User:Super Quantum immortal/Sociology

(fix the formating latter)

Do we know who we are‽

I have to remind you, that what follows is just a conjecture, ITS JUST AN UNPROVEN CONJECTURE, and conjectures are quite often wrong. In the 19th century, scientists argued that airplanes were impossible, because "the steam engine is too heavy", it made perfect sense then, imagine a locomotive with flapping wings. Quality and methodology here is the same as with the other primary sections.

4.1 Induction

I pondered how men fight and lose the battle and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant, and other men fight for what they meant under another name.(William Morris)

A little investigation in to religion. I'm dividing religion in to 2 components. A proto science component, theories about the world and corresponding solutions. It might seem strange to call this science, but when you don't know much about physics, assuming that lightnings are throng by an angry god, makes perfect scientific sense. The overlooked second component of religions, its that they have an anti-depressive effect(religious people are happier).

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Theres great variability in the world, but a common pattern that detaches, is that the more oppressive a society is, the more religious people are. So a first working hypothesis is that they compensate there low "affection" level in there society with "affection" from religion, if society is not too oppressive, the need for extra "affection" is lower. Prime examples would be Saudi Arabia, while at the other end of the spectrum would be Sweden. It sounds good, but on closer inspection it doesn't cut it. It seems that the swedes too are compensating, not by religion, but by consumerism, that was in opposition to my preconceived ideas. They are rather rich, too well fed(fat), they buy endless junk for there homes, modern medicine, very well educated, the Internet, machine slaves, too much TV, too much porn, low fertility(cutting corners, for more fun), etc... All this luxury is way too much for prehistoric people, they had periodic famines, wars, they owned what they could carry, leaches as standard medication, illiterate, etc.... This mean that prehistoric people had to compensate some how, the only possible thing that could do this for them is religion. Swed society is very secular, and she doesn't fall apart, quite the opposite actually, so that religion is somehow important for a human society, doesn't cut it. I my self i'm atheist, yet i'm not particularly immoral. Shame works as well as guilt, in social stability. But then whats the point that human beens are so fragile, that need psychological compensation? They just seems to simply cancel each other out, religion and high emotional fragility, compensation for compensation sake? People feel an emptiness inside them, that they must fill, for no good evolutionary reason?

I must be doing something wrong here, the evidence seems to suggest, that prehistoric people where religious, to cover up a weakness. Why natural selection would do that, simply make people tougher at a genetic level, seems far beater. There are various guesses we can com up with, but all don't feel right, they don't feel like typical natural selection hack, "scales become tooths", it feels different, for me, it feels like "the steam engine is too heavy". I got bored and had a break, what about having a look in to animals just for fun. You know, a state of mind like when you ask calculus questions to your gold fish while your brain heals. The hope is that by investigating painstakingly, a great number of different animals, we'll get inspired to something that extrapolates in to humans. We start by being very lazy, the mouse? Hmmm to stupid. The baboon? Too ugly. The chimp? Yes thats very good, but which 1. There are 2 species of chimp, the common chimp and the bonobo. The common chimp has a very brutal social life, apparently they are really tough at every level, they don't seem to compensate in some way. The bonobo is believed to be closer to the common ancestors of chimps and humans(5M years), they changed the least from the 3 species and his anatomy is less specialized than that of the common chimp, they are closer to humans then common chimps. Bonobo prominent feature of there social life, is that they engage casually in great quantity and variety of sex, basically all conceivable acts: bisexual, orgy, adult-child, none reproductive incest..... All this sex, is used as a social cohesion mechanism, its not useless fun. Conjecturing that bonobo behavior is the normal social behavior of humans, explains away the seemingly excessive emotional fragility( requiring compensation) in modern humans :) .....processing..... O_O hin???? What???? ..... I wrote that? In short, religion stems from our natural excessive need for sex, sex here being a social cohesion mechanism o_O . After all, truth is stranger than fiction(Mark Twain 1897), isn't it?

In 1793, Lazzaro Spallanzani, after countless experiments to find out where he got it wrong, finally concluded that bats see in the dark with their ears and mouths.

Yes, i really did noticed that the conclusion is a mater anti-mater explosion, but looking more closely the details seems to comfort the conjecture. Bonobos are the most obscene species on the planet, and its just a coincidence, that its our closest living relative? Us? the most dominant species on the planet? Too many weird coincidences. Actually, the mere fact that on its own the theory combines so many hot potatoes, really really over all scales of controversy, hints that its really into something here. Coincidence? Again? Its so unbelievable, that it has to be true. And it smells social engineering. Its a scientific theory, and i'm doing my best with the available data. If the data points to something extremely controversial, wheeeel, so be it. It wouldn't be the first time the ancients, got it completely wrong.

