561 réponses à ce sujet

[midnight tea]

LoL I don't have time to give you a history lesson. Ancient Greece was the easiest thing I could think of at the time. Feel free to use those empowered fingers of yours. The info is out there.

 

Edit: Regardless of "how far back" I had to go is irrelevant. The claim was that women have been opprsessed pretty much at all times. That claim is demonstrably false. Funny how that evidence thing works.

 

If you actually look at my comments, you'll find no claim of "women have been oppressed pretty much at all time". What I said is that - overall - women had it worse, which is actually pretty demonstrably true to anyone who knows more about history than a few entrances on Wikipedia (plus, apparently you did some very selective reading on that article you linked to In Exile, which explicitly - right under the paragraphs you've quoted - tells us that in ancient Greece women had no legal personhood and were basically treated as part of household or had limited right as citizens).

[BabyPuncher]

Yeah, I'll make a point. There are areas in life where men are not allowed to do things woman are allowed to do. Where women have value men do not. Those are double standards. Perfectly true.

 

But either you don't believe men and women should be and want to be treated the same, in which case, you should acknowledge double standards are ultimately a good or at least an inevitable thing and they shouldn't bother you, or you do believe that men and women should be and want to be treated the same and you should admit that, hypocrisy or not, the feminists you're criticizing have a legitimate point. Or at least a point aligned with yours.

 

I'm sure it's the first option. I don't think I've ever met anyone who actually wants the genders to be treated the same. Plenty think they do, but that's on a shallow and superficial level.

[TheJiveDJ]

Yeah, I'll make a point. There are areas in life where men are not allowed to do things woman are allowed to do. Where women have value men do not. Those are double standards. Perfectly true.

 

But either you don't believe men and women should be and want to be treated the same, in which case, you should acknowledge double standards are ultimately a good or at least an inevitable thing and they shouldn't bother you, or you do believe that men and women should be and want to be treated the same and you should admit that, hypocrisy or not, the feminists you're criticizing have a legitimate point. Or at least a point aligned with yours.

 

I'm sure it's the first option. I don't think I've ever met anyone who actually wants the genders to be treated the same. Plenty think they do, but that's on a shallow and superficial level.

Alright. And heeere weeee go!

 

I'm of the mindset that double standards exist because differences exist. We either collectively accept these differences, AND accept the double standards and baggage both genders must bear. OR... we ignore the differences, and do not have any double standards at all. I'm all about consistency. Modern feminists seem to want all the positive benefits of these double standards without enduring the negative aspects either, while men must endure losing the positive aspects of the double standards they've enjoyed until relatively recently while still retaining the negative. Kinda complicated, I know, but lemme simplify.

 

Women are being given hiring preferences in STEM fields and in top corporate jobs now in an attempt to get more women into higher paying careers with more responsibility. Indeed some countries are mandating quotas. Only problem is you can't force women to apply for these jobs. That means forcing men out to accommodate lower number of female applicants. Also, notice how they're only fighting for equality in cushy corporate jobs and not, say, coal mining, crane operation, and any myriad of extremely dangerous jobs. Men are highly over represented in these areas, yet no one talks about getting more women into these fields. You gotta take the good with the bad. If we want hiring quotas, it should be for all jobs, not just cushy corporate jobs, that way both genders can have equal opportunity no matter their line of work. See what I'm getting at? Anyhoo I've strayed far off topic.

[BabyPuncher]

You type fast.

 

Right, so basically, it's the hypocrisy that irritates you. Not the double standards themselves. A wise answer.

 

Of course, that does mean that treating men as basically more disposable when violence is concerned is a legitimate thing to do, yes? As long as you're not a hypocrite and don't go whimpering later on about how 'women are just as tough as men'?

[TheJiveDJ]

If you actually look at my comments, you'll find no claim of "women have been oppressed pretty much at all time". What I said is that - overall - women had it worse, which is actually pretty demonstrably true to anyone who knows more about history than a few entrances on Wikipedia (plus, apparently you did some very selective reading on that article you linked to In Exile, which explicitly - right under the paragraphs you've quoted - tells us that in ancient Greece women had no legal personhood and were basically treated as part of household or had limited right as citizens).

Aaaannnnd if you read just below that paragraph you'll get to brush up on Spartan women.

[In Exile]

Yeah, I'll make a point. There are areas in life where men are not allowed to do things woman are allowed to do. Where women have value men do not. Those are double standards. Perfectly true.

