Of which would you prefer to eat a pound?
Version 1.2
The human LD50 of soluble uranium salts is around 5g [1], but metallic uranium is not very soluble.
Also, a man named Albert Stevens was injected with 131kBq of Pu. He died 20 years later of heart disease, having accumulated a lifetime dose of some 64 Sv.
It's not just the dose that makes the poison, it's the method of administration.
Because the LD50 of a 200lb/91kg human is about that amount of caffeine (20g).
A 20g plutonium ball should be harmless if swallowed. 20g of caffeine on the other hand won't be pleasant.
I've always seen the fallacy in question used as it is in the article, e.g. that one can't claim that something is good (in the ethical sense) because it is pleasurable.
Is there something I'm missing?
Haha. Almost sounds like you need a PhD to do it.
Moravec's paradox is the discovery by artificial intelligence and robotics researchers that, contrary to traditional assumptions, high-level reasoning requires very little computation, but low-level sensorimotor skills require enormous computational resources.
Having kids is strongly inversely correlated with 'having sex'. (People who are most successful at reproducing are also the people with the fewest sexual partners and a less active sex life.)
Moreover, some of the most successfully reproducing people are those who have sex once a year.
'Sex' is, by definition, something that's supposed to lead to reproduction. Whatever you're discussing here isn't.
My interpretation: this is largely because most people, when they are single, struggle to find romantic partners. Many are also (at least ostensibly) looking for someone to marry, and so they try to optimize for that (sometimes) at the expense of more sex now.
I agree with the distinction you are making though.