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It's nice to know that all these things on my 'SRS blown'-mind have a place to be heard. :)

Pretty much see the point of what you're saying about evolution, but I don't exactly see the evidence. Surely the Mbuti are more "evolved" than us in that sense? And it seems to me that the progress for women has been acquired characteristics, which fall on the "nurture" side of the "nature vs. nurture" debate. Although, because progress has been so thoroughly embedded in the social fabric, something inherited from our parents, it might be argued that nothing short of apocalypse would lead to significant regression of people's ideas. If Romney 2012 doesn't count.

I think human nature is definitely in need of qualification. Although, well, 'post-warp human society' probably doesn't have a place for "100% organic human-humans" at all, so the issue would be moot. Right now, I fall on the side that believes that our brain structures are profoundly genetically determined and usually develop along predictable lines due to, uh, living on Earth. (there's a website for people with Asperger's syndrome actually called "wrong planet," for evidence of that). This includes a desire for social identity/acceptance, desire for something greater than ourselves, and desire for patterns or sense in a sometimes senseless world.

The support for 1) (sorry, but I don't have studies) is basically, we like to simplify our world in order to understand it and communicate it and this leads to categorizing, creating an identity for oneself and for "others." Organized religion builds a sense of community and identity that, for many, is inherently valuable. I know that I suddenly became more interested in my racial and religious identity group-although sometimes it felt a bit restricting-once I entered college.

2) The desire for something omnipresent, something mysterious, does seem to have a basis in neurology. Undoubtedly though, it can't be that widespread or Norway would never be an atheist haven (heaven?).

And lastly, for 3), it was shown that superstition, in at least the case of baseball players and students has a function in reducing anxiety over uncertainty. I'm not sure where to go with this since the student study claimed that thinking about death reduces superstitious thoughts, but that's not really my experience. In fact, I believe that without death, the largest incentive for believing in God would be lost not entirely because of desire for eternal life, but because eternal life ties up everything that happens with everyone you know on Earth in a way that isn't senseless.

Re-reading this, I'm almost positive this all falls into the same trap I accuse those other Redditors of. Sorry I can't be more insightful :$

EDIT: I'm thinking about checking this book out: http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Trust-Evolutionary-Landscape-Evolution/dp/0195149300

Most literature I'm familiar with on global poverty shows that it is decreasing in relative and (over the last 30 years) absolute terms. If you have issues with income based methods, I'd suggest looking at the global literacy and infant mortality rates. As countries replicate the inclusive insititions (and hence, economic successes) of countries like South Korea this is likely to continue.

Regarding the reliability of Soviet statistics the easiest example is the 1937 census. This was the first census since 1926, and therefore the first that would follow the mass famines and purges of the early 1930s. When they accurately showed the population much lower than suited Stalin the statisticians were shot/gulaged. The 1939 census-makers got it right, and just reported that the predictions had been met exactly.

But referring to the Brezhnev years (1964-1982), or what Gorbachev called the "Era of Stagnation", there's a text called Brezhnev Reconsidered which is fantastic. (I'm afraid I'm having trouble finding more than the first chapter online, but there's always the Era of Stagnation wiki page.) That covers the economic difficulties of the period you've outlined as 'high-growth'.

By pointing out that their technological advances were constrained within certain sectors, I'm saying that the Bolsheviks built a state that was centralized enough to throw people at certain areas like Ancient Egypt did the pyramids. The most enduring innovation of the Soviet Union is the AK-47, designed, ironically by someone who'd rather have designed lawnmowers. Innovation happened not because of self-motivation, but because of central planning.

The relative power of the state vs its constituents is rather beside the point. The ability to vote, to choose your employer, to not be sold, to hold property even if you were black, or a woman, or a prisoner, are all liberties that weren't allowed back around 1850. Countries have implemented strong safety nets and universal access to healthcare and education.

For such speculative questions, it is often useful to turn to speculative fiction.

There is a very good recent Hugo Award winning science fiction novel out called Ancillary Justice by Anne Leckie, it depicts a genderless, space faring society.

