men and women

No, survival of a species doesn’t depend on that. There’s this species of scorpion in which the males and females don’t come into contact with each other for years, because the population is so sparse, and when they do the male just rapes the female and runs away.

So, the short, blunt, and accurate answer is ‘No, it doesn’t require that.’

At least not for that species of scorpion. :neutral_face:

But what would you say is the most fruitful approach: for men and women to get along and have babies together in a loving cooperative relationship, or for men to go around raping women and leaving them to fend for their offspring on their own?

I can say what is preferable.

But I don’t think the vast majority of the animal kingdom is bothered with the niceties, and they have survived for billions of years.

What do you mean “bothered”? And what is a nicety to you?

Let’s also keep this in perspective. What typically happens in the animal kingdom is not necessarily what’s good for humans.

Perspective: Humans are not distinct from the animal kingdom.

What are the niceties: Your Phrase;“Why is it important for our survival that men and women get along??? Um… babies, perhaps?”

Fact is that for most of the human past, speaking as an archaeologist and ancient historian, such niceties have not always been observed. This has not impeded the progress and survival of human evolution. So whilst it might be desirable, it is not as important as you think, nor is it necessary as such.
But looking ahead - it will not be long before artificial insemination is more common. Today a woman can get impregnated from a sperm bank, without having to “get on” with any man.

Looking back - it is the common habit of many hunter/gatherer tribes to gain wives through purchase and/or through raiding neighbouring tribes. You might say that this is not the nicest way of making a family, but as a strategy it is excellent in selective terms. First only the strongest men are able to get wives this way, either due to riches or brute strength, and the children are more likely to be healthier genetically due to widening of the gene pool due to exogamy - very important in small scale societies where tribes tend to have a limited range of genetic diversity.

As hunting and gathering represent 99% of human history I think it not far off the mark to suggest that “Getting along”, is probably very modern-centric, and based on a Judeo-Christian ideology of monogamy. Quite a limitation in the long duree of human history.
Polygamy is still widely practiced throughout the world, and buying brides is also very common. Getting wives through raids is less so common but I understand that the progeny from rape are still likely to be healthy and thrive.
Don’t get upset. I’m not recommending rape; buying wives; raids; or even artificial insemination. It’s just a fact that humans have evolved without the need to “get on” with each other. Sadly this can explain why it can be so difficult.

i just think it would be nicer if we got along better…the scorpions are interesting but i dont care too much about
their sex life…

What’s the nicety there? Babies? Getting along? Technically, a “nicety” is defined as a detail brought in for precision.

Is there any data to compare with? I mean, data on societies that have observed these niceties?

What you’re describing seems like a middle ground between two extremes: the modern-centric concept of “getting along” (as you call it) and utter chaos and anarchy where the only kind of “getting along” that happens is rape.

When I was answering the above question, I was thinking of “getting along” in contrast to “not getting along”–at all. As in, men and women just don’t talk to each other or interact in any way (except maybe for fighting and harming each other).

But seriously, are telling me that a world in which reproduction was carried out by men kindapping and/or raping women would fair better than one in which men and women consentually formed relationships together, had babies, and cooperatively helped each other raise the kids?

If you read what I say you will see that I covered this point twice.

Well, you seem to be suggesting that it is an advantage to rape and pillage neighboring tribes in order to secure the best chances of propagating your genes. I suppose it does take a really strong man to rape a woman (and we all know that wealth is genetic), but there are numerous flaws in your logic. I won’t go through them in this post, but I will say that, in my humble opinion, rape and pillaging are not options in the modern world. So while you may have a point in principle, I’m gonna stick to my position that in practice we have to find some alternative to rape/kidnapping if we’re going to survive in the modern world as it now stands (this applies to men and women in particular, but also to human relationships in general).

#-o

Please read back.
I take trouble to write what I think. Please take the trouble to read if you are going to respond.
And don’t make me look back!

HERE I LOOKED BACK:“Don’t get upset. I’m not recommending rape; buying wives; raids; or even artificial insemination. It’s just a fact that humans have evolved without the need to “get on” with each other. Sadly this can explain why it can be so difficult.”

Yeah, I read that. It doesn’t answer my question. I asked if you think a society that reproduces by pillaging and raping, or kidnapping, or buying etc. is an advantage compared to a society that reproduces by peaceful and humane means. You’re quote tells me that you’re not promoting such vulgar approaches (thank God), and it tells me that it’s possible for the species to get on with such an approach (which is not a surprise), but not that it’s the most effective.

What do you mean by “advantage”?

In evolution theory, when we talk about an “advantage,” we’re talking about a leg up, an extra bit of leverage that one group has over another. It usually means that in highly demanding environments, it’s a deal breaker.

In regards to raiding, raping, kidnapping, and buy wives, you said “You might say that this is not the nicest way of making a family, but as a strategy it is excellent in selective terms. First only the strongest men are able to get wives this way, either due to riches or brute strength, and the children are more likely to be healthier genetically due to widening of the gene pool due to exogamy”. This lead me to believe you thought of this strategy as an advantage over more peace and humane ones.

But it’s a common mistake to think that fitness for survival is equivalent to physical strength or social status. While raiding a village and chacing down the women might score you a chance of reproducing if you’re lucky enough to catch and rape one of them (or bring her back as spoils of war), I can imagine a male who scores women through his charm, wit, and social amicability. So while you’re chacing women down who are afraid of you, this guy’s got them flocking to him like a magnet. What counts as an advantage and what doesn’t?

