

Why we f*ck - rangibaby
http://www.raptitude.com/2012/06/why-we-fck/

======
srean
Bonobos get a alot of attention in these kind of debates. Another family of
animals that share a lot with strongly bonded nomadic lifestyle described in
the article are dolphins and orcas. Extremely intelligent and social animals
and an exclusive group that uses sex recreationally.

Many believe that these animals have what we call culture. Different groups
eat different things, have different language of whistles, learn different
hunting techniques and behave differently, yet have a fairly low branch factor
in their genetic lineage.

[http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-
nature/Understanding-O...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-
nature/Understanding-Orca-Culture.html)

Quoting the first paragraph:

    
    
      Orcas have evolved complex culture: a suite of behaviors
      animals learn from one another. They communicate with
      distinctive calls and whistles. They can live 60 years or
      more, and they stay in tightknit matrilineal groups led
      by older females that model specific behaviors to younger
      animals. Scientists have found increasing evidence that
      culture shapes what and how orcas eat, what they do for
      fun, even their choice of mates. Culture, says Hal
      Whitehead of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova
      Scotia, “may be very important to them.”
    

There was a long HN thread on this recently:
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5253176>

It would be interesting to watch what happens if and when they discover an
analogue of agriculture.

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benaiah
How, if "for most of human existence, it was not normal for a man to know
which kids were his", would it then follow that, when the concept of private
property came about, "[t]he most intuitive arrangement was for a landowner’s
offspring to inherit it"? Wouldn't that be totally unintuitive if it was
normal to not know lineage? Which begs the question - if his first postulate
is true, what caused a total reversal of the situation?

The author makes enormous logical leaps with nothing but conjecture (corin_
pointed this out very well in another comment), practically inventing
narratives for huge amounts of history with little to no actual evidence to
support his suppositions (the concept of property didn't exist until
agriculture; primageniture and inheritance came about because they were
"intuitive", despite the fact that paternity wasn't normally known; etc.).

EDIT: Just as a disclaimer, I ascribe to a Christian viewpoint on history
(yes, I'm a young-earth creationist; yes, I've looked extensively at the
evidence; no, I don't really want to derail the discussion with an argument
about it) and morality, which includes sexual and marital monogamy, so I
disagree with pretty much everything in the article. My point here isn't
trying to convince anyone of that - I don't think the article stands even on
its own premises, and is a terrible mess of conjecture and inconsistency.
That's the only point I'm making.

~~~
pavlov
_Wouldn't that be totally unintuitive if it was normal to not know lineage?_

It works if you expand the concept of "offspring" to mean basically "the
person(s) that you want to be your inheritors". This is what the Romans did,
at least -- it was common for an adopted son to become the principal
inheritor.

It does make sense that if you have a substantial fortune and influence and
you're not really sure about who your genetic children are, then you'd want to
pick your heir rather than simply having your children split it up evenly
after you're gone. Romans even had the concept of posthumous adoption: Emperor
Augustus became Julius Caesar's adopted son only after the latter's famous
assassination. In turn Augustus passed his wealth and power on to an adopted
son, Tiberius.

~~~
benaiah
You make good points, and I agree with you, but it doesn't help the author's
case any, as his entire point in the whole discussion is an origin story for
monogamy - men wanted their biological sons to inherit and thus enforced
female monogamy to ensure biological heredity. It doesn't follow at all from
his previous conjectures.

------
Tichy
I think he is romanticizing too much. From what I remember reading, women get
impregnated inside the body so that males can not be sure who ended up being
the father. This evolved because of a battle of the sexes. It is common in the
animal world for the new male to kill the offspring of the old male, and not
knowing who is the father is a strategy to prevent.

So there is no reason to assume that traditional societies just didn't care
and loved all children equally. It's just that they might not have another
choice. And also this is probably why virginity is so important in many
cultures, because it promises to guarantee the man to become the real father.

I just read Jared Diamond's latest book and I think he wrote that most wars
(in New Guinea) between tribes are about women or pigs - so they do care about
possessions (not implying women should be treated as possessions, just making
a counterpoint to the article). There also seems to be the concept of marriage
in many traditional societies, also kids being promised for marriage for later
when they are old enough, and stuff like that.

What is probably true is that we are not build for monogamy: both sexes would
prefer to "not put all their eggs into one basket" (women want to have kids
from multiple fathers, men want to have kids from multiple mothers). On the
other hand Nassim Taleb mentioned in "Black Swan" that by assigning one man to
one woman and vice versa, the church might have done a lot for peace - before
that system, there would have been more men without any mates at all,
resulting in jealousy and fighting.

------
Glyptodon
This was interesting, but I think there's another dimension to it. It's not
merely that ag created a property incentive to promote monogamy - there's also
a huge change in terms of shared experience and the creation of the idea of
class.

