PATREON EXCLUSIVE: In the end, does it all come down to the instinct to reproduce?
Added 2023-03-09 01:07:53 +0000 UTC
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And this is the dilmena I have with children. You don't choose who they are. It's just a person who will pop out of the circumstances. Like you choose your partner but not who your children are. So why would you want to take this chance. Especially now that children just stay home longer with housing crisis and stuff. Maybe it's just a matter of find the right person. It certainly is but in some way it's mortgaging your future. If they make you happy, then perfect you're only going up in your quest for life. But what if it does the opposite?
Louis
2023-04-29 13:42:14 +0000 UTC"Take, for example, the common belief that women are more committed to family than men are. Research simply does not support that notion. In a study of Harvard Business School graduates that one of us conducted, nearly everyone, regardless of gender, placed a higher value on their families than on their work (see “Rethink What You ‘Know’ About High-Achieving Women,” HBR, December 2014). Moreover, having made career decisions to accommodate family responsibilities didn’t explain the gender achievement gap. Other research, too, makes it clear that men and women do not have fundamentally different priorities. Numerous studies show that what does differ is the treatment mothers and fathers receive when they start a family. Women (but not men) are seen as needing support, whereas men are more likely to get the message—either explicit or subtle—that they need to “man up” and not voice stress and fatigue. If men do ask, say, for a lighter travel schedule, their supervisors may cut them some slack—but often grudgingly and with the clear expectation that the reprieve is temporary. Accordingly, some men attempt an under-the-radar approach, quietly reducing hours or travel and hoping it goes unnoticed, while others simply concede, limiting the time they spend on family responsibilities and doubling down at work. Either way, they maintain a reputation that keeps them on an upward trajectory. Meanwhile, mothers are often expected, indeed encouraged, to ratchet back at work. They are rerouted into less taxing roles and given less “demanding” (read: lower-status, less career-enhancing) clients. To sum up, men’s and women’s desires and challenges about work/family balance are remarkably similar. It is what they experience at work once they become parents that puts them in very different places."
Daniel L Chin
2023-03-12 10:30:27 +0000 UTCTo address the tangent of whether animals know having sex will produce children (or offspring...children are humans whereas we refer to the progeny of animals in other terms). Since you both have a psychology background I was surprised there was questioning on this (not that further research might reveal new discoveries) due to the prevailing Theory of Mind "Why is the theory of mind important to animals? Theory of mind (ToM; a.k.a., mind-reading, mentalizing, mental-state attribution, and perspective-taking) is the ability to ascribe mental states, such as desires and beliefs, to others, and it is central to the unique forms of communication, cooperation, and culture that define our species." The prevailing thought is that animals respond to instincts they are born with and behave accordingly. (again, research in constantly adding to what we previously assumed and serisously, the capability of animals is a constant amazement). I once did some research into (what I thought, at the time was profound) a theory that women never had total recall of how painful childbirth was. The thought was that if they could really remember the actual pain, they would never have more than one. As it turned out, women do recall the difficulty of the experience, but it turns out the joy of having the baby is so overwhelming that the travail is deemed worthwhile. In turn, this is attributed to oxytocin....and indeed, a discussion of this hormone is perhaps more worthy of discussion since it is so key human behavior. I am sure you are aware of articles that discuss this as a key factor for pair bonding and physiological components as to why promiscuity can be so harmful. I might have thought a tangent for your discussion might have gone in philosphical direction as how human behavior would differ if sexual act did not have the power that it does. Therein lies an even more fertile exploration of how birth control and abortion contributes to this question of the instinct to produce. Just as the old argument of nature vs. nurture in psychology had been bandied about (I think most agree it is both, especially with all the inroads into epigenetics) there is, especially in neuroscience, the question of free will. "A reductively mechanistic approach to neuroscience suggests that low-level physical laws determine our actions and that mental states are epiphenomena. In this scheme there seems to be little room for free will or genuine agency." At this point, I suppose reductionism requires defining, only because I posted a long time ago on the dangers of it and there was a response stating not understanding what I meant...."the practice of analyzing and describing a complex phenomenon in terms of phenomena that are held to represent a simpler or more fundamental level, especially when this is said to provide a sufficient explanation." Any time we attempt to understand and explain anything involving dynamic systems the interrelate to each other and within each other, we tend to reduce them to concepts that fail to take in the complexity of the entire system. Most of us look upon the meaning of life is to just propagate more life. Our view of the real world corroborates this...until we look into the complex dynamical systems that make up the world, the universe....our very brains. Consider this, humans are the only species that require their young to be protected and cared for at least, say fifteen or sixteen years. The provisioning, and in fact, the very way of life that is required to care for human children is singular to our species. Animals are ready to take on life in seemingly mere moments after their birth. This very fact of the biology of human reproduction in and of itself required humans to build civilization in such a way that ensured survival. There is no one answer to your question but the question of free will certainly allows for further discussion. Let me leave with....If we didn't have sex, how much interaction would there actually be between men and women?
Daniel L Chin
2023-03-12 07:51:28 +0000 UTC