I think that we have unnecessary standards, if you’re a manly man or a womanly man, or whatever who cares, homosexual, bi or just curious? If you are a fascist or a communist, you should have a right to believe in your beleifs stupid or not, but I don’t think anyone has ever had that sort of humanism. Now some things need to be brought to task, especially if they encourage bigotry but then doesn’t trying to force people to be something they are not fit that box? Can we all just live without being told how to think by idiots? Apparently not. The world will be a much better place when we accept that everyone is different, but at the same time we are all human. I long for that day in my lifetime, it wont happen, because idiots are the most vocal and rule the world and sadly always have done. It is the really intelligent that have to suffer under the idiocracy and so have they done always and so do they to this day. :frowning:

i agree…i dont have much hope for this acceptance of differences…

Is that the Royal “we”?
Actually an advantage is not always a deal breaker. Fact is that organisms carry traits that are advantages, neutral, and even disadvantageous; evolution not be a cause but an effect does not give a rat’s arse. As long as the organism continues to have viable progeny, they can do things that are selectively negative.
Humans, having the survival thing pretty much sown up tend to behave in ways all the time that do not affect their survival in any sense. And probably when the shit eventually hits the fan it will probably be for some reason no one was able to predict.
Humans have pursued a massively diverse set of social strategies whose concerns are only peripherally acquainted with basic survival, and that was the reason I piked you up on the “we all should get along so we can have babies” assumption; because that is not always how we have proceeded in the long history of human “progress”.

But it can be–in highly stressful environments.

Yes, but again, I’m thinking in terms of the modern Western world. And I’m not talking about one or another individual–I’m talking about the way we live as a civilization.

I get that you’re trying to argue that we can reproduce without men and women getting along (in the sense that they like each other and enjoy each other’s company–or, at the very least, have a workable system by which they help each other raise children), but I’m including things in the equation that I’m calling “advantages” or “improvements”–things that make the system better or function more efficiently.

When I think about evolution, I usually include efficiency as one of the variables that must be plugged into the equation for survival. Survival is competition, after all–that’s one of the bedrock principles of the theory anyway. It’s survival of the fittest, not survival of the fit enough. The only cases in which this rule may be relaxed somewhat would be cases in which the species has far outrun its competition (and I’ll grant you that this may be the case with human beings), but this is typically the exception to the rule, and I wouldn’t start counting on it if you’re considering what’s the best survival strategy for human beings today.

You seem to be answering the question “What’s the minimum requirement for us to continue the human species?”

I’m answering the question “What’s the best way for us to continue the human species?”

I don’t think it is safe to assume that ‘getting along’ is an especially adaptive trait. Evolution is 90% speculation and 10% verification.
No species ever survives FOR a trait. They are not selected FOR specific behaviours.
It is only true to say that Species with selectively advantageous traits are selected.

And each comes with positive, neutral and even negative traits, just so long as they continue to make viable progeny; evolution does not give a rats arse, and at no time can you say a trait is THE reason for survival.
Evolution is not a cause ,and traits do not emerge in the first case in view of the function they might fulfil. Evolution is an effect that happens when selection happens; some creatures do better than others.
As it is the case that human have progressed for millions of years without “getting along” and most countries do not follow the “Western Model” it is hardly appropriate to suggest that "getting along’ is the deal breaker. Most brides are bought.
When the oil runs out, the survivors will be the ones with the biggest sticks able to spread their seed wider than nice people.

Meh. There is a lot of evidence that getting along is an adaptive trait. We’re social animals, we depend on each other to survive (we ain’t scorpions). We want to get along–especially men and women: we lust after each other and we want to love one another. I don’t see this as a culturally learnt trait or some fleeting fad like platform shoes. It’s a hunger. Why would we be bestowed with sensations of thirst and hunger unless it was advantageous for us to having some inner impetus to seek out and consume food and water. Why would we lust after, and seek love from, the opposite sex unless it drove us to engage in actions that were condusive to our survival and that of our offspring? Is that verification? Probably not, but I find it very convincing.

On a surface reading, you sound like you’re contradicting yourself.

Yeah, I get that. But you can only take that so far. You can’t tell me that someone born with a genetic defect by which he can’t digest food very well might actually turn out to have an advantage just in case we suddenly enter into a new environment in which digesting food is not important at all and that some other means of getting nurishment to the body is miraculously provided. That may be true in principle (even then I’m hard pressed to imagine what such an environment would be like), but I’m still gonna place my bets on the assumption that this poor chap’s genetic defect is not going to help him or his offspring in the game of survival.

Now I think you’re taking flights of fancy. Millions of years??? The kind of warfare we see today and throughout the better part of the last 5 to 10 millennia are on a mass scale that human kind has never seen before. I don’t think you can say that before this time, warfare was the norm as a way of life. You have to keep in mind that our species is roughly 200 thousand years old (and yes, we could go back about 2 to 3 million years if we want to include older humanoid ancestors). This means that although our cultural and technological worlds have been evolving at an alarming rate, our genetic profiles have not been able to keep up. The way we lived back 200 thousand years ago is most likely still encoded for in our present genes. I don’t think warfare, kidnapping, raping, buying wives, etc. was a significant or essential component of that genetic encoding (or at least I have my doubts that it eclipsed our more peaceful and amicable tendencies).

The jury’s still out on whether non-western ways of life are a better survival strategy than western ways.

Having a bigger stick does not make you a rapist. You have two dominant males, each with equally big sticks. One spreads his genes by kidnapping and raping women, the other attracts women by his demonstrated tendencies to protect and provide for them by beating off the other guy who wants to rape and kidnap them. Who do you think is going to get more women?