Producer chicks

[Atheory]

TO DUSK, i am calm. i just feel passionately about this. nothing wrong with that i hope.

no offence but i could sit here all day long and copy and paste arguments against those findings, cause we are essentially veering towards the nature vs nuture argument.

one simple question, if you had to choose one

a)do you think that gender characteristics in relation to our society are inate?

b)or an indetermined combination of inate and the conditioned, heavily leaning towards the conditioned?




for record, my girlfriend is indifferent to techno, but likes cushions, nice clothes, looking pretty, wine, movies and hopeful books like candide by voltaire, going for dinner, holidays and talking to people. none of those things predate the formation of society.

[Dusk]

Atheory, thanks for your response.

Im afraid neither of your alternatives are acceptable to me. Again referring to my studies - which were in truth ALL ultimately reducible to the central nature vs nurture discussion in some form - is that we are each a product of a complex and iterative interaction between genetic hardwiring and enviornment.

However - and here is the crux - latest evidence suggests that the genetic component is the more significant. Why? Because genes INFLUENCE environment, and not the other way round. In other words, genetic content is fixed but your environment can be directly CHANGED by your genetic predesposition.

To give an example - babies are born with markedly different personalities. Its true. A baby that is calm and relaxed from birth naturally invites more affection than one who is naturally born with a fretful and anxious demanour, causing it to cry. In this way, the first baby receives more doting, more obvious affection and more attention. Conversely, the latter fretful baby's natural disposition leaves it at an attentional and affective disadvantage. Its relatively overlooked next to the joyful, smiling baby. End result? Genetic predispostions gradually and cumulativevly become REINFORCED by the environment they are put in. Do you see?

In the context of our discussion, if a baby was to show very early on its development "traditionally male" tendencies - such as gravitiating towards trying to understand technical and systematic devices - and didnt display any traditionally "female" tendencies for empathising and encoding/decoding emotional states, that baby would influence it's caregivers into a treatment that was more likely to be appropriate for males.

Encouraging those strong ability areas of your offspring is a natural parental response; so the parents in my scenario would allow/maximise their female child access to technical items, such as complex mobiles, books and systematic/structural play items. Thus, this female has had it's access to traditionally "female" environmental influences limited (dolls, hairbrushes, soft toys, toy animals etc) BECAUSE of the natural disposition and abilities she was BORN with. Do you see?

In summary, genetic predispositions including inborn neurological differences between the sexes, exert an enormous degree of control over our personalities, abilities and behavioural tendencies. This includes our ability and willingness to control machines and computers in the complex pursuit of creating music. Our environment of course shapes these predispositions, but crucially, also dynamically and cumulatively reflects these biases in the ways I have tried to explain.

[livecollective]

WOMEN AND MEN ARE DIFFERENT!!!!! Were designed to compliment each other, if men were like women we would all still be in caves!!

If women were like men.... we would all still be in caves!!!!

you're still in the cave, mate. mentally.

and what, you are not in the "cave" because you threw out a Plato reference, and bring up nature vs. nurture (Rousseau vs. Hobbes)? We all know we are combination of our upbringing and our genetics...


and people probably agree with you to a certain point, but at that point you start sounding like a pretentious mildly well-read pseudo-intellectual, something I don't think you are or want to sound like.

[steevio]

neither nature nor nurture predisposed my daughter to be what she is, a soldier.
when you look at it from the individual perspective, the science often looks lame. too much generalisation.

[Atheory]

Atheory, thanks for your response.

Im afraid neither of your alternatives are acceptable to me. Again referring to my studies - which were in truth ALL ultimately reducible to the central nature vs nurture discussion in some form - is that we are each a product of a complex and iterative interaction between genetic hardwiring and enviornment.

However - and here is the crux - latest evidence suggests that the genetic component is the more significant. Why? Because genes INFLUENCE environment, and not the other way round. In other words, genetic content is fixed but your environment can be directly CHANGED by your genetic predesposition.