 

But either you don't believe men and women should be and want to be treated the same, in which case, you should acknowledge double standards are ultimately a good or at least an inevitable thing and they shouldn't bother you, or you do believe that men and women should be and want to be treated the same and you should admit that, hypocrisy or not, the feminists you're criticizing have a legitimate point. Or at least a point aligned with yours.

 

I'm sure it's the first option. I don't think I've ever met anyone who actually wants the genders to be treated the same. Plenty think they do, but that's on a shallow and superficial level.

 

I'm having a difficult time parsing your post (the bold/underlined part). The second part of it doesn't quite follow. Let's say I accept the proposition: men and women are different, and they shouldn't be treated in an identical manner. Even if I accept that proposition, it doesn't follow that I then think that the ways in which men and women are treated differently are the ways they should be treated differently.

 

To put it another way, just because I think differential treatment is OK based on some principle doesn't mean that I think, in principle, differential treatment is always OK. 

[In Exile]

The wiki is a great place to start and it has many citations.

 

https://en.wikipedia...Women_in_Greece

 

A quote:

 

Thanks. I'll keep reading. So far it just has the Sparta/Athens divide. 

[Seraphim24]

There are areas in life where men are not allowed to do things woman are allowed to do. Where women have value men do not. Those are double standards. Perfectly true.

 

What are those things, exactly?

[TheJiveDJ]

You type fast.

 

Right, so basically, it's the hypocrisy that irritates you. Not the double standards themselves. A wise answer.

 

Of course, that does mean that treating men as basically more disposable when violence is concerned is a legitimate thing to do, yes? As long as you're not a hypocrite and don't go whimpering later on about how 'women are just as tough as men'?

Some women can be just "as (physically) tough" as men. The majority, probably not. And no, thinking rationally, I wouldn't consider a man to be more "disposable" than a woman. Although, my instinctual reaction would be to preserve female lives over male lives, yes. These are biological imperatives that are difficult to overcome. From a purely Darwinian perspective men are more "disposable" because women carry a heavier burden during pregnancy, and the viability of their eggs are extremely limited when compared to male sperm. It makes sense for men to be the protectors of our child bearers; its how we ensure the survival of our species. BUT, we've moved beyond a need to live our lives in a purely Darwinian manner.

 

As I mentioned before, I don't particularly care about men being the primary victims of violence in video games. Thats a double standard that has never really bothered me. And the opposing double standard is that women are the objects of men's desires and probably will be for as long as the human species reproduces sexually.

 

Of course that means that women are going to be sexualized in media, and men will be the primary victims of fake violence in media. This doesn't seem to bother men. Men everywhere seem to accept their "disposability", they accept their double standard. Women, on the other hand, do not seem to accept their double standards. That is the problem. Either double standards are okay for everyone, or they are okay for no one. And to top it off, men are plenty sexualized in the media as well. So now it quickly becomes a free for all, where any thing goes for men, yet we must tip toe around women. Then they have the audacity to claim that men are the privileged ones in the western world. And when you press them on it, they don't know what the hell you're talking about. It's as if you're speaking a foreign language.

 

So you see how this can be rather frustrating, yes?

Edit: I am over generalizing a little bit. When I say "women", I mean particular subsets of modern feminism (who also happen to be the most vocal).

[In Exile]

Let's not get into evolutionary psychology here. That field is largely analytic nonsense. It's Popper's criticism of Freud all over again. 

[TheJiveDJ]

Let's not get into evolutionary psychology here. That field is largely analytic nonsense. It's Popper's criticism of Freud all over again. 

No evolutionary psychology here. Sexual dimorphism is a thing. These are quantifiable imperatives spurred on primarily by hormones (testosterone increasing sex drive, aggression, possessiveness, etc.) These actions are consistently observed in most species where one gender endures a lengthy and dangerous pregnancy. The female is typically choosy, and the males are typically promiscuous. These aren't mistakes; these are by design.

 

Edit: The genders can also be reversed, and the idea of mate choice will still be true. Some species of fish see the male care for the eggs. The males tend to be choosy and the females tend to be promiscuous. These are observed phenomena. Nothing to do with Freud.

[Seraphim24]

The female is typically choosy, and the males are typically promiscuous. These aren't mistakes; these are by design.

 

Who cares about typically though anyway? Why does that even matter?

