The Deciders

[Signora Pæsior]

No sorry that last paragraph was mostly an aside and absolutely not the main thing I was trying to say. The main thing is that gender roles are clearly not biologically determinedinnate, and anything that we're used to thinking of as "natural" deserves some very suspicious scrutiny.

EDITED for terminology (see strikethrough).

So homosexuality is largely a socially determined thing, a choice?

Homosexuality is not gender roles.

Also I side-eye the fuck out of anyone who claims society in general views homosexuality as natural.

[Faust]

No sorry that last paragraph was mostly an aside and absolutely not the main thing I was trying to say. The main thing is that gender roles are clearly not biologically determinedinnate, and anything that we're used to thinking of as "natural" deserves some very suspicious scrutiny.

EDITED for terminology (see strikethrough).

So homosexuality is largely a socially determined thing, a choice?

Homosexuality is not gender roles.

Also I side-eye the fuck out of anyone who claims society in general views homosexuality as natural.

Even if it is not a gender role, is it biologicaly driven or experience driven?
Homosexuality occurs in over populations of male cats, I don't know if that is environment driven or biological. I don't know thats why I am asking.

[Signora Pæsior]

No sorry that last paragraph was mostly an aside and absolutely not the main thing I was trying to say. The main thing is that gender roles are clearly not biologically determinedinnate, and anything that we're used to thinking of as "natural" deserves some very suspicious scrutiny.

EDITED for terminology (see strikethrough).

So homosexuality is largely a socially determined thing, a choice?

Homosexuality is not gender roles.

Also I side-eye the fuck out of anyone who claims society in general views homosexuality as natural.

Even if it is not a gender role, is it biologicaly driven or experience driven?
Homosexuality occurs in over populations of male cats, I don't know if that is environment driven or biological. I don't know thats why I am asking.

Is heterosexuality biologically driven or experience driven?

[Faust]

No sorry that last paragraph was mostly an aside and absolutely not the main thing I was trying to say. The main thing is that gender roles are clearly not biologically determinedinnate, and anything that we're used to thinking of as "natural" deserves some very suspicious scrutiny.

EDITED for terminology (see strikethrough).

So homosexuality is largely a socially determined thing, a choice?

Homosexuality is not gender roles.

Also I side-eye the fuck out of anyone who claims society in general views homosexuality as natural.

Even if it is not a gender role, is it biologicaly driven or experience driven?
Homosexuality occurs in over populations of male cats, I don't know if that is environment driven or biological. I don't know thats why I am asking.

Is heterosexuality biologically driven or experience driven?

That's what I am asking.

[Signora Pæsior]

No sorry that last paragraph was mostly an aside and absolutely not the main thing I was trying to say. The main thing is that gender roles are clearly not biologically determinedinnate, and anything that we're used to thinking of as "natural" deserves some very suspicious scrutiny.

EDITED for terminology (see strikethrough).

So homosexuality is largely a socially determined thing, a choice?

Homosexuality is not gender roles.

Also I side-eye the fuck out of anyone who claims society in general views homosexuality as natural.

Even if it is not a gender role, is it biologicaly driven or experience driven?
Homosexuality occurs in over populations of male cats, I don't know if that is environment driven or biological. I don't know thats why I am asking.

Is heterosexuality biologically driven or experience driven?

That's what I am asking.

Nope. You're asking about homosexuality, specifically, which is quite different to asking about sexual orientation in general.

[Faust]

No sorry that last paragraph was mostly an aside and absolutely not the main thing I was trying to say. The main thing is that gender roles are clearly not biologically determinedinnate, and anything that we're used to thinking of as "natural" deserves some very suspicious scrutiny.

EDITED for terminology (see strikethrough).

So homosexuality is largely a socially determined thing, a choice?

Homosexuality is not gender roles.

Also I side-eye the fuck out of anyone who claims society in general views homosexuality as natural.

Even if it is not a gender role, is it biologicaly driven or experience driven?
Homosexuality occurs in over populations of male cats, I don't know if that is environment driven or biological. I don't know thats why I am asking.

Is heterosexuality biologically driven or experience driven?

That's what I am asking.

Nope. You're asking about homosexuality, specifically, which is quite different to asking about sexual orientation in general.

I asked it because of the powder keg associated with it, if I had asked about hetrosexuality I don't think it would get the desired effect.
So I'll ask it now, is sexuality biologically driven or experience driven?