Funny story. Sounds unbelievable. Probably true.(Rorschach)

4.1 bis Freudian syntax

The theory in Freudian syntax would give: People want a lot of forbidden sex(promiscuity, bisexuality, incest, etc), because its socially unacceptable, the desires are pushed in to the unconscious. From there, a projection is done to other alternatives, today its to consumerisms, in the not so distant past it was religion, and there was no projection 10-50.000 years ago. Oedipus complex and other Freudian sexual suppression theories are just special cases of this theory. Yes, thats right, Freud actually was right to recognise the importance of sex drive in human motivation. I think i'll hide behind him. 4.3 The devil is in the details

Keep in mind that writing was not invented until around 4000BC, and of course the older, the worse quality gets. So we have no other choice then doing a lot of guessing, for the periods before that. Bonobo-like society, comes packaged, you can not cherry pick what you like, its all of them simultaneously or none of them.

4.3.1 our dear ancestors

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Our last common human/bonobo/CommonChimp ancestor lived 5 million years ago. His social structure was probably very similar to that of todays bonobos(if we are really hard wired like bonobos, its reasonable to expect that). None violent, a lot of sex(oversexed) with everybody, with social cohesion and conflict resolution in mind. Its like the emoticons on the Internet, but in reverse. Heterosexual, homosexual, lesbian, group sex, polygynandry, adult-child, none reproductive incest, they even invented a sex position of there own(4 hands). Young bonobos are initiated by there own mothers, and participate as soon they are physically able. Incest is ok, as long as its not between a mother and her adult son, females leave the group at puberty so theres no issue with them.

Zoophilia between scientists and bonobos O_O :

They also comunicate through touch, but while infants want cudles for reassurance, older bonobos require the researchers to masturbate them during scientific tests. "When we have them in the testing room and they don't understand what's going on, they will scream and screech. They have a high-pitched voice and will waggle their crotch towards us. At the beginning I thought, 'Do we realy have to?' But it's more like if we don't do it now they will not do the test."[...]"It calms them down, it regulates tension, it reassures them that you are friendly and that you have friendly intentions and you won't hurt them."

Weeeeeeeeell, it's not so much we give them a hand job, its more that the girls want to g-g rub you and if you hold out your hand they will drag their clitoruses across it a few times, and the boys just want a reassuring pat on their penis. Does that count?

But things aren't perfect, they have there share of violence, zoos, can attest with stories of bitten off fingers and penises(ouch), but no death, as of yet, physical violence is kind of similar with what we do to each other. If they where perfectly pacifist, then they would be no need for extra social cohesion mechanism. Reproductive sex is actually secondary and overwhelmingly overtaken by social cohesion. Evolution, can't do much more then tinker with whats already there, this kind of recycling( sex for cohesion) is the norm, remember how we evolved(scales-->tooths). Of course they are higher and lower status individuals, that get different amounts of attention, but not the usual pronounced sharp difference, of all or nothing.

Notice, that such a social environment exerts quite unusual selective pressures. Its not that they are shovels and shovels of species behaving like the bonobos, they are really unique, alone in its category. So it would be an amazing coincidence, that the closest species to the dominant species of the planet, has these quirks, that are completely unrelated to our over sized brains. That would be 2 very unusual events happening, 1 next to the other. Probably the social situation exacerbated brain competition, when it started, by preserving very high female choice on mating(marriage is restrictive by design). Further more, our sex taboos seem to overlap with there sex customs, an other suspicious coincidence. If we are in our natural social condition, why all this taboo creep?

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We are really big pervs, depending on the individual, we are preoccupied about what kind of sex we will do, or what kind of sex should be forbidden. Julius Caesar was a dictator, he overthrew the roman republic, made him self emperor, renamed after him self the month of July(Ruhnama, any 1?), an absolute ruler over the greatest empire the region had ever seen and caused a civil war. What people payed attention to? His affair with Cleopatra of course, what else. By standards of other animals this oversexism is greatly unusual, this hints of something out of the ordinary is going on. Other animals get exited for copulation, only certain periods of the year, clearly here copulation is for reproduction. Plenty of monogamous animals experience seasonal heat, so monogamy can't account for it. They would get repulsed, the same way we are repulsed by female chimps extreme slutiness, 10 males in 15 minutes. Even when a society is sex oppressive, she must exert a great deal of pressure to keep everybody in line, betraying that she goes against our nature. Common chimps deviate greatly from this, they are total survivors, there social life is rather brutal. Actually they look, the way we should be, tough enough to live at relative ease in there environment, no psychological compensation needed. We and bonobos on the other hand are delicate creatures. In WWII bombs dropped in a zoo of Germany, the bonobos died from the fright, while the chimps weren't visibly affected. It would be interesting to make various psychological experiments on bonobos, like sex deprivation of various degrees, growing up in a human like social environment, compensations... etc, but they are threaten with extinction.

Bonobos have changed the least (and probably never left there forests), and are closer to us, under this theory our normal behavior would be very similar to that of bonobos and our ancestors from at least 5 million years ago where wired to behave in this way, until +/- 10.000 years ago. If this true, then theres ground to reclassify humans, from "homo sapiens sapiens" to "pan sapiens sapiens" (pan = chimps, Pan paniscus = bonobo, Pan troglodytes = common chimp), stressing the fact we are animals and still part of nature. Reclassifying chimps as homo would have a weaker educational effect, simply singling out some special species. Setting up a classification where we are all alone in our group was 18th century navel gazing anthropocentric narcissism anyway.

