Tuesday 21 August 2007

Pic of the day: Only superheroes women can stop violence against women!

On Neanderthals and violence

There is an advertisement going around at this time that is so stupid that I just know that it must originate from the extreme Left. There is natural stupidity that comes from insufficient brainpower or acting despite ignorance. But there is stupidity that requires a sharp intellect broken and twisted. This is the latter sort. The advertisement depicts a nasty home scene with a small boy looking all mean, and the headline: "Attitudes are inherited. ONLY MEN CAN STOP VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN."

First, right off the bat, it is 100% self-contradictory. At our current tech level, both a man and a woman contribute genetically to each child, and even in Scandinavia it is still common for both parents to contribute psychologically and socially by raising the child together, or at the very least alternate on raising it. We are absolutely not a society where men can secure monopoly on raising children. With this in mind, women can greatly reduce the likelihood of violence in the next generation by selectively breeding with nice guys, and subsequently keep the nice guys around as role models. This not only improves the next generation, but also means fewer bruises for the women in question.

There is a reason why many women don't do this, of course. It is purely biological, and is seen in various other animal species as well: By breeding with bad boys, they increase the chance that their own sons will become rapists, and thus spread their genes further than if they had nice and quiet sons. Being that many humans are still essentially apes (despite the opportunity to transcend biology), this subconscious instinctive motivation will no doubt be with us for a long time to come. Unfortunately men cannot stop this, except by the Neanderthal Parallax method.

In his Neanderthal Parallax SF trilogy, Robert Sawyer outlines a way to genetically engineer a less violent species. On his alternate Earth ruled by Neanderthals, everyone is fitted with a small recording device that gathers enough data to prove conclusively when violence has been committed, and records the circumstances (preceding dialog etc). This technology is not strictly necessary if there are other ways to ensure a fair trial, something that has been a problem in our society, especially when different ethnic groups are involved. Anyway, the interesting part is what happens once someone is proved guilty. He is not executed, but sterilized, and so is everyone who shares 50% of his genes. That is to say, all his children (if any), full brothers and sisters, parents (if still alive and fertile) and possible double cousins (though this is a rare occurrence at least in our world).

Since the imaginary Neanderthals have strict population control (people are only allowed to breed every 10 years), it is easy to replace the missing family branch by allowing non-violent families to breed more and so maintain the same population level, but with less violent genes.

Unfortunately this requires a world government. If one nation practices genetic curtailing of violence and an opposing nation does not, it is only a matter of time before the aggressive nation takes over the docile. There may also be other side effects, though whether these are good or bad is something we don't know until we try it. Which we don't, since genetically nice guys are squeamish. I am not one of them, but that's beside the point. Though it probably explains why I write stuff like this, which genetically nice guys would not even like to think about. I love to think about it, obviously.

***

And of course, on a shorter timescale, women can stop violence against women by shooting the violator. It is very efficient, but tends to have all sorts of repercussions. Still, when in doubt, it beats the opposite, which unfortunately is much more common.

In the unlikely case that there was something like a rational thought behind the advertising campaign, I assume it must have been directed toward the violent men. This is ridiculous. If they were able to listen to advice or be reasoned with, they would not have been in this situation in the first place. Violent men are apes who have failed to become human. (Of course, docile apes can also fail this most important task in life, but it is less obvious.) There are a range of reasons why this happens, but by the time you are in a relationship, it is probably too late. A few late bloomers change their ways, but overall the wild men are unlikely to be stopped except with judicious application of metal.

And of course, Extreme Leftists are just as unable to stop themselves from spouting nonsense. Just like you can fail to assimilate mind into your body and therefore stay an ape, you can fail to assimilate body into your mind and drift off into fantasy land, becoming a Socialist, Feminist, New Ager, Televangelist or any of the other diverse lost souls that fly off, leaving reality behind. This is a familiar event to many of us, but the unlucky get tenured or otherwise begin to live off the la-la land, and by then it is almost impossible to return to the real world. For everyone else there is hope. Reality likes to reassert itself. But that is enough of a topic for another day, I guess.

To wrap up this somewhat disjointed entry: The key to a better future for all mankind is for women to selectively breed nice guys. Unfortunately, as this entry probably shows, I'm not writing this for myself.