People avoid discussing religion or politics in polite company because those discussions cut through all the layers of pretense in which we shroud ourselves. These two topics, one focused on the divine and the other on the human, throw open the windows and shutters of a person’s mental house, allowing all the neighbors to scrutinize another’s deepest secrets, thoughts and prejudices. So, religion and politics are a wonderful way to quickly understand a person’s true character. My understanding is that this is not the purpose of polite conversation.
Roy F. Baumeister asks Is There Anything Good About Men? (Via HN.) He begins with this wonderfully interesting idea: biological differences result in a different payoff for risk-taking behavior. For men, taking risks, striving, fighting other men can payoff brilliantly in terms of reproductive success, but the same actions don’t help women much:
Experts estimate Genghis Khan had several hundred and
perhaps more than a thousand children. He took big risks
and eventually conquered most of the known world. For him,
the big risks led to huge payoffs in offspring. My point
is that no woman, even if she conquered twice as much
territory as Genghis Khan, could have had a thousand
children. Striving for greatness in that sense offered the
human female no such biological payoff. For the man, the
possibility was there, and so the blood of Genghis Khan
runs through a large segment of today’s human population.
By definition, only a few men can achieve greatness, but
for the few men who do, the gains have been real. And we
are descended from those great men much more than from
other men. Remember, most of the mediocre men left no
descendants at all.
What we have here is a very thoughtful, scientifically rigorous piece on the difference between men and women. Baumeister asserts that men and women have the same abilities but different interests. That is, the intellectual capacity to do challenging tasks is present in equal measure in men and women, but due to different evolutionary strategies, pressures, and physiologic capabilities (partly described above), men and women choose different paths to navigate their interpersonal relationships and society as a whole:
The conclusion is that men and women are both social but
in different ways. Women specialize in the narrow sphere
of intimate relationships. Men specialize in the larger
group. If you make a list of activities that are done in
large groups, you are likely to have a list of things that
men do and enjoy more than women: team sports, politics,
large corporations, economic networks, and so forth.
The narrow sphere versus larger group has big consequences:
Cross and Madsen covered plenty of research showing that
men think of themselves based on their unusual traits that
set them apart from others, while women’s self-concepts
feature things that connect them to others. Cross and
Madsen thought that this was because men wanted to be
apart from others. But in fact being different is vital
strategy for belonging to a large group. If you’re the
only group member who can kill an antelope or find water
or talk to the gods or kick a field goal, the group can’t
afford to get rid of you.
It’s different in a one-to-one
relationship. A woman’s husband, and her baby, will love
her even if she doesn’t play the trombone. So cultivating
a unique skill isn’t essential for her. But playing the
trombone is a way to get into some groups, especially
brass bands. This is another reason that men go to
extremes more than women. Large groups foster the need to
establish something different and special about yourself.
So, whither all these hyper-competitive, differentiation-seeking, glory-oriented men? From an reproductive perspective, men are more expendable than women:
If a group loses half its men, the next generation can
still be full-sized. But if it loses half its women, the
size of the next generation will be severely curtailed.
Hence most cultures keep their women out of harm’s way
while using men for risky jobs.
And, you can even scale these species-oriented sociological conclusions back down to psychological conclusions:
All-male groups tend to be marked by putdowns and other
practices that remind everybody that there is NOT enough
respect to go around, because this awareness motivates
each man to try harder to earn respect. This,
incidentally, has probably been a major source of friction
as women have moved into the workplace, and organizations
have had to shift toward policies that everyone is
entitled to respect. The men hadn’t originally built them
to respect everybody.
So, I quote extensively not only to lead myself back through Baumeister’s thought process, but to save these ideas for posterity (links tend to go dead in this ephemeral online world). Anyhow, these are interesting ideas: men and women are much more different in their goals and interests than in their abilities.
How extreme should your first offer be? My own research
suggests that first offers should be quite aggressive but
not absurdly so. Many negotiators fear that an aggressive
first offer will scare or annoy the other side and
perhaps even cause him to walk away in disgust. However,
research shows that this fear is typically exaggerated.
In fact, most negotiators make first offers that are not
aggressive enough.
Good to keep in mind for future dental negotiating.
The “Regrets of the Dying” have quite a bit of overlap. Let us learn from them now, early, in this lovely piece by Bronnie Ware:
I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
I wish I didn’t work so hard.
I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
I wish that I had let myself be happier.
The hardest thing about reading these is not comprehending them — they’re common, to the point of platitude. However, it’s keeping them in mind such that they guide your life and your decisions that is the true challenge.
My wife, Mykala. She packed some AMAZING food for the trip, and we’ve been eating that for most of our meals, making this adventure just as affordable as it is fun.
Top Thill Dragster at Cedar Point. Imagine going from 0-120 miles per hour in 3.8 seconds, then immediately climbing to the top of a 42 story tower.
I rode the West River Parkway up from the St. Paul Lifetime via Ford Parkway and WOW what a path! Darn thing is practically level for a few miles and smoother than an ice rink that’s just been Zambonied. More grip than ice, though.
If you’re looking for a nice easy bike ride in Minneapolis, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better path than the West River Parkway. However, it isn’t all… flat. North of Franklin, it drops off toward the river in about the most giant hill you can find. So, there’s that.
Every one of those worlds is lovely and instructive. But,
so far as we know, every one of them: desolate and barren.
Out there, there are no better places—so far, at least.
One of Sagan’s best is The Pale Blue Dot. I wish they showed that to everybody in school.
Someday, it is my dream to live on a sunny hilltop where I can see the stars at night. I think I’ll feel content. Right now, I can’t see the stars at night, but I still feel content. I guess it’s not about where you are, but who is there with you.
The Atlantic has a nice article titled The Great Stock Myth, which explains the consequences of the (likely) crappy stock market returns over the next 10 years. When the effects of these poor returns are compounded, the demands put on people to save money for retirement increase dramatically. Incidentally, there’s a nice fact about the Bush administration in here:
In the three years after the end of the tech boom,
federal tax revenues plummeted from 20 percent of GDP to
16 percent. Many people blame the Bush tax cuts for the
entire ensuing budget deficit, but in fact they accounted
for less than half of the lost revenue. Most of the
change from surplus to deficit came from other factors,
most prominently from what the Congressional Budget
Office calls “technical” and “economic” change: the
government simply collected less revenue during the bust
than analysts had anticipated. Wealthy people pay most of
the income taxes in America. And their taxable incomes
are extremely sensitive to the performance of the stock
market—not surprising, considering how many wealthy
people either work in finance, or receive compensation in
the form of stock options.
Presidental terms are short compared to economic cycles, and I think people fail to realize this when they attribute economic status exclusively to actions taken by a single administration. Certainly, changes to economic policy can have immediate and seismic effects… but I don’t think this happens as often as people imagine.
Who knows, though — I’m just a student in not-economics or politics.