4.3.2 genetics

Some direct genetic evidence for human promiscuity in our genes. Of course they are others.

Bonobos share 98% of there genes with us, thats about the distance between a fox and a dog. This means what it means.

Human penises, have a rather unusual and unique shape. The edges of the gland seem to be optimized to scoop out the semen of the rivals, (tested experimentally, yes various designs of latex penises where tested on latex vaginas) male refractory period is to avoid scooping his own semen. Presumably circumcision helps here, it reduces the chance that residue of scooped foreign sperm will fertilize an other woman(the official spouse), however the foreskin is probably there for protection reasons(fixed this with underwear). This feature is present at a lower extent in bonobos. In contrast, Gorillas have harems, and there penises are the bare minimum(petite).

Size of testicles: In gorillas, the alpha male has a harem and he is the boss, females are extremely faithful, believe it, your testicles are bigger then his. Chimps have huge testicles, they try to drown the rivals. We are in between, comparable to the bonobos. We are not extremely faithful as the gorillas, but not extremely promiscuous as in the chimps. Typically 10 males in 15 minutes, thats not human, the females try to blur paternity as much as possible, to avoid infanticide later, they copulate with as much males they physically can. Thats the evolutionary rational, female chimps only know that they are extremely horny, and males that they are jealous. Women(and female bonobos) have a real choice, in opposition to chimps and gorillas. Technically, it seems that 1/4 of our testicles would be enough(gorilla proportions), if there was no competition at all. If you had any illusions about faithfulness, testicular size simply seals the issue.

Sperm quality. Gorilla sperm, is not only less abundant, it is weak and doesn't know where the north is. Chimps sperm, is the grand armee of Napoleon, strong and fucking serious in his job. Human sperm is less hardened.

Sperm, can survive up to 3 days in the vagina. So any sperm competition trick is relevant only if females have vaginal sex with different males inside a period of 3 days. On top of this, none vaginal sex is discounted from sperm competition. Anal sex technology further pushes sperm competition down in humans, when compared with bonobos that don't practice it. Its a reasonable assumption that anal sex artificial lubrication was invented before fire use (+/-2M) but after humans/chimp/bonobo split (+/-5M). Frequency of copulation required for a successful impregnation is very high in bonobos and humans, alpha males win by there higher proportion of copulation, not by exclusivity. In contrast in chimps and Gorillas, copulation happens only when the female is ovulating. Presumably in humans and bonobos, this dilutes the pressure of sperm competition, hence smaller testicles then chimps. Chimps have to give all they've got at 1 go, simultaneously with, almost all the males of the group... and even some from neighboring groups. In human/bonobos, sperm competes with males of the last 3 days(5?), not the entire village and beyond(10s).

Sex drive in chimps and bonobos is high because of there slutty females. In gorillas sex drive is minimal, because the females of the harem are faithful. Humans have a high sex drive, so theres no way our females are very faithful.

Oestrus in women is hidden, even from them selves, in bonobos the period when they are sexually receptive is very extended. Hmmm, maybe its not oestrus that is hidden, but the period of none sexual receptiveness that got completely suppressed, but anyway. Presumably hidden oestrus coupled with promiscuity, completely obfuscates paternity, this way the males can't be sure which larva is theres, unlace they happen to have a lab. Hmm, maybe in us, oestrus got completely hidden because we got too smart, it is supposed that animals can't make the link, between copulation and babies, we surpassed that level a while now. So natural selection will make males docile and cooperative, no infanticide, no cheating aloud, they have to take care of all babies. And of course, they would have no other choice then to copulate continuously, if they want to have a chance to impregnate any female. In a monogamous species, why hide oestrus? Its too much work for no money.

Men/women size ratio is low, indicating a relative equality between men and women. In chimps and gorillas, the males are much bigger, wile in bonobos the size difference is the lowest of the 3. Complicating factors: Males are supposed to protect the females, so pressure for bigger size. A demanding pregnancy(big brain), developed important fat reserves(like a camel) in the buttocks and breast for the bad times(they had no fridge). A smaller size of women makes economies in food, so more food is available for the pregnancy. Size ratios could serve as proxies for investigating social behavior of our ancestors, social behavior doesn't fossilize very well; Pre-split bonobo/human ancestors(over 5M years), as well dead end branching species. Very interesting to see f/m ratios for the last millions of years.

As we where getting smart, primitive birth control tricks gradually got introduced, having some none 0 genetic contribution. Thus promiscuity's genetic inprints, got depressed.

Paternity tests show, that an important % of children are illegitimate, products of extramarital affairs, definitively we are not monogamous.

Women that live together, have there cycles synchronized. The reason escapes me, but it seems somehow relevant here.

