Pointless But It Does My Head In

[lanugo]

Little girls who've barely learned to walk but are already pushing along toy baby carriages they were given by their parents - in all likelihood their mothers - to "play with". Is this not utterly grotesque? I mean, what other purpose but early childhood conditioning could having your daughter act in such a way possibly have? The parents themselves are probably not aware of why exactly they choose to let their child emulate adult behaviour - just finding it "cute" or "adorable" - when in actuality they are manipulated by the very same biological determinism they are so eagerly imposing on their offspring. Oh wait - I forgot that all this is natural and parenthood is "the greatest joy in life"...

 

[nomadthethird]

Oh dear, seems as though everyone is down at the moment. Some bad juju in the air or something. Hope you feel better soon... hope everyone does.

Thanks... a friend of mine gave me a cigarette a few hours ago, and now I remember why I used to smoke in the first place.

I'm tempted to see if he's awake so I can get another one.

P.S. Ditto, lanugo. My cousins all have kids, and they insist that their boys all naturally just looove trucks and mechanical things. But actually, from the second they popped out, everyone in my family has pointed and made loud, obnoxious sounds, while acting insanely excited, whenever a large vehicle drove by, in the presence of the male babies. Never once have I seen them do that to any of their female children. (Hugging dolls and feeding them, tho, is another story.)

Hmmm... I sense a pattern...

 

[Dr Awesome]

Damn gender roles.

Somewhere there's a man who goes down on his woman, then makes her sandwich and while she has a nap does some baking.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

P.S. Ditto, lanugo. My cousins all have kids, and they insist that their boys all naturally just looove trucks and mechanical things. But actually, from the second they popped out, everyone in my family has pointed and made loud, obnoxious sounds, while acting insanely excited, whenever a large vehicle drove by, in the presence of the male babies. Never once have I seen them do that to any of their female children. (Hugging dolls and feeding them, tho, is another story.)

My parents ran an experiment on me when I was very young: they got me a doll and encouraged me to play with it. I don't remember being very keen.

One of my cousins used to go silently nuts whenever he spotted a goods train (passenger trains didn't do it for him): he would suddenly stand bolt upright, thrust his arms behind him and wiggle his fingers excitedly while mouthing 'goods train...ooh'. If his parents had modelled this particular behaviour they we probably regretting it, as it looked very odd and was rather disruptive - all of us would have to wait for these huge things to finish trundling on past and release him from his trance.

 

[petergunn]

Imagine if we invented the technology to allow us to send remotely controlled androids out into battle. A generation of pot-smokers and social misfits will become some of the greatest war generals that have ever lived. Then again, it is probably this very fantasy that is largely responsible for the video game industry overtaking both the music and movie industry in profits.

Not playing around: Army to invest $50M in combat training games
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=59009

tho this article had the best quote:
http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/...raining-to-deal-with-gamer-generation/1395045

In an interview with Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, NPR reports that the U.S. Army is altering its basic training program for the first time in 20 years, in part to better train recruits weaned on video games.

"This isn't a decline in our recruits; this is a decline in our American society in terms of their physical capacity," Hertling told NPR. "It's just a softer generation."

Hertling goes on to explain that while new soliders are "advanced in terms of their use of technology," they're perhaps "not as advanced in their physical capabilities or ability to go into a fight. So we're taking that into consideration as well in doing this holistic review of how we do training."

COUCH POTATO SLUGS VS TALIBAN MOUNTAIN SHERPERDS! WHO WINZ?!?!?!?

 

[Mr. Tea]

Damn gender roles.

Somewhere there's a man who goes down on his woman, then makes her sandwich and while she has a nap does some baking.

I'm not much of a baker, but I do make a pretty wicked breakfast for two, though I say it myself.

I'm saying nothing about the other stuff.

 

[Dr Awesome]

I'm not much of a baker, but I do make a pretty wicked breakfast for two, though I say it myself.

I'm saying nothing about the other stuff.

I was talking about foot rubs. Filthy mind.

 

[Richard Carnage]

Damn gender roles.

Somewhere there's a man who goes down on his woman, then makes her sandwich and while she has a nap does some baking.

Where's Logan Sama when you need him?

 

[Mr. Tea]

Where's Logan Sama when you need him?

Haha, did you used to be someone else? If you're ref'ing the thread I think you are, that was yeeears back.

 

[nomadthethird]

My parents ran an experiment on me when I was very young: they got me a doll and encouraged me to play with it. I don't remember being very keen.

One of my cousins used to go silently nuts whenever he spotted a goods train (passenger trains didn't do it for him): he would suddenly stand bolt upright, thrust his arms behind him and wiggle his fingers excitedly while mouthing 'goods train...ooh'. If his parents had modelled this particular behaviour they we probably regretting it, as it looked very odd and was rather disruptive - all of us would have to wait for these huge things to finish trundling on past and release him from his trance.