In a tribe there's very a much a shared culture with shared culture and shared
social bonds, while in the modern world there's an endless fractal of
subcultures and individualism. And the more educated you are, the smaller the
people here share enough of a permutation of culture to feel similar is.

I think this somewhat explains why divorce rates are higher for the less
educated - having more in common it's easier for there to be widespread
understanding and shared culture, which in turn sets a lower bar (or creates a
higher probability) that people will be able to functionally bond with each
other.

Conversely, going to college narrows the pool of people who have enough shared
tribal characteristics to be a part of the comfort zone, and it increases even
further when people express their tendencies to want relationships with people
who share interests/traits/experiences/educational choices.

In a tribe every shared the same experiences. Likewise, nearly everyone shares
similar K-12 experiences. So within these cohorts there would naturally be a
high replacability, which should mean monogamy ought to become less valued.

On the other hand, people who go to college and matriculate through to
different careers are basically funneling themselves into situations where
there are fewer people with enough shared experiences to be a part of the
tribe, making the value of an individual relationship increase.

TLDR: The less mainstream someone is, the more they should have an incentive
to value an individual relationship. Thus the more uniform and cohesive the
social group, the less value is likely placed on an individual relationship.
Hence we can blame not just property rights, but the fact that civilization
and agriculture destroy shared experience compared to hunter/gatherer tribes.
This can also explain lower divorce rates among the more educated or uniquely
experienced as compared to typical high school graduates.

~~~
pyre
You're assuming that all (or most) divorces are due to basically "finding
someone else." Another major factor is the relationship turning sour,
specifically due to money issues/troubles (which would be more likely among
people with only a high school diploma).

~~~
aaronbrethorst
I'm not sure if a high school diploma is correlation or causation, but it
looks like you're dead on.

[http://www.pewresearch.org/2009/10/15/the-states-of-
marriage...](http://www.pewresearch.org/2009/10/15/the-states-of-marriage-and-
divorce/)

------
corin_
The article seems to skip between "X therefore Y" and "Y ... Z!!" with little
more than conjecture at times.

 _We try to minimize baby-making but we’re still highly interested in sex, and
so for humans sex obviously serves another extremely compelling purpose.

That purpose is to bring us closer, to cement social bonds._

Without arguing which is the correct reason, surely an alternate explanation
could be "That purpose is to cause our bodies pleasure".

~~~
simonh
Pleasure is just the carrot evolution uses to make you do what benefits your
genes. Pleasure in itself is not a end evolution optimises for.

~~~
corin_
Obviously true, but not relevant to what he wrote. When saying "that purpose
is" did he mean from a point of why did we evolve like this, or did he mean
why do we individuals act like this? If the latter, pleasure is a valid
reason. If the former, surely evolution made it pleasurable because it helped
create offspring.

(Also: the fact that pleasure is there doesn't automatically mean it evolved
for genetic benefits. Why do people get pleasure out of class A drugs?)

~~~
simonh
Sorry, you've read the article and you're genuinely not sure whether he's
talking about behavioural evolution?

~~~
corin_
As I commented, surely the reason we have evolved to find sex pleasurable is
more because it creates offspring than because it "brings us closer" or
"creates social bonds".

------
meric
[[When the family were driven from the doctor at Kintore 27km to the smaller
community of Kwiwikurra, the nomads ritually beat members of their extended
families with sticks for not bringing them in from the desert earlier.]] Nomad
brought to modern society in 1984.

[http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/lost-tribe-
happy-i...](http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/lost-tribe-happy-in-
modern-world/story-e6frf7l6-1111112932308)

[[None of the nomads regrets coming in from the desert.

"I like this life," Yardi said. "I much prefer it to the old ways."

Warlinipirri said: "I wouldn't go back."

Melbourne art dealer Kit Ballan, who was in the Alice buying paintings when I
met Warlinipirri, said: "We see the nomadic life in the desert as utopian.

"But, in reality, it would have been hard beyond our imagining.

"Every day would have been dominated by the search for food and water."]]

It doesn't look like a nomadic people have that much recreational time - they
are constantly searching for food, water.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pintupi_Nine>

~~~
meric
Would have loved an explanation of the down vote.

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codelion
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:JzeKMKe...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:JzeKMKeh0HsJ:www.raptitude.com/2012/06/why-
we-fck/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk) Cached link

~~~
barbs
That's still taking ages to load for me, but the text-only version loads
quickly:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:JzeKMKe...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:JzeKMKeh0HsJ:www.raptitude.com/2012/06/why-
we-fck/&hl=en&strip=1)

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xenophonf
Wasn't there a rebuttal of /Sex at Dawn/ mentioned recently here on Hacker
News?