It's still too early to tell, but up to now, the most important genetic differences with chimps are in brain cortex, language genes, immune system, etc. Not social aspects, that it would be probably some where in the limbic system. For now, at the most, genetic changes of social aspects with chimps/bonobos where "not huge". Under this theory, we should find social genes similarities with bonobos, but dissimilarities with chimps. Looking in the genes that, changed the most between bonobos/chimps(from a total of 0,4%) and simultaneously the least changed between humans/bonobos; hopefully should narrow down the search considerably. Hmm 0,4% max, that's our luck smiling, its doable to seal the truthfulness or not of the conjecture in just a couple of years. We have to keep in mind that this is still a 5M years distance. Investigation with Neanderthal genome(<30.000) is at the point of becoming technically feasible, interesting because they split 400K-500K years ago. Successful extraction from millions of years old fossils has never being done(yet?), neither from secondary sources(amber mosquitoes fossils... ). So for our older ancestors, gene comparisons will not happen any time soon. Behavior doesn't fossilize very well, but size ratios proxies(hint female/male equality) should give some vague hints for what happened between gorilla and bonobos splits(7M).

Note: Its reasonable to expect, that transgenerational epigenetic factors, widen a bit, the observed differences between bonobos/humans on the issues of interest, because of our different recent historical experiences.

4.3.3 great leap forward

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Around 10.000 years ago, dramatic climatic change occurred(end of ice age), a lot of species that needed from 100s of 1000s of years to millions of years to evolve went extinct(Quaternary extinction event), this show that climatic change was way out of usual cycle. The human hunting driven extinction theory, seams to be the most popular, but i'm not convinced by it. Among its problems: it overstate our importance back then (probably, proponents are overtrained by our current environmental impact) and doesn't explain what started the hunting spree in the first place. So, even this theory, silently assumes something weird and unusual happened to us. In my opinion, the apparent start of extinctions when humans colonize a place, is correlated with the climatic change that permitted the human colonization. The remaining theories are not very credible, but again consequences on humans are expected.

The most popularly known extinction was that of the woolly mammoths, the very last mammoths, died out in 1,650 BC, but where almost totally decimated well before that(12.000). The most notable extinctions were human species(that we know of), Homo neanderthalensis (24000) and Homo floresiensis(12000), today is the first time in geological history that theres only 1 species of humans. Some examples of less know casualties: the woolly rhino (8000), saber tooth (9000), Doedicurus (11000), Macrauchenia (20000), Megatherium (8000), european lion (10000). The numbers suggest a prolonged and gradual degradation, in which fragile beings died out first, while the toughest resisted longer. Other sign that something unusual happened 10.000 years ago, is the human colonization of the Americas around that time.

This climate change had a profound impact on humans, we didn't went extinct, but we had to adapt to the new situation, we suddenly invented agriculture, human societies had to adapt as well. Well, probably we had notions of agriculture from times imemorable, but we never based our food supply on agriculture. You have to keep in mind, that they had to invent everything, even which plant to use, and those plants where wild, with very low productivity. A clear indication that agriculture began forcibly on our ancestors, is that the health of skeletons around that time went way down. Even the size of there brains shrunk due to the bad nutrition. An indication that the last 10.000 years weren't easy, is the 100-fold acceleration of genetic human evolution in that period (increased selective pressure). The fact is that modern humans are basically the same since 100K years ago, an impressive change force them to initiate the civilizational revolutions of unprecedented scale, to the point of being the unchallenged boss of the planet. We went from, just an animal among others, to despotic rulers, while genetically we didn't change. I'm not trying to do a course in history, i'm demonstrating that there was a severe environmental stress on our ancestors, close to 10.000 years ago, that forced them to adapt in order to survive(and got too successful).

A slight nuance to the above, is a more protracted change, over a longer period of time. Technological revolution( great leap forward) in the fossil record start at 50.000 years ago, most probably again due to climatic issues. The Quaternary extinction event, would just be the peak of the climatic anomaly. We can fit in the continuum, the exodus from africa (60.000) and the colonization of australia(50-70.000). So, actual human social evolution that interest us here, would have happened between 10 and 60.000 years ago, probably closer to 10 then 60.000. Even in the worse case scenario(60.000), its too short for radical evolution to occur, genetic differences among human are still very small, despite the fact that for example, australians and africans where genetically separated for 50.000 years.

