From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@www.aeiveos.com)
Date: Thu Dec 23 1999 - 14:47:57 MST
On Thu, 23 Dec 1999 k_aegis@mindspring.com wrote:
> A note on Robert's analysis:
>
> You may wish to factor in recent studies that suggest that the
> reproductive success of rape is low, due to the diminished
> fertility of human and animal females in times of extreme duress
> or stress. There is a mechanism that 'shuts down' the female
> reproductive responses, even to the point of stopping the monthly cycle.
Kathryn has a good point. Females may have a fair amount of
control over "receptivity" and/or implantation. It is of
course unconscious and like pheremones is probably a mixed
bag when it comes to strong selection pressure (in a highly
populated situation you can afford to be choosy, but when
nothing else is available, you have to make compromises).
>
> It suggests a filter at work, wherein severely disruptive males have
> fewer offspring and less chance of passing on their highly
> aggressive traits.
I'd say this is true, perhaps indicating a divergence between say
primates with highly aggressive males (gorillas?) and us.
If aggressiveness gets expressed both sexually and in tribal
situations, women could become "turned off" towards such males
and deny them reproductive access. On the other hand, if you
look at say access to food during ice ages, aggressiveness might
be a very sought after trait. (I don't think the timid men are
going to take on the saber toothed tigers or wooly mammoths).
It is interesting to consider that there seem to be some females
that are attracted to sports (of a combative or violent nature)
while others are repulsed by them. If this isn't simply cultural
conditioning, then women may have a mixed distribution of genes
that attract them to violence in times when resources are scarce
and peacefullness in times when resources are abundant.
> But then, rape was never about reproduction....
Kathryn, I'd argue that "classical rape" (i.e. rape of individuals
unknown to you and in situations in which the probability of negative
consequences is low), would most likely have pleasure/reproduction
as its motivator. Modern rape seems to be more about control and/or
violence. As I mentioned in the previous letter, there would seem
to be a very indirect link between "control desires" and "reproductive
desires". Now where violence gets linked in I'm unsure. It would
seem that if we weren't willing to be violent, there would be
a dozen or so homo xxxxxxx species competing for our resources
and we might not be dominant and we also might not have survived
the ice ages. It would be interesting to get comments from
anyone who thinks that there is a gradation of violence with history
of environmental hardship (perhaps caucasion > arabic > african?).
[I'm refering primarily to pre-modern situations.] If that isn't true,
then the tendencies towards violence must have evolved very early on
in the homo evolutionary tree and we were perhaps the more violent
or risk-taking individuals of the various homo divisions.
If anyone can attribute rape to something other than
pleasure/reproduction/control/violence
I'd be interested in seeing the argument.
All of the above not withstanding, humans are a collection of genes
and socialization (hardware and software), probably in about a 50:50 mix.
What is interesting is the degree to which software can or cannot
"trustably" override hardware. If Eliezer can figure out how to
give AIs the ability to self-evolve but not subvert their trustability,
then we will have something worth aspiring towards.
Robert
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