 

This isn't about trends or counter-trends, or likelihoods or probabilities, or incidences or misunderstandings and misinterpretations, it's about creating an awesome ****ing game that inspires people. If that happens to mean making something is commonplace so be it, or if not, then not.

 

No one ever gives a reason why this or that peculiar fixation or possibility is even remotely important to the incidence of creating good entertainment, or even why focusing on this or that peculiar fixation or possibility does anything at all except cloud the field with unnecessary observations.

 

A more holistic approach here would be good...

[andy6915]

While I disagree with circumcision on general principle, be it male or female, can you really compare male genital mutilation it to a super-painful process that basically makes woman's life living hell? The feel near constant pain, they can never derive pleasure from sex, they're constantly at risk of severe infection and if they happen to become pregnant, giving birth to a child is beyond traumatic.
 
The consequences of both types of circumcisions are incomparable, to say the least. It's like comparing pulling some teeth to removing the whole jaw. Stopping female circumcision is simply higher on priority list, because it's not just unnecessary and have NO health benefits whatsoever - it's just entirely barbaric.

 
I can compare them. Despite what you've been told, there are many forms of female circumcision. The most common form is actually less damaging and less significant than male circumcision, and the form of which most people think of when they think of female circumcision is actually the most rare form there is. Merely pricking the cl!t isn't as bad as removing the entire foreskin.
 
But you know what? It doesn't matter. It isn't a competition about which is worse. What does matter is that both are terrible and both need to be banned in first world countries. I don't care if the female version is viewed as worse even if some forms of it are less invasive than the male version, the female version being worse doesn't somehow make the male version acceptable. Stabbing someone isn't as bad as shooting someone in the head, yet we have laws against both because one being worse doesn't make the better one good. Yet all forms of the female one including the less damaging kinds are UNIVERSALLY banned in every first world nation, while the male version being still widespread in America is barely acknowledged as a problem. To use that example again, it would be like if stabbing people wasn't illegal because "at least it isn't as bad as shooting someone". So to repeat my second sentence of this paragraph, it doesn't matter which is worse because which is worse is irrelevant to the overall issue.

[BabyPuncher]

What are those things, exactly?

 

Well, most feminine qualities are restricted to women. Men are not permitted to express them without compromising their masculinity and earning contempt. So women can be much more affectionate, they can express their sexuality through action with far less restriction, they can express vulnerability far more freely than men. Things like that and their offshoots. For example, women aren't experted to enter combat and it's much more acceptable for a woman to not aspire to be a wage-earner.

 

Not complaining about any of this, by the way. I basically approve of it.

[BabyPuncher]

I'm having a difficult time parsing your post (the bold/underlined part). The second part of it doesn't quite follow. Let's say I accept the proposition: men and women are different, and they shouldn't be treated in an identical manner. Even if I accept that proposition, it doesn't follow that I then think that the ways in which men and women are treated differently are the ways they should be treated differently.

 

To put it another way, just because I think differential treatment is OK based on some principle doesn't mean that I think, in principle, differential treatment is always OK. 

 

Well, it means you don't disagree on the inherent basis of it being a double standard anyway.

[TheJiveDJ]

Who gives a **** about typically though anyway? Why does that even matter?

 

This isn't about trends or counter-trends, or likelihoods or probabilities, or incidences or misunderstandings and misinterpretations, it's about creating an awesome ****ing game that inspires people. If that happens to mean making something is commonplace so be it, or if not, then not.

 

No one ever gives a reason why this or that peculiar fixation or possibility is even remotely important to the incidence of creating good entertainment, or even why focusing on this or that peculiar fixation or possibility does anything at all except cloud the field with unnecessary observations.

 

Again, these people that can't see the big picture, well, can't see the big picture.

Umm... okay? Not sure if you're agreeing with me or disagreeing. My comment you quoted really had nothing to do with video games. It was a response to a response that quickly become derailed from the topic of video games. I don't care what people put in their games. I like what I like. I just don't think people should start demanding that their personal agendas get shoe horned into video games. Content creators create and its up to the free market to decide what it likes. If the free market decides they want more powerful women in their games, so be it. My gripes are, as I've stated before, primarily regarding hypocrisy.

[Andreas Amell]

That article reminds me of Jim Lee's run in the X-Men had gone. Lots of butt floss while having kick ass women. Pretty characters and soap opera drama make it all right.