Unlike earlier feminist Sci-Fi, like for example Ursula LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness which depicts a biologically hermaphroditic society, in Leckie's universe, the people in this society still have the same range of physical bodies as the physical bodies that we see on Earth today, but their culture does not apply differentiated gender categories to them. There, however, still social categories. All citizens are citizens, all non-citizens are non-citizens. There are still rich and poor, powerful and powerless, there are still 'human' and 'sub-human'; but sex and romance are discretionary, a person wears whatever clothes are fashionable and pleasing to them, they can romance and have sex with whomever consents, their career paths are mostly determined by social rank, family lineage, personal contacts, and to some extent merit, but never gender.

What's interesting, also, about Leckie's universe, is that even though gender and gender oppression are completely absent from this society, it is still for other reasons horrendously dystopic (and trigger warning: it deals with issues of colonization, cultural subjugation and slavery in very graphic and harrowing ways).

nevertheless, I would highly recommend it.

I'm not familiar with that author, but this book by Bellah is a good one:
http://www.amazon.com/Religion-Human-Evolution-Paleolithic-Axial/dp/0674061438/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_3

Also The Robert Bellah Reader. As a 'romantic' scholar of religion who is also an atheist I really like his work.

Happy reading!

Edit, paragraphs. :)

I took a class on the OT and used this book. It doesn't actually have the OT word for word, but does a good job explaining how the text came together and what certain things mean If you combine it with the New Oxford OT, it's a pretty good combo (the Oxford OT has good footnotes to help understand wtf is going on). That is, if you want a more academic representation of the text.

>Well, yes, unfortunately, (for the most part) males are stronger than females. I had linked to another SRSD thread where /u/CotRA had cited a study that showed that "90% of females produced less force than 95% of males".

I would recommend you read the Gender and Science Reader, particularly the paper "In Pursuit of Difference" by Lynda Birke, which also cites a case in Bali where the strength difference between men and women is substantially reduced, to a point which she suggests is close to parity. What needs to be understood is that often these strength studies are situated in a sociological context, where relative strengths of individuals are influenced by that context. This is not to say that biology does not exist, but Quietuus is right to suggest that society has a powerful influence on what we consider to be an "essential" difference, and the fact that it is put in scientific language in the way you describe doesn't make it any more epistemologically valid. All such studies are able to state is that within the social context of western society, the assigned class of men are stronger than women, but this does not substantiate why this is. Again, this isn't to say biology don't real, but rather to say that a biocultural model is necessary in order to properly evaluate and come to accurate conclusions. At very least, I would say the bell curves are much closer than western-situated data would suggest.

I know I'm posting two links to the same author in this thread, but I promise they are both worth reading: Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (and Parents Sane)

There is definitely a "gay voice" and it's the subject of much study in sociolinguistics. One of my professors has studied gay speakers of Javanese and Indonesian. And one of my friends is doing his thesis on the sociolinguistics of gay speakers in Melbourne.

Of course the OP was unlikely to get a good answer in /r/askreddit. If he was genuinely curious, he should have come to /r/linguistics.

"Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes" by Irving Janis.

A great read through. It's a nice mix of theoretical approaches and case studies of times when a room full of otherwise really smart people came to really bad decisions.

Edit* That Amazon price looks like a silly glitch due to a bad algorithm. Used copies normally run about $10.

The book Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine is absolutely brilliant.

> Fish on Stilts

Helpful note: "Nonsense on Stilts"

Your analysis reminds me of a book I taught earlier this year. It's entitled, Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin. He was a white man from Texas who underwent cosmetic procedures to darken the pigment of his skin. He then lived as a black man in the South during the 1950's for several months in order to give a "true" account of what it's like to live with racism.

The inherent problem with the project, while it did result in a fascinating book, lies in the original premise; it isn't a book about being black in the South, it's a book about a white man pretending to be black in the South during 1950's.