[P3nT4gR4m]

No sorry that last paragraph was mostly an aside and absolutely not the main thing I was trying to say. The main thing is that gender roles are clearly not biologically determinedinnate, and anything that we're used to thinking of as "natural" deserves some very suspicious scrutiny.

EDITED for terminology (see strikethrough).

So males fit their gender role, bigger, stronger more aggressive, because of our culture, which programmed the biology? I can't get my head around this part. I'm sure you're not, but I'm reading it as there's no such thing as "natural" everything that happens in biology was agreed in a meeting. That's Intelligent Design?

I'm not accusing you of being that dumb, so please don't take this as an insult or me being obstinate. I'd just appreciate if you could try to explain to me where the line ends. Specifically I'm wondering if you're saying that, at some point in the past society took over from natural selection as the driving force behind biology? Cos that's interesting in itself. A couple of generations of planning and we could grow wings?

[Faust]

No sorry that last paragraph was mostly an aside and absolutely not the main thing I was trying to say. The main thing is that gender roles are clearly not biologically determinedinnate, and anything that we're used to thinking of as "natural" deserves some very suspicious scrutiny.

EDITED for terminology (see strikethrough).

So males fit their gender role, bigger, stronger more aggressive, because of our culture, which programmed the biology? I can't get my head around this part. I'm sure you're not, but I'm reading it as there's no such thing as "natural" everything that happens in biology was agreed in a meeting. That's Intelligent Design?

I'm not accusing you of being that dumb, so please don't take this as an insult or me being obstinate. I'd just appreciate if you could try to explain to me where the line ends. Specifically I'm wondering if you're saying that, at some point in the past society took over from natural selection as the driving force behind biology? Cos that's interesting in itself. A couple of generations of planning and we could grow wings?

It also implies sexuality is learned behaviour and that everyones sexuality is a choice, am I missing something here?

[Verbal Mike]

So homosexuality is largely a socially determined thing, a choice?

A socially determined thing is about as far as something can be from a choice. It's something determined for you without you being aware that any determination took place.

And I have no idea about sexual orientation, I'm talking about gender roles here. What I do think worth mentioning is, something I read a while back, that the concept of binary sexual orientation labels is surprisingly new. Basically invented by Freud and his gang. Obviously, people have been getting it on with people of their own gender and/or sex since before they were walking upright; the point is that having a straight, or bi, or gay identity, seeing this as something that is set for adult life, etc., is only a few generations old. Before that it was just "that dude likes to secretly get it on with other dudes sometimes" (because the act itself was taboo, but the label as such did not exist.) And this suggests to me that sexual orientation as an identity is totally socially determined. That doesn't mean it's not innate for a given individual to have certain preferences, but having that define you in a permanent kind of way is apparently something society tells you to do, not biology.

So males fit their gender role, bigger, stronger more aggressive, because of our culture, which programmed the biology?

I'm saying that gender roles aren't biology in the first place. They're likely affected by biology in ways that are difficult to understand, but they are not determined by our genome. They are determined by our culture, directly, not through culture shaping our genetics.

For instance, being stronger isn't pure biology. Boys are expected to like and do activities that build up muscles. Girls are expected to be less physically active. Again, these being tendencies, not absolutes. And these being culturally-determined biases.

There's also stuff like how dudes are expected to be stronger, hence they're in charge of lifting heavy things. Trains their muscles while keeping the dudettes from training theirs. It's self-reinforcing.

So biology apparently does determine how easily our muscles get big and bulky, but women have the potential to be just as strong as guys; culture stops many of them from getting there.

I can't get my head around this part. I'm sure you're not, but I'm reading it as there's no such thing as "natural" everything that happens in biology was agreed in a meeting. That's Intelligent Design?

The meeting thing isn't serious, right? Because we've been talking for literally hundreds of over a hundred pages about how this cultural stuff is emergent, carried around and carried out by people who have no idea what they're doing, not at all conscious decision-making. That's clear, right?

Cultural patterns evolve, kind of like organisms, but not in the sense that our genomes dictate our culture (an adopted Japanese baby growing up in Israel is going to be just as rude as the bunch of us, not constantly brimming with politeness and deference, despite generations of DNA behind them coming from people whose culture required a lot of politeness and deference to authority.)

Specifically I'm wondering if you're saying that, at some point in the past society took over from natural selection as the driving force behind biology? Cos that's interesting in itself. A couple of generations of planning and we could grow wings?