The Toba catastrophe,happened 70-75.000 years ago, a super-volcano eruption, the most powerful in the last 2-25M years, reducing total homo sapiens population(then, in africa only) possibly to 2-20.000 (mitDNA). Thats an other candidate for inducing change of that magnitude, at least first stages. Its an event of different quality then climate change, it could have triggered an exponential change (exponentials= extremely slow at the beginning, insanely fast at the end). Modern humans get out of africa to eurasia 60.000 years ago and arrived in Australia 50-70.000s years ago. All those populations today have "normal" sexual behavior, so that could put the change at 1 time 75.000s years ago, and not everywhere but independently 60-10.000 years ago. Independent planetary sexual behavior change is not so far fetched as it seams. Apparently agriculture got reinvented several times(wheat,rice,corn,etc), pyramids(Egyptian,Inca,etc), writing, etc... So inventing "normal" or "modern" sexuality, seams not impossible. The Americas where colonized last 10.000 years ago, so we can ignore it. If this theory is true, bonobo like society still apply to us, because it was a cultural adaptation, not a genetic adaptation. Granted that 70.000 years start to get too long, but i assume, its total effect lagged considerably in time. It triggered an exponential change, an insignificant initial change that fed to it self. The bulk of the change happened at the end, in the last 10.000 and especially in the last centuries, so the 70.000 years don't mater that much. Under this perspective, the human hunting driven extinction theory of the Quaternary extinction event, has his initial trigger.

A little reverse example that this "civilizational" change can indeed happen, is with a group of baboons near a land field. The land field is source of abundant food, for the group. The most ugly and despotic males, make sure they where the 1s that got the best stuff. Because of the land field, the baboons cached tuberculosis and a lot died, especially affected where the ugly despotic males, since they ate more junk food then the others. The effect on the group was surprising, an important swing to pacifism and egalitarianism, that still is maintained 20 years later, a very long time for baboons. Hmmm, is it that many other social species got violent, because of deregulated climate/volcano and still are, in the same way we got deregulated?

Trying to guess the life of prehistoric people by looking todays hunter gatherers is very perilous, these people have often complex histories of sendentarisations and renomadisations, migrations, important cultural contact with other civilizations, wars, ... It's believed, prehistoric societies where anarcho-comunist. As hunter gatherers life, meant they couldn't reach very high population densities, so everybody new everybody else, so this simplifies considerably administration. While being nomadic meant that it was impossible to own much, since you had to carry everything. If this sounds like an utopia, its because it was, this is not surprising, we got adapted best to this life style after millions of years of living like that. Basically i'm saying that prehistoric societies where structured close to that of bonobos, and severe extrinsic stress messed things up. This would excuse humanity's behavior from all its crimes, we are just environmentally stressed animals, and stressed animal are always violent.

In all cases, the civilization revolution, didn't happen just by our own free will. Something extrinsic and severe enough must have triggered it.

4.3.4 Big group organization

clic me incarnation of Horus

Social grooming takes time and energy, any individual can deploy a finite quantity. Depending on the political structure, the grooming effort must be redeployed, in order to preserve cohesion.

Sedentarisation, authorized private wealth, rendering inequalities possible, something completely new for people back then, no or weak inequality mitigating structures. When agriculture was finally mastered, this lead to demographic explosion. People progressively organized in too clans, tribes and finally the first states, this completely blow up the foundation of there society. For the first time ever, humans could interact with so many humans, that they couldn't know everybody, the system simply couldn't scale up, they had to improvise, so here is where religion was introduced. In this environment social cohesion, can't be achieved with sex, there are just too many people. People can't know each other, but they can all know common friends to act as intermediates, they redirected part of there "affection" needs to gods(same neural rules as promiscuity). Most probably, there were first waves of sexual oppression in the period before writing, more or less proportional to the level of centralization of the political system of the time. After the invention of writing the oppressive trend simply continued, again in correlation to the contemporary political system.

Around these periods, they invented marriage for procreation purposes, taking in to account the inequality of society and formalize alliance building. It regulates, a previously unregulated activity, in a basically communist economy(all females cared for). Now the rich and powerful took more then there fair share of resources, so the females run away towards them. The details can be quite complicated and messy, many variations where possible, for example monogamy, polygyny, modulation in women's rights, dowries, etc. An other innovation was corporal punishment of children. Not very effective in education, but not a big deal since this is not its primary purpose. CP helps break down cooperation among people by increasing aggressivity. This way, they become dependent to the central authority. With out it people would have a tendency to allie in groups against each other.

its not just a perversion Organize, a lot of litle fish can eat a big 1

You have to keep in mind that the very first cities, had to invent everything, basically there was no state, they made it up from scratch with no prior model, no rule of law, there was anarchy, no police, no courts, no army, no firemen, zip. We take many things for granted, but as certain failed african states demonstrate (or the situation in certain french suburbs, or unruly students etc....), these things don't just happen automatically. First civilizations where theocracies, so that everybody's common friends(gods) put some order in the chaos. First rulers, draw there legitimacy from the gods, its beater to have a dictator then total anarchy (its beater to have Saddam Hussein then live in Somalia, where every clan has rocket propelled grenades and there are no firemen). When the population was illiterate, dictators genuinely gave beater results then the alternative(anarchy), hence dictatorial societies simply imposed them selves on less structured 1s. If there wasn't some advantage in dictatorships, dictatorships wouldn't have lasted, they would have been overtaken by something else( with literacy democracy becomes viable). Of course this was the product of cultural evolution, it wasn't a conspiracy from a cabal in order to rule the other suckers.

