Retraction (was Re: group-based judgement)

From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Sat May 25 2002 - 12:06:00 MDT


Wei Dai posted a summary of conversation in one or more recent
threads, including:
> > What Lee said was that a woman is more useful than a man in saving
> > potential people from non-existence.

As I indicated in my note, I had not read the threads in
detail so my comments were intended as meta-comments on
summary comments (and should thus be taken with a large
grain of salt).

Lee has asked me to point out that he never said this.
I can only conclude that this may have been Wei Dai's
interpretation of something said in those threads or
an "add-on" of his mind (our minds do that you know....).

However, I do view the idea, whomever is responsible for it,
as "accurate" from a biological & societal perspective.
If one is interested in repopulating a region or planet
after a catastrophe, women *are* more valuable than men
because a single man can impregnate multiple women.
It doesn't matter what strategy a species has for caring
for the young *after* they are born -- one has to bear
them in the first place -- for that one requires females.

As I pointed out *long* ago -- communication is both the
responsibility of the sender and the receiver. As the
list is a one-to-many forum, the writer needs to be aware
of how what they say may be misinterpreted or and the
readers need to be aware of how they may misinterpret
what was said (Zero and I had one of these situations
just a couple of days ago).

It might be a useful exercise for all parties that are
"concerned" with those threads to go back and see how the
miscommunication may have arisen. [I for one don't
view that as the best use of my time since I'm very
clear that miscommunications have the property of
"spontaneous generation".]

Robert



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