No, not at all what I'm saying, and I'm sorry for the confusion. I'm saying that gender roles, and quite a lot of our behavior, is determined directly by culture, without going through biology. I'm also saying that socialization is responsible for a lot of things we're socialized to believe are "natural", i.e. biologically innate. And in this post I'm also pointing out that conscious planning has practically diddly-squat to do with any of this.

EDITED to replace "decide" terminology with "determine" in the first paragraph of this post.
And again because of grammar feyl.
And again to remove unintentional exaggeration (see strikethrough)

[Placid Dingo]

No sorry that last paragraph was mostly an aside and absolutely not the main thing I was trying to say. The main thing is that gender roles are clearly not biologically determinedinnate, and anything that we're used to thinking of as "natural" deserves some very suspicious scrutiny.

EDITED for terminology (see strikethrough).

So males fit their gender role, bigger, stronger more aggressive, because of our culture, which programmed the biology? I can't get my head around this part. I'm sure you're not, but I'm reading it as there's no such thing as "natural" everything that happens in biology was agreed in a meeting. That's Intelligent Design?

I'm not accusing you of being that dumb, so please don't take this as an insult or me being obstinate. I'd just appreciate if you could try to explain to me where the line ends. Specifically I'm wondering if you're saying that, at some point in the past society took over from natural selection as the driving force behind biology? Cos that's interesting in itself. A couple of generations of planning and we could grow wings?

It also implies sexuality is learned behaviour and that everyones sexuality is a choice, am I missing something here?

I'm no Keirsley scholar, but wasn't his main deal with Homosexuality that it worked like a spectrum? So the idea that sexuality is culturally driven makes sense to me, with there being some people who have an absolute preference for same sex partners regardless of what society says, then the absolute same on the heterosexual side and then a lot in the middle who I suspect make a lot of their choices, maybe subconsciously, determined by what society deems as normal.

I suspect sexuality has choice attached to it but not as black and white as 'I choose to be straight/gay/bi.'

[Faust]

So homosexuality is largely a socially determined thing, a choice?

A socially determined thing is about as far as something can be from a choice. It's something determined for you without you being aware that any determination took place.

And I have no idea about sexual orientation, I'm talking about gender roles here. What I do think worth mentioning is, something I read a while back, that the concept of binary sexual orientation labels is surprisingly new. Basically invented by Freud and his gang. Obviously, people have been getting it on with people of their own gender and/or sex since before they were walking upright; the point is that having a straight, or bi, or gay identity, seeing this as something that is set for adult life, etc., is only a few generations old. Before that it was just "that dude likes to secretly get it on with other dudes sometimes" (because the act itself was taboo, but the label as such did not exist.) And this suggests to me that sexual orientation as an identity is totally socially determined. That doesn't mean it's not innate for a given individual to have certain preferences, but having that define you in a permanent kind of way is apparently something society tells you to do, not biology.

But if it is determined for you then it can be changed, if it's within a persons power to change that would class that as a choice. People following socially perscribed behaviour have the choice to break from that.
Is the same true for innate behaviour? People refute agressive behaviour as innate and claim entirely social but I find that hard to swallow when other things are not. I have chemically induced depression, granted it is innate behaviour that can be overcome. For years it was completely debilitating now I can recognise it occuring and keep it largely in check.
Aggressions can be overcome, but it doesn't mean there aren't reasons for it other then social.

[Faust]

No sorry that last paragraph was mostly an aside and absolutely not the main thing I was trying to say. The main thing is that gender roles are clearly not biologically determinedinnate, and anything that we're used to thinking of as "natural" deserves some very suspicious scrutiny.

EDITED for terminology (see strikethrough).

So males fit their gender role, bigger, stronger more aggressive, because of our culture, which programmed the biology? I can't get my head around this part. I'm sure you're not, but I'm reading it as there's no such thing as "natural" everything that happens in biology was agreed in a meeting. That's Intelligent Design?

I'm not accusing you of being that dumb, so please don't take this as an insult or me being obstinate. I'd just appreciate if you could try to explain to me where the line ends. Specifically I'm wondering if you're saying that, at some point in the past society took over from natural selection as the driving force behind biology? Cos that's interesting in itself. A couple of generations of planning and we could grow wings?

It also implies sexuality is learned behaviour and that everyones sexuality is a choice, am I missing something here?