 

Seriously, when a game can draw on Sapkowski's writings to shape their world I find it difficult to believe just how much better that is. They're using characters somebody created first with a conflict they didn't create either. They can probably write a spinoff game following the life of Dandelion.

[In Exile]

No evolutionary psychology here. Sexual dimorphism is a thing. These are quantifiable imperatives spurred on primarily by hormones (testosterone increasing sex drive, aggression, possessiveness, etc.) These actions are consistently observed in most species where one gender endures a lengthy and dangerous pregnancy. The female is typically choosy, and the males are typically promiscuous. These aren't mistakes; these are by design.

 

Edit: The genders can also be reversed, and the idea of mate choice will still be true. Some species of fish see the male care for the eggs. The males tend to be choosy and the females tend to be promiscuous. These are observed phenomena. Nothing to do with Freud.

 

You didn't make a sexual dimorphism point. You made an evolutionary psychology point. To whit: 

 

From a purely Darwinian perspective men are more "disposable" because women carry a heavier burden during pregnancy, and the viability of their eggs are extremely limited when compared to male sperm. It makes sense for men to be the protectors of our child bearers; its how we ensure the survival of our species. 

 

To begin with, that's already describing natural selection in more purposive terms that it should ever be described. Survival is a statistical fluke. The second sentence doesn't follow from the first. Ignoring that you're radically oversimplifying the effects of hormone on behaviour, particularly as you build towards more cognitively complex organisms (i.e., us), what you're describing isn't as universally true as you make it out to be even in more developed social mammals (which is an important comparative, because we're decidedly not like most mammals, much less most animals). 

 

As to the Popper point, you're missing the reference. Let me try again:

 

Freud's theory was praised, at the time, for its explanatory power. It could encounter any situation and plausibly fit it within it's framework. Popper argued that this was the mark of a bad theory, because it responded to changes on an ad hoc basis; it was contingent. Evolutionary psychology is worthless because it lacks real predictive power in a way that's separately from confounding effects of culture, and it's doesn't have explanatory force beyond what any purely philosophical theory would have by comparison. It isn't science - it's philosophy, and not even very good philosophy. 

[andy6915]

What are those things, exactly?

 

Let's see, body integrity for genitals, right to get custody of children without everything being stacked against you, the ability to keep even your own property during a divorce, the ability to not have to pay child support for a child even if you had no choice because she raped you or pricked your condom or whatever, ability to vote without needing to sign on for the draft, the right to be paid for no reason at all after a divorce because of alimony laws, the right to fight about their own rights without being labeled a hate group, the right to be innocent until proven guilty if you're accused of rape (destroys your career and reputation either way whether you're convicted or not), the "right" to rape the opposite sex and it not be seen as rape (which women can do to men thanks to rape only being considered getting penetrated), the right to have education done in a way that doesn't go against your own evolution and hold back your own ability to learn (school systems are teaching in a way that is far better for the mental development than girls at the expense of boys), the right to get out of parenthood (if you got a girl pregnant than you're screwed but women have about a half dozen ways to opt out of motherhood).

 

I could go on. Should I?

[Seraphim24]

Umm... okay? Not sure if you're agreeing with me or disagreeing. My comment you quoted really had nothing to do with video games. It was a response to a response that quickly become derailed from the topic of video games. I don't care what people put in their games. I like what I like. I just don't think people should start demanding that their personal agendas get shoe horned into video games. Content creators create and its up to the free market to decide what it likes. If the free market decides they want more powerful women in their games, so be it. My gripes are, as I've stated before, primarily regarding hypocrisy.

 

Exactly, your comment had nothing to do with video games, or make video games, or make a fun video game, so my question is again why is everyone here? On a video game forum? For a place that makes video games? Why does this article on Kotaku exist anyway? What are people even trying to accomplish here? I am not agreeing or disagreeing, I'm wondering what the point is of this whole discussion.

 

You don't make a fun experience by focusing on women only, or men only, or studying a sub-set of male-female dating patterns, you make it (I would think) by taking a broad ranging perspective on as many things as possible and trying to appeal to everyone as best you can.

 

I'm not necessarily deeply offended by the article, or this point, or that point, but none of them seem designed to really aid in bettering our understanding of making fun video games by simply examining bits and pieces of what is fundamentally a larger thing.

[Seraphim24]

Let's see, body integrity for genitals

 

What?

 

right to get custody of children

 

Don't get divorced.