Cultural evolution happened for practical reasons. Dictators, of the type of Ruhnama dude, for centuries and centuries, didn't left cultures unscarred. Old elites created all sex taboos/phobias (to divide and weaken the population under them). More specifically, monogamy helped to stifle alliances. Child corporal punishment is an other trick( increase mistrust in others). On top of "the stick", there is also the "carrot" of course, mainly through religion, old dictators used a lot of cult tricks( love bombing). Cohesive groups have disproportionately more influence then there simple size would suggest, due to social instincts and simple statistics. The reverse stays true, isolated individuals have disproportionately less influence. Dictators know this very well, thats why they try to brake, even the more mundane looking of gatherings, let alone permit the slightest form of promiscuity. The very first elites/aristocrats, where most probably nothing more then gangsters, selling there protection. Today's elites are attempting something similar with anti-piracy laws(Jammie Thomas-Rasset fined 1.920.000$ for 24 songs). If they where able to torture and kill offenders, they would be able eventually to impose a piracy taboo/phobia. Today, consumerism has a dividing effect on the population, thus protecting centralization. Probably, contemporary elites, know instinctively, that if consumption goes down, they are in trouble, they probably have the explanation wrong.

I remind you that Ruhnama dude like phenomenon, isn't rare, hinted by Julius Caesar(July), Augustus(august), Qin(china), etc. Today past dictators are romanticized, if the Taj Mahal was built today, it would be seen no differently then the 100 million mosque in the middle of the desert. Ruhnama extravagance shows that interventions of social character, for well thought or purely ideological reasons are quite possible. There's a dictators evolution, favoring those that willingly or just by chance render and maintain there serfs more obedient. Thus complementing the shift away from bonobo like societies. Of course the 2 can add up, a dictatorship is preferable to people then having anarchy.

4.3.5 culture

The gigantic variation among cultures, through space and time, for complex reasons, is consistent with the theory, hinting at a minimum, that not many, or even any contemporary society lives according to what there brains is hard wired for. This variation can't be normal, among all primates, humans have the most diverse societies. In 1 end of the scale, rather ancient and sex positive civilizations, like ancient greeks(pederasty), pacific islanders(sex positive) to the Saudis and Amish in the other end of the scale. Presumably pederasty custom has its roots in the times imemorable general behavior, the ancient greeks where the most famous, but by no mean abnormal by ancient standards. Pacific islander, had to adapt to there environment, tiny islands often separated by huge distances, to reduce inbreeding as much as possible, they had to be very sex positive, in order to not miss the rare chances they had to mix with foreign blood. For the Saudis, probably the deserts, more or less directly, didn't make them very sex positive.

A general trend that detaches, is that as we go back in time. Societies become more and more, sex positive, up until the beginning of writing(4000 BC). Beyond that we can't have accounts of direct witnesses. So the assumption here is that we can extrapolate this trend backwards.

Is it possible that we are that off, from our hard wiring? Culture can have a important effect on what people consider acceptable, good and beautiful.

The tradition of excision, in the mildest form, the clitoris is cut off. The most severe(infibulation), labias minoras are cut off too and the labias magoras are sewed together so that they cicatrize and fuse together. All this with out anesthesia of course, on young girls. For giving birth, the labias are cut open, after delivery they are resewed, this happens every time they give birth, and for the populations concerned, thats around 6-7 times, and with no anesthesia of course. This sound cruel and barbaric, but people practicing it, are genuinely convinced they are doing a good thing for there children, they are just normal average people, they aren't sick.

An other impressive case, was chinese foot binding(缠足), the foots of the girls are tied at a very young age, so that they get molded in the particular small shape. Initially the bones where broken and folded in shape, gradually tightening the bond. Of course this was very painful, and done with out anesthesia. The girls where then forced to walk on there broken foots so that they get molded beater. Infections was frequent, developing in to gangrene and toes where falling off, this was considered a blessing since the foots could be molded even smaller. These infections could some time be lethal. Long term consequences: difficult mobility, foot refractures, fungi infections in the folds, etc. What today would be considered a monstrosity, back then was considered, good, very beautiful and erotic. The Chinese weren't sick, they where normal people, they really believed that the practice was ok.

In Mauritania, fat women are considered beautiful. So traditionally, girls are fatten by being force fed camels milk, +/-15 liters a day. This is done with 2 sticks that clamp there fingers/toes, so that the intense pain averts the vomiting reflex, forbidding them to move(preserve calories) and other physical abuses, up to feeding them there own vomit. They can get killed(stomach rupture), have finger/toes broken and later they can develop diabetes, heart disease, gallstones, arthritis, etc... Again, for these people, this custom is perfectly normal.(obese girls get early puberty, and they get married young there, a connection?)

