[BIRTHRIGHT] Biological Determi

[Brenda L. Santer]

> Bearcat [barvas@xoommail.com(joao clark medeiros)] challenges a few of
>my points on why the gods might go after mortal partners.
> "Men marry up.." -BC-
> Actually we don't, for the same reporduction reasons that women do. We
>need somebody young and healthy enough to bear the child(ren) and so we lust
>after relative kids whose bank accounts are apt to be zero. A 70-year-old
>male millionaire can still father children, and remains attractive to women.
>A 70-year-old female, millionaire or not, is going to have no more children,
>and thus get no offers from Playboy.
> "As men develop in maturity, they can develop closer relationships with
>women than with men." -BC-
> Now there are lots of quotes from disgusted women that men never develop
>in maturity. But BC is rather ambiguious here. We men of course want to
>develop much closer reationships with women than with other men. But those
>are not for the sake of friendship. A whole lot better than friendship. If
>a friendship develops too, fine, but it is an incidental.
> "We are reproductive machines." -DA-
> "This negates the possibility of love & romance.." -BC-
> Not at all. Both do exist, indeed are quite common. But it does
>explain why we love who we do, which is those most likely to assist us in
>producing the next generation.
> Yours for deeper dungeons
> David Argall
>************************************************** *************************

This train of thought has become annoying/disgusting/just plain silly in my
opinion. Pick one. They all fit. Thank you to those several of you who have
already made comments similar to those I will be making. I enjoyed your
posts.

#1 as BC pointed out, neither women nor men seek sexual partners from all
of their relationships. Some of us really do enjoy the friendship of
opposite sex friends even when their is no sexual aspect to it. I have
plenty of male friends whom I do not see as potential sexual partners. They
are gaming friends or sports-minded friends, or JUST FRIENDS. I also know
many men who have a wide variety of female friends, and are not trying to
get them into bed. Many of us choose our friends based on compatability,
not merely age or gender.

#2 Ah the age thing. If your theory is true,why do I have so many male
friends who are 10, or even 20 years younger than I am. Should they not be
out looking for 16 year olds?


#3 Your ideas are called BIOLOGICAL DETERMINISM. It is ONE theory that
psychologists and others use to explain differences in behavior patterns
between men and woman. As such it is a theory, not fact. Theories are ideas
that have explanatory value, but they are not proven to be factual. In most
cases, having a true experiment to prove them is impossible when you are
talking about psychological theories. It also is only one theory. Many
other theories and much research counters the idea of biological
determinism. If you follow biological determinism to its "logical" results
as you have done here, you get some conclusions that are disturbing at
best. There is one train of thought that some researchers and others have
followed that says that because of biological determinism, men are
pre-programmed to rape.Neither love or affection is necessary to the male
urge to reproduce his own genes and father children to follow him. This is
abhorrent to most of the men I know. . My own psychology background covered
a lot of this in detail. I do not intend to get into a thesis on
biological determinism, but wanted to point out that unless you have a
psychology degree, specializing in biological determinism, maybe you should
be cautious what you say is a fact.

#4 Back to Birthright. I like some of what has been said about the gods,
after apotheosis, being changed enough so that while humans still have some
association with them and they care for them, they do not desire them in
the same way. This would affect Haelyn, Erik and others who were once
human. Add in the fact that Lawful Giid Haelyn is married to Nesirie. A
lawful good god married to a goddess is not likely to roam too far. Erik is
neutral so you might argue that he is more likely to consider it, but his
wife Avani is Lawful Neutral. Her husband consorting so intimately with
humans would offend her lawful nature and remember that even Zeus got a
hard time from Hera over his philandering. Even if the husband's alignment
would allow it, would he risk the wrath of his goddess wife?

Sure Cuiraecen is chaotic, but with the goddess Laerme as a lover (check
the BOP) and the goddess Elole also supposedly interested and possibly his
lover, why would be care to be with human women? Same for Laerme, as she
has the god Cuiraecen as a lover, why would a human male interest her? And
don't forget that
Eloele, Cuiraecen,and Laerme were born gods. They were never human, so
their ties to humans are even less strong than for the gods who
apothesized.

Finally as has been pointed out, the gods agreed not to fully manifest in
Cerilia again.


Sorry to get so long-winded but this argument has gotten more annoying to
me as it progressed and it seemed like time to make a few comments of my
own.

****************************************


Brenda Santer:

mailto:bsanter@home.com

ICQ:7059188
AIM: Laerme

****************************************

[Andreas Kjeldsen]

Just a few comments here, I snipped out some parts of the post.