Most infants like large, loud things that move. Anything that stimulates their brains and makes them curious about how it works is interesting to a kid with differentiating brain cells.

I had a bunch of trucks and school buses that I played with. Oh nos, I must be a boy!

 

[nomadthethird]

My parents ran an experiment on me when I was very young: they got me a doll and encouraged me to play with it. I don't remember being very keen.

Your parents are shitty scientists. That 'experiment' has no controls and the hypothesis, if there was one, besides "infants are hardwired to be heterosexual stereotypes" was unfalsifiable.

 

[grizzleb]

Are prams not just as mechanical in nature as cars are at that age? I wouldn't let either a boy or a girl play with anything with an engine.

 

[nomadthethird]

Yes, grizzleb. Good point. Another example of how if women do it, it's already encoded as "feminine" and therefore less x,y, or z than whatever it is men supposedly do out of sheer androgen load.

It's funny: real scientists have done all sorts of studies, and they keep finding that if you put a bunch of adults in a room with 3-year-olds and/or infants, as long as they're all dressed in gender neutral clothing and have similar haircuts, the adults cannot tell which sex the child is. Not for the life of them. Not a single one, in some of the studies. Even if the room is full of gendered toys, and other supposedly tell-tale give aways.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Some prams are bigger and more mechanically complex than some cars, these days.

 

[Martin Dust]

It's sunny outside...

 

[mixed_biscuits]

Atypical girls and boys grow up to rail against gender stereotyping because they suffered most because of it! (They were led to water and forced to drink)

 

[mixed_biscuits]

Most infants like large, loud things that move. Anything that stimulates their brains and makes them curious about how it works is interesting to a kid with differentiating brain cells.

Everyone may be interested in these things, but boys generally seem to be *especially* interested in them.

Not once, whilst teaching in my all-girls school, have I had a pupil show spontaneous enthusiasm for overflying aircraft, parents' cars or trains. I'm assuming that the cultural milieu and prevailing norms for girly behaviour are not so strong as to suppress all manifestations of likes and dislikes (in fact, many are quite keen on such ungirlylike things as dirt and large blobs of goo).

Relatedly, only once has there been an outbreak of fisticuffs between pupils.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

if there was one, besides "infants are hardwired to be heterosexual stereotypes" was unfalsifiable.

I agree that society does lay it on heavy with stereotyping but would be happier to accept the primacy of nurture over nature if it weren't the case that those things which so enthuse boys, for instance, weren't themselves devised by other boys in the first place - with the appreciation of culture thus being an echo of its creation, both coming from the same natural inclination.

It would be more interesting to find instances of cultural phenomena with no sex-specific history being foisted upon one sex and barred to the other.
__
It may be the case that we are, as a species, generally inclined to exaggerate small hard-wired inter-sex differences for reasons of organisational efficiency.

 

[nomadthethird]

I'm assuming that the cultural milieu and prevailing norms for girly behaviour are not so strong as to suppress all manifestations of likes and dislikes

Is this assumption grounded in anything? The prevailing norms for girly behavior are VERY strong.

I agree that society does lay it on heavy with stereotyping but would be happier to accept nurture over nature hypothesis if it weren't the case that those things which so enthuse boys, for instance, weren't themselves devised by other boys in the first place - with the appreciation of culture thus being an echo of its creation, both coming from the same natural inclination.

It would be more interesting to find instances of cultural phenomena with no gender-specific history being foisted upon one sex and barred to the other (in other words, not phenomena that could be said to be the product of natural, sex-specific inclinations).
__
It may be the case that we are, as a species, generally inclined to exaggerate small hard-wired inter-sex differences for reasons of organisational efficiency.

Are you serious right now? First of all, I never said "nurture OVER nature". Obviously, culture is a type of bio-social meme. Nature AND nurture are both very important in the development of an organism- any organism.

I mean, sure, it makes sense in a society that has very rigid gender roles to do your kids the favor of guiding them into the role they will be expected to play from a young age. But are you seriously going to argue post hoc ergo propter hoc right now?

Girls and boys "seem" to have different interests at the present moment from where I sit, therefore, nature. Is basically what you're saying.

 

[nomadthethird]

Why do you think women didn't "make" these things that you think boys love so much because of their sex? Could it be because they've been indentured servants and sex slaves for, oh, ten thousand years? And were excluded from certain activities?

The reason men go to war, by the way- the strict Darwinian explanation- is not because men especially like killing because they are naturally aggressive, blah blah. It's because males in most species are more evolutionarily expendible than females. All you need is a couple of males, and they can reproduce with the females, and keep things going. If you start letting women take the life-or-death risks, for example, then you'd potentially see a sharp decline in birth rate.

In a lot of species, males die immediately upon mating for the first time.