In these extremely brutal cases, normal people are convinced, that they are doing something right and normal. These people are normal and sane, they aren't sick. I want to show here that the brain, with apparent complete arbitrariness, can come to consider as normal a huge variety of behavior. So a society with a bonobo like behavior, is within what our brains is capable of considering as normal and right. And its with in the realm of possible, that we indeed greatly deviated from this initial condition.

And a little secondary theory on sent.

Sent plays a role in sexual arousal. Sent(pheromones) communicates information about the quality of an individual as a mate. I speculate, that historically, individual sent was suppressed, either with perfumes, either with bathing, in order to help suppress the sexual urges. Since proper understanding of germ theory, the focus moved to bathing, at the expense of perfumes. An indication that we are overdoing it with cleanliness, is the increased prevalence of autoimmune diseases. The immune system, knows it should be responding to a certain quota of attacks. If it doesn't reach the quota, it increases its sensibility until it reaches its quota( as usual, the body assumes, its the 1 that is broken). What is washed away, its not just dirt(that too), its our natural sent, all animals smell something, and not nothing. Secondarily, our sense of sent got oversensibilise, since it doesn't detect its wired quota per day, hence became less tolerant of strong(normal) sents( distinction, between smelling strongly and stinking). A couple of examples: Various religions prescribes bathing. In Islam, bathing(Ghusl, غسل) is a condition so that a prayer is considered valid. In europe, this got through medicine by the "miasma theory", bad smells carried diseases, so perfuming the place, keeped diseases away.

4.3.6 psy

pop out and full size completely uninhibited and smart monkey. your browser does not support the video tag, install

Freud, wasn't that wrong after all.

Simple animals like insects, are hard wired down to the slightest wiggle of there antenna. However, we are capable of taking in to account the environment and adapt to it. So we enjoy a important degree of maneuver, albeit its not really freedom.

However there are limits, whats especially important in us, is what we learn as children. Like the little monkey that was scared of white bunnies, in a similar way, what we learn as children gets cemented. And basically theres an important degree of arbitrariness injected in our behaviors. The disgust urge, has no much rationality in it, the apple juice was fine, the decorative real cockroach was sterile, so whats the problem? Why don't you drink? Not thirsty? Example of completely baseless social behavior, the Osu in Nigeria are live human sacrifices to the spirits, consisting of being untouchable, shunned from society and there status is past on to the next generations. This phenomenon account for the huge variability in world cultures, including the extream cases like excision and foot binding.

An important complicating factor is the catastrophic beliefs of the phobias( rationalization for the irrational fear). People don't have a profound understanding of the issues of interest, like for example the real threat that represents a sterile cockroach. Its not trivial to asses if certain sexual practices are really harmless. So the equivalent of "sterile cockroaches are dangerous" can really stand. As with standard catastrophic beliefs, the beliefs here maintains the phobia, preventing the verification of the real dangerosity of the event of interest by the brain( prevents desensitization).

About a bonobo-like human society: You feel uncomfortable about it, for a similar reason as the little monkey was scared of white bunnies, you simply learned it as a child. Higher rate of physical affection on children/adolescents correspond to societies with much lower rates of violence. So a bonobo like affectionate human society should proportionally have lower rates of general violence. Remember the prison and obedience experiment, you are a poor judge of what you would do in a given situation, you must be put in the situation to know for sure. Somatosensory-affectional deprivation theory (S-SAD) is pushed to its ultimate conclusion. A selective advantage, natural selection should push us in that direction. In practice affectionate would mean, extended breastfeeding, extended use of baby carriers and in general very open sexually.

Peoples "affection quota"(cohesive factor) isn't being reached by standard behavior, they are always looking for some form of substitute. The quota, prehistorically should have being reached(supposedly) by bonobo-like "perversion". Without its role in group cohesion, this substitute is just absurd and meaningless, like the colony instincts of a lonely ant. Currently we are like lonely ants in search of a colony substitute.

Its hear say and anecdotal evidence, but that homosexuals are less violent could be accounted for in there higher then average promiscuity. Presumably they are more promiscuous, because societal taboo focus is about heterosexual promiscuity, totally irrelevant to them(mechanism like that of the necrophiles). Societal taboo, only says, homosexuality is wrong, once that is gone, societal taboo is weak.

3 gays attacked a woman. 2 held her down and 1 brushed her hair

whats that thing‽‽‽‽‽

Our customs evolve back to .... normal, today a strong democratic modern state takes the place of gods as common friends, with the rule of law, the police, the courts, the army, power legitimacy, etc... More importantly, democracy, lowers inequality, rendering re-emergence in practice possible. Other wise women would simply run away to the rich. So, i'm making a prediction, say in some centuries, tops, we will be completely sexually liberated(the influence of this text is assumed 0, too pretentious to assume other wise). If we have a look at the evolution of morals the last centuries, a trend appears to that direction. Today, whats all this wave of unbridled promiscuity among teenagers? Maybe there brains knows something that we don't. You knew already that we gradually get more and more liberal, i'm just saying that it will go much further then any 1 seriously ever imagined, we are not even at half of it.