 

 the ability to keep even your own property during a divorce

 

Don't get divorced

 

ability to vote without needing to sign on for the draft

 

Don't vote for a leader who wages multiple wars.

 

the ability to not have to pay child support for a child even if you had no choice because she raped you or pricked your condom or whatever, ability to vote without needing to sign on for the draft, the right to be paid for no reason at all after a divorce because of alimony laws

 

Don't get divorced.

 

 the "right" to rape the opposite sex and it not be seen as rape (which women can do to men thanks to rape only being considered getting penetrated)

 

No one has the right to rape the opposite sex.

 

the right to get out of parenthood (if you got a girl pregnant than you're screwed but women have about a half dozen ways to opt out of motherhood).

 

Don't have sex then unless you are sure you want to be a parent.

 

the ability to not have to pay child support for a child even if you had no choice because she raped you or pricked your condom or whatever

 

Again, no one has the right to rape anyone.

 

I could go on. Should I?

[andy6915]

What?

 

 

Don't get divorced.

 

 

Don't get divorced

 

 

Don't vote for a leader who wages multiple wars.

 

 

Don't get divorced.

 

 

No one has the right to rape the opposite sex.

 

 

Don't have sex then if you want to guarantee not having kids.

 

 

Again, no one has the right to rape anyone.

 

I could go on. Should I?

 

You know, being allowed to not have your genitals mutilated at birth? Only girls get that right in first world countries.

 

Don't get married.

 

Don't get married.

 

It's the principle, you don't see women lining up for the draft despite getting the right that is supposed to be a reward for being on the draft.

 

Don't get married.

 

Women do, legally speaking. Well, okay... It's not strictly legal for a woman, but the crime they commit isn't considered a rape crime.

 

Could the same not be said of women? Why is it only men who have any actual responsibility? Women have none when it comes to children, the state and child support will bail them out if they can't afford having a child they chose to have despite knowing they couldn't financially handle it. Men, you better be responsible and never ever have sex if you don't want to be in financial servitude for decades. Women? Ah, don't worry about it since we give you multiple outs and will help pay for the child one way or another if you decide to have the kid anyway. Equality!

 

I guess you missed earlier when I mentioned a story of a 13 year old boy who was raped by a woman being forced to pay his rapist child support. Women aren't allowed to rape men? That women full on benefited from it.

 

http://www.usatoday....pport/14953965/

 

http://law.justia.co...4th/50/842.html

 

http://www.businessi...-support-2014-9

 

And look at that, multiple cases... So don't try to claim it's just some random isolated incident.

 

 

By the way, how badly men get screwed by marriage is why men are refusing to marry more and more. Us men are starting to get that marriage is a raw deal that is most likely to end with you utterly screwed, especially since women are the ones who file for divorce more than men to begin with. The key isn't divorcing, it's not signing onto such a bad deal to start with.

[TheJiveDJ]

You didn't make a sexual dimorphism point. You made an evolutionary psychology point. To whit: 

 

From a purely Darwinian perspective men are more "disposable" because women carry a heavier burden during pregnancy, and the viability of their eggs are extremely limited when compared to male sperm. It makes sense for men to be the protectors of our child bearers; its how we ensure the survival of our species. 

 

To begin with, that's already describing natural selection in more purposive terms that it should ever be described. Survival is a statistical fluke. The second sentence doesn't follow from the first. Ignoring that you're radically oversimplifying the effects of hormone on behaviour, particularly as you build towards more cognitively complex organisms (i.e., us), what you're describing isn't as universally true as you make it out to be even in more developed social mammals (which is an important comparative, because we're decidedly not like most mammals, much less most animals). 

 

As to the Popper point, you're missing the reference. Let me try again:

 

Freud's theory was praised, at the time, for its explanatory power. It could encounter any situation and plausibly fit it within it's framework. Popper argued that this was the mark of a bad theory, because it responded to changes on an ad hoc basis; it was contingent. Evolutionary psychology is worthless because it lacks real predictive power in a way that's separately from confounding effects of culture, and it's doesn't have explanatory force beyond what any purely philosophical theory would have by comparison. It isn't science - it's philosophy, and not even very good philosophy. 