Hi carbuyer throwaway, a lot of people have mentioned that it's hard to get racist people to stop being racist. I agree. However, you might want to read a book called Whistling Vivaldi - It is a book about racial stereotyping in the Unites States and small steps you can take to overcome them. Truly enlightening book. Also, I'm so sorry about your experiences - from one American to another. It's important to remind yourself that you are not defined by what other people say and do to you. Much support.

Julia Serano addresses this question in Whipping Girl. You should read it.

I'm not an expert about this subject, but if I remember correctly she uses the phrase "subconscious sex" to refer to how people feel. Then they can choose to express that in different ways. So a trans woman who wears a dress isn't a woman just because she wears a dress. She's a woman (innately) who expresses her gender (to society and/or herself) through wearing a dress.

And keep in mind that trans people are as diverse as cis people. Not all trans women wear dresses or have long hair. And there are cis men who wear dresses and have long hair. I don't know where our subconscious sex comes from, but it seems to be more than just a desire follow one gender role or the other.

Again, I'm not an expert. I hope someone will correct me if I've messed something up.

Have you read Delusions of Gender ?

I have a copy of Equality with a Vengance. But I haven't read it yet.

I am not good at articulating myself, so I will suggest a book for you. Mother Nature: Maternal Instincts and How They Shape the Human Species by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy. It is not just about abortion, but motherhood from a sociological perspective. It's the book that really helped me nail down my feelings about abortion, because although I am not religious, I love babies and once felt the same way that you did.

Swartz was facing a max of 7 years. Additionally, when the RIAA really wanted to make an example of someone, they were able to sue for absolutely ludicrous, life ruining damages.

When the ordinary person can face a threat of hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars over a few albums (and not pre-release secret material) - something is very wrong.

The responses in the CMV thread are pretty ludicrous and dodge the issue. I'd recommend William Patry's books for an overview of the problems with our current system: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/moral-panics-and-the-copyright-wars-9780195385649?cc=us&lang=en&

And "How To Fix Copyright": https://www.amazon.com/How-Fix-Copyright-William-Patry/dp/0199760098

He's one of the pre-eminent intellectual property lawyers of our time, and his thoughts on the matter are very educational.

I have always kind of went back and forth with the same thing. I recently moved from a larger city to a small southern Illinois town and it's insane the amount of racism that stems from a very large, uneducated and poor population. I feel bad that it comes from a long lineage of just being ignorant and passing it along to family but that's also not really an excuse. I've known plenty of people who come from a racist background and even people who grew up very poor and they made the conscious decision to be different and compassionate towards all people.


You should read "Hillbilly Elegy" (link here ) the author grew up in what most call "white trash" household - poor, uneducated, drug use etc. he made the decision to change his future and end up differently and he went to Yale and became a lawyer ( and also a liberal) The book is good too because it goes into depth into that demographic of poor, uneducated and racists, how it all started and how it keeps continuing (and probably will continue forever, unfortunately).

>[DV] is still fairly balanced in terms of the numbers of victims and perpetrators of each sex, so referring to it as 'violence against women' erases male victims, and as 'men's violence against women' erases both male victims and female perpetrators.


This isn't true. The "gender symmetry" argument relies on bad methodologies that overemphasise low-level violence (which is either mutual or occasional) and understate the levels of really horrific battering. This latter kind of violence - which most warrants intervention and activism - is something done almost entirely by men to women.

More worryingly with regards to your comment, gender symmetry is pushed by Men's Rights groups as a way to de-gender domestic violence policy (as well as Straus, fuck you Straus), and by extension roll back the gains which have been made in addressing it (the gendered nature of domestic violence laws existing because ordinary criminal legislation on assault was not enough to prosecute or prevent batterers). It's actually the only significant danger MRAs present in the real world/at all, because on the face of it their case is convincing, especially if you're uninformed about the wider scientific consensus. Dragiewicz has done really good work at both critiquing the gender symmetrical literature, and laying out exactly why MRAs have this agenda and how they push it.


Obviously male survivors do exist and deserve special attention, but it not appropriate to design policies under the impression that domestic violence is not a gendered problem or that male survivors make up a substantial number of cases.