> People have friends of the opposite sex? Of course. I mentioned so in
> a previous message. The point is percentage. You stick with your own sex in
> the sharp majority of cases. Notably, none of those mentioning their variety
> of friends offered any percentages. If they had, we likely would have seen
> the old saying "Birds of a feather flock together."

I don't see you offering any percentages either, mind you, but maybe
I deleted the message where you did. Anyway, you want percentages. On
a rough estimate, app. 60% of my friends and close acquaintances are
male, as I am. So I admit having a majority of friends from my own
sex, but I wouldn't call it a large majority, if that's what you
mean. And I do not see my female friends as potential
romantical/sexual objects, both because I respect them, and because
my girlfriend would kill me if I did (which wouldn't be very
biologically determinist of her, BTW).

> Alignment makes a difference? Of course, but more in style than in
> number of incidents. Our CE would prefer rape. Our LE would involve
> slavery. Our CG would be a lovely romantic weekend. Our LG would want a
> permanent relationship.
> There is an implied law in these arguments that the law limits one to
> one sexual partner. But that is clearly challenged by history. It is also
> challenged by BR text, which notes multiple marriages in Khinasi lands. So
> any theory that a lawful alignment limits the fun & games is faulty.

I don't see your point here. A Lawful alignment vs. a Chaotic one
describes your perception of society, not just laws, though that is
an aspect of it as well, of course. I don't see where you get your
implied 'one sexual partner' law from, but if multiple marriages are
an accepted part of society, Lawful characters would have absolutely
no problems with that.

> Male friends should be chasing 16 year olds by my theory? -Brenda
> Santen bsanten@home.com(brenda l. santen) Perhaps you have missed the many
> denouncements of 16-year old lasses knocked up by adult males. We boys are
> indeed chasing young stuff.

Some of 'we boys' may indeed be doing that, but are those not
exceptions rather than the norm? Besides, if we were indeed guided by
our biology, why are there so many denouncements of it? Wouldn't we
all

> Biological determinism...just one theory.. Santen Gravity is just
> one theory. Granted, gravity is a theory on a simple subject (tho even the 3
> body problem may prove impossible to solve) and human/animal behavior is much
> more complex. But the theory is dominant and those rejecting it are largely
> reduced to merely using variations of it.

Are you talking about the theory of gravity or of biol. determinism
here? The theory of gravity is definitely dominant, mostly because
there is substantial evidence that it is correct, though not
necessarily complete. The evidence in favour of the theory of BD
is... somewhat less prevalent, and I don't see those rejecting it
using variations of it.

> ...has disturbing conclusions? This is a sign of a proper theory. If
> the conclusions were not disturbing, one should suspect the theory is what
> you would like it to be rather than what is.

Perhaps, but just because it has disturbing conclusions, a theory
does not have to be correct. For instance, the racial theories that
were widespread in Hitler-Germany had some very disturbing
conclusions, but I think we can agree that they were a far shot from
the truth.

> Says men are pre-programmed to rape? And this is abhorrent to most men?
> But men are pre-programmed to rape, when that is the superior strategy for
> reproduction. You can find this illustrated much better in orangutans and
> some scorpions, where the big male meets the eager welcome of the female
> while the small male rapes because he is not welcomed.
> A recent survey said 35% of males confessed to be willing to rape under
> the proper conditions, which suggests to me that 65% of males lie.

That is a very interesting conclusion, as well as a prime example of
adapting the results of scientific research to fit your own
preconcieved opinions. A majority of the respondents said that they
were unwilling to commit rape, yet because you already believe that
all males are wiling to do that, you decide that they are lying. I'm
sorry, but I can't take that kind of argument seriously.
By the way, I note that you are using the old trick of quoting a
survey without naming your source. I would like to know who carried
out the study, and when and where it was carried out, so that I may
draw my own conclusions.

> We males do not as a group approve of rape either. But we obviously do
> rape.

No. No, no. 'We', as a group, do not rape. 'Individuals' of that
group do, for various reasons. You can not take the actions or
characteristics of a small percentage of a group as typical of the
whole group.

On the whole, I think you are using a number of unsubstantiated
arguments and statements to defend a psychological theory which I
consider basically flawed. You are welcome to try to convince me
otherwise, but we may want to do so on private mail instead.

Andreas


Andreas Kjeldsen
morkitar@dadlnet.dk
ICQ# 12703652

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