To give an example - babies are born with markedly different personalities. Its true. A baby that is calm and relaxed from birth naturally invites more affection than one who is naturally born with a fretful and anxious demanour, causing it to cry. In this way, the first baby receives more doting, more obvious affection and more attention. Conversely, the latter fretful baby's natural disposition leaves it at an attentional and affective disadvantage. Its relatively overlooked next to the joyful, smiling baby. End result? Genetic predispostions gradually and cumulativevly become REINFORCED by the environment they are put in. Do you see?

In the context of our discussion, if a baby was to show very early on its development "traditionally male" tendencies - such as gravitiating towards trying to understand technical and systematic devices - and didnt display any traditionally "female" tendencies for empathising and encoding/decoding emotional states, that baby would influence it's caregivers into a treatment that was more likely to be appropriate for males.

Encouraging those strong ability areas of your offspring is a natural parental response; so the parents in my scenario would allow/maximise their female child access to technical items, such as complex mobiles, books and systematic/structural play items. Thus, this female has had it's access to traditionally "female" environmental influences limited (dolls, hairbrushes, soft toys, toy animals etc) BECAUSE of the natural disposition and abilities she was BORN with. Do you see?

In summary, genetic predispositions including inborn neurological differences between the sexes, exert an enormous degree of control over our personalities, abilities and behavioural tendencies. This includes our ability and willingness to control machines and computers in the complex pursuit of creating music. Our environment of course shapes these predispositions, but crucially, also dynamically and cumulatively reflects these biases in the ways I have tried to explain.

yes, excellent post. enjoyable reading.

a few points about that for me....

the impact of genetics, say in terms of physical genetics, has been quite spectacularly seen in the formation of western societies. predominantly patriarcal societys, where woman had low basic rights if at all, are/were objectified, seen as child careers/bareers etc. denied access to second/ third level education. you know, marginalised. that for me makes most sense in terms of genetic impact on society. look how man treats those weaker than him?? eg australia, usa, portugal/spain in south america, uk take your pick.

its also interesting to look at the speed of development of different societies too. some developed faster than others, but this has nothing to do with genetics surely, and everything to do with climate, resources etc.

so whilst i do understand and appreciate your point about the babies, most parents interactions with their child are not in the form of a controlled experiment. tradition, expectations, pressure etc play such a huge role in that. i mean, look at minimaltechhouses comments on what a real man is. thats something that he inherently believes in. that there is a type of man that is real and that this is what women want. that is absolutely the result of societal and role model influence.

anyway, yeah i do appreciate all that you said, and it was a great post.

in good news, i get to go home from work now.

[victorgonzales]

Give a woman testosterone, and watch her mentality change, im sure if you got out of your bedroom a bit more you would see what i mean...

probably because all the women were out working in the fields while the men sat on their lazy arses and eventually got bored of gambling.

[Atheory]

WOMEN AND MEN ARE DIFFERENT!!!!! Were designed to compliment each other, if men were like women we would all still be in caves!!

If women were like men.... we would all still be in caves!!!!

you're still in the cave, mate. mentally.

and what, you are not in the "cave" because you threw out a Plato reference, and bring up nature vs. nurture (Rousseau vs. Hobbes)? We all know we are combination of our upbringing and our genetics...


and people probably agree with you to a certain point, but at that point you start sounding like a pretentious mildly well-read pseudo-intellectual, something I don't think you are or want to sound like.

i think we both know i'm not in the cave.

as for minimaltechhouse, that comment you quoted was kind of a jokey comment cause of what he'd written. he actually reminds me a lot of one of my mates, and i didnt mean any real offence. i'm sure hes a good guy etc, would have no problem going out for a glass of 12 year old scotch with him, or whatever its you think i drink.

[thom]

And seriously, what's with all the "I like girls" comments?

lol i dunno heh what do you think?

Maybe uh... because it's spring... and because guys like girls. And because you know... maybe most of us here are guys... and well... you know... guys like girls like guys and it's all very gay no?