Evolution doesn't just magically happen, random changes first occur, and then the 1s that are actually good for the creature are retained. Similarly with cultural evolution, all the changes that lead to that future, at first happen at random, and simply because they are truly beneficial, spread to the entire population. New waves of change add them selves on top of the previous waves, and so on.

New communication technologies, have accelerating effects. In general, commercial mass media always provocatively test the limits, in order to differentiate there products from the competition. Especially powerful is the Internet, due to his point to point capabilities. Any perversion, you can imagine, you can't imagine and don't want to imagine, floats in there, and its completely uncensored. The assumption here is that increase exposure, brings sensibilities down, hence a catalyzing effect. The brain always tries to generalize, hence theres always crosstalking between issues.

4.3.7 past taboos

Those that don't understand the past are deemed to repeat it.

If we want to understand where we are going, we must know where we come from. Our not so distant past was very sex negative, a couple of centuries ago, we(europe) where comparable with the taliban.

Not so long ago.

Socially disproved activities: masturbation. Illegal activities: Premarital sex, adultery, fornication, oral and anal sex(sodomy), mixed race marriages, divorce, abortion, pornography, erotic literature, etc....   Death penalty: Homosexuality. Merenge dance was illegal, deemed too "hot". Victorian morals where exaggerated, but there was indeed something to exaggerate from. Various tales were for the sexual training of little girls. With little imagination you can spot the underlying moralistic meaning: Little red ridden hood(wolf = men, don't be a slut), Sleeping Beauty(wait until marriage, don't be a slut), The Frog Prince(submit to arrange marriage with old goat, don't be a slut), Beauty and the beast(old goat, don't be a slut), Snow white(wait for marriage, don't be a slut) ... Keep in mind that contemporary versions where watered down, in order not to scare the kids. For example: In little red ridden hood, theres no woodcutter, she just get raped. In snow white, the prince has sex with her and the movement dislodges the apple, no, he didn't knew she was alive. Judith A. Reisman(1935-), no comment:

erototoxins

Erotic literature was illegal, yes thats right, just "obscene" text, no images.

works written for the single purpose of corrupting the morals of youth and of a nature calculated to shock the common feelings of decency in any well-regulated mind. (Lord Chief Justice, UK and Ireland, 1857)

Some quotes of times past about masturbation. These are not odd balls of there time, where dead serious, and society was behind them. Todays anti smoking campaigns are leaner. Don't forget, kids where told similar things.

device(Cu) to unsure little boys didn't commit the sin of "self pollution", 19th century france

New Haven, Connecticut 1640s death penalty for

blasphemers, homosexuals and masturbators

.   A 1710 pamphlet titled:

Onania, or the Heinous Sin of Self-Pollution and All Its Frightful Consequences in Both Sexes, Considered with Spiritual and Physical Advice To Those Who Have Already Injured Themselves By This Abominable Practice

Consequences according to Dr. Samuel-Auguste Tissot 1760:

consumption, deterioration of eyesight, disorders of digestion, impotence, and insanity. [...] a perceptible reduction of strength, of memory and even of reason; blurred vision, all the nervous disorders, all types of gout and rheumatism, weakening of the organs of generation, blood in the urine, disturbance of the appetite, headaches and a great number of other disorders.

Consequences according to Dr. Benjamin Rus 1812:

seminal weakness, impotence, dysury, tabes dorsalis, pulmonary consumption, dyspepsia, dimness of sight, vertigo, epilepsy, hypochondriasis, loss of memory, manalgia, fatuity, and death.

Consequences according to Dr. Henry Maudsley 1867:

extreme perversion of feeling and corresponding derangement of thought, in earlier stages, and later by failure of intelligence, nocturnal halucinations, and suicidal and homicidal propensities.

From Dr. John H. Kellogg(1852-1943), yes the 1 of the breakfast cereals:

the silent killer of the night

Today: Survivor of times past, "Masturbation makes you blind". Just to show it was very wide spread, in frecnh its "deaf"(i'm not french). Today they are too many recognized benefits to count.

What we found was men who ejaculated most (more than five times a week) in their 20s, 30s and 40s had about a third less prostate cancer risk than men in the lowest category of ejaculation. (2003 Graham Giles et al, of the Cancer Council Victoria)

These people where normal, like you. There where convinced that there ways couldn't get any more normal. You too, are convinced that your behavior can't get any more normal. You are appalled by the projected evolution of society. But you also know that morals kept changing up until the people immediately behind you. Is this simply an amazing coincidence, that you are the first generation with truthfully good normality, in opposition with our recent ancestors that felt oppressed or acted sadistically or where plainly stupid? Or that simply a mechanism in your brain, fixes a series of arbitrary behaviors as what normality is and our recent ancestors where as convinced as you?

Remember, what you learn about the world, can have deep impact on you. The normal children of retarded parents that become them selves retarded is the most extream impact. Obesity and anorexia, are example of less extream neuronal deregulation. More universal example, the insectophagy taboo, its perfectly good food you know.