Jeeze, you should've been more specific as to what you were initially referring. It was a long post you replied to. I didn't make a declarative statement there. It made sense as in it makes sense to me, not that its 100% empirically true. Besides, you seem to subscribe to the idea of male disposability. A man risking his life to protect a woman only makes sense to me if there was some overall benefit to the species. The idea of altruism in general. These complex ideas don't go through the mind of an altruistic non-human animal; something urges them to do it. It's innate. It's physiological. I don't think that's an unreasonable position. Richard Dawkins also seems to agree with this idea, and I assure you he's more intelligent in this area than both of us.

Also, I respectfully disagree with your ideas of survival being a "statistical fluke". Survival is anything but a fluke. If it was, we surely wouldn't see species so tailored to their unique environments. Natural selection is the complete opposite of a fluke.

 

Edit: A great example of innate self sacrifice in nature is the Meerkat. One individual, usually the oldest, will call out to warn of nearby predators, making itself an easy target, and sometimes losing its own life in the process. The altruistic individual doesn't have complex thoughts; it has a biological compulsion to do this. I simply surmised that it makes sense that these phenomena could be at work in humans as well. Since we all share a common ancestor, I don't see how this would be very far fetched. Us "thinking" apes are not so immune to our primitive instincts as we'd like to think we are.

 

Edit 2: Anyhow, its been fun. Bedtime.

 

Edit 3: Apologies for so savagely derailing this topic.

[Aren]

I shouldn't be surprise of BSN anymore, from the portrayal of women in games, mostly about

DA games,to circumcision.....bah

[In Exile]

Jeeze, you should've been more specific as to what you were initially referring. It was a long post you replied to. I didn't make a declarative statement there. It made sense as in it makes sense to me, not that its 100% empirically true. Besides, you seem to subscribe to the idea of male disposability. A man risking his life to protect a woman only makes sense to me if there was some overall benefit to the species. The idea of altruism in general. These complex ideas don't go through the mind of an altruistic non-human animal; something urges them to do it. It's innate. It's physiological. I don't think that's an unreasonable position. Richard Dawkins also seems to agree with this idea, and I assure you he's more intelligent in this area than both of us.

Also, I respectfully disagree with your ideas of survival being a "statistical fluke". Survival is anything but a fluke. If it was, we surely wouldn't see species so tailored to their unique environments. Natural selection is the complete opposite of a fluke.

 

Edit: A great example of innate self sacrifice in nature is the Meerkat. One individual, usually the oldest, will call out to warn of nearby predators, making itself an easy target, and sometimes losing its own life in the process. The altruistic individual doesn't have complex thoughts; it has a biological compulsion to do this. I simply surmised that it makes sense that these phenomena could be at work in humans as well. Since we all share a common ancestor, I don't see how this would be very far fetched. Us "thinking" apes are not so immune to our primitive instincts as we'd like to think we are.

 

Edit 2: Anyhow, its been fun. Bedtime.

 

Edit 3: Apologies for so savagely derailing this topic.

 

When I say that survival is a "fluke", what I mean is that it's not some normative thing - it doesn't have intrinsic value. It's the product of a confluence of factors some of which can be totally random (e.g. population variation in a species that's solely the product of an entirely random change in climate). We ascribe a kind of value to survival - we speak about "better" - but what we really mean is "better suited to live in [X]" and that doesn't mean very much. People too often use language that's ascribing teleology to evolution. 

 

Speaking of Dawkins, it's interesting you mention his work but aren't thinking about fitness at the gene level, but rather at the individual level. His popular insight is that natural selection acts on genes, and genes multiplying doesn't necessarily mean individuals surviving in ways that make sense. For example, the idea of selfish genes can explain suicidal and altruistic behaviour because of population level effects. 

 

Species aren't a thing in a meaningful sense when we talk about selection - natural selection doesn't act on them in a direct way. It acts on individuals, and particularly on individual genes, though really the interactive effects are complicated enough it can make your head spin. A man might sacrifice himself to save anyone because a "sacrifice yourself to save anyone" gene could easily spread through the population (so long as the # of genes offing themselves would be outweighed by the # of sacrifice yourself to save anyone genes that survive to the next generation).  And this is the Meerkat example. A simple gene that gives that kind of compulsion would spread easily, and it wouldn't be about the species or the individual. It would be about a self-replicating unit that can influence behaviour. 

 

I would also hesitate to trust a geneticist - or an evolutionary biologist generally - when it comes to cognition. That's not really their field, much like physics isn't their field. Science's reductionism doesn't lend itself well to cross-disciplinary work. 

 

But, yeah, we've totally derailed this thread. Still, fun stuff. It's been forever since I've thought about biology.