I'm no Keirsley scholar, but wasn't his main deal with Homosexuality that it worked like a spectrum? So the idea that sexuality is culturally driven makes sense to me, with there being some people who have an absolute preference for same sex partners regardless of what society says, then the absolute same on the heterosexual side and then a lot in the middle who I suspect make a lot of their choices, maybe subconsciously, determined by what society deems as normal.

I suspect sexuality has choice attached to it but not as black and white as 'I choose to be straight/gay/bi.'

I suspect something similar but I wouldn't be confident enough in my understanding of them to say the same thing.

[P3nT4gR4m]

So homosexuality is largely a socially determined thing, a choice?

A socially determined thing is about as far as something can be from a choice. It's something determined for you without you being aware that any determination took place.

And I have no idea about sexual orientation, I'm talking about gender roles here. What I do think worth mentioning is, something I read a while back, that the concept of binary sexual orientation labels is surprisingly new. Basically invented by Freud and his gang. Obviously, people have been getting it on with people of their own gender and/or sex since before they were walking upright; the point is that having a straight, or bi, or gay identity, seeing this as something that is set for adult life, etc., is only a few generations old. Before that it was just "that dude likes to secretly get it on with other dudes sometimes" (because the act itself was taboo, but the label as such did not exist.) And this suggests to me that sexual orientation as an identity is totally socially determined. That doesn't mean it's not innate for a given individual to have certain preferences, but having that define you in a permanent kind of way is apparently something society tells you to do, not biology.

So males fit their gender role, bigger, stronger more aggressive, because of our culture, which programmed the biology?

I'm saying that gender roles aren't biology in the first place. They're likely affected by biology in ways that are difficult to understand, but they are not determined by our genome. They are determined by our culture, directly, not through culture shaping our genetics.

For instance, being stronger isn't pure biology. Boys are expected to like and do activities that build up muscles. Girls are expected to be less physically active. Again, these being tendencies, not absolutes. And these being culturally-determined biases.

There's also stuff like how dudes are expected to be stronger, hence they're in charge of lifting heavy things. Trains their muscles while keeping the dudettes from training theirs. It's self-reinforcing.

So biology apparently does determine how easily our muscles get big and bulky, but women have the potential to be just as strong as guys; culture stops many of them from getting there.

Fair enough. It seems far fetched to me, given the testosterone thing - the biggest differentiating factor involved in muscle mass development. Culture is capable of changing the ammount of testosterone produced by women?

I can't get my head around this part. I'm sure you're not, but I'm reading it as there's no such thing as "natural" everything that happens in biology was agreed in a meeting. That's Intelligent Design?

The meeting thing isn't serious, right? Because we've been talking for literally hundreds of over a hundred pages about how this cultural stuff is emergent, carried around and carried out by people who have no idea what they're doing, not at all conscious decision-making. That's clear, right?

Cultural patterns evolve, kind of like organisms, but not in the sense that our genomes dictate our culture (an adopted Japanese baby growing up in Israel is going to be just as rude as the bunch of us, not constantly brimming with politeness and deference, despite generations of DNA behind them coming from people whose culture required a lot of politeness and deference to authority.)

Sorry, man, seems I can't talk about fucking anything without slipping a joke in there somewhere. Although, I am seeing a logical progression, given that culture seems to me to be more in the mental domain than the physical, so maybe consciously deciding is the next logical step?

Specifically I'm wondering if you're saying that, at some point in the past society took over from natural selection as the driving force behind biology? Cos that's interesting in itself. A couple of generations of planning and we could grow wings?

No, not at all what I'm saying, and I'm sorry for the confusion. I'm saying that gender roles, and quite a lot of our behavior, is determined directly by culture, without going through biology. I'm also saying that socialization is responsible for a lot of things we're socialized to believe are "natural", i.e. biologically innate. And in this post I'm also pointing out that conscious planning has practically diddly-squat to do with any of this.

EDITED to replace "decide" terminology with "determine" in the first paragraph of this post.
And again because of grammar feyl.
And again to remove unintentional exaggeration (see strikethrough)

Okay I think I'm getting there now. Still a lot of fuzzy lines for me in the "gender roles" area but I should be able to wrap my head around this

[Verbal Mike]

But if it is determined for you then it can be changed, if it's within a persons power to change that would class that as a choice. People following socially perscribed behaviour have the choice to break from that.
Is the same true for innate behaviour? People refute agressive behaviour as innate and claim entirely social but I find that hard to swallow when other things are not. I have chemically induced depression, granted it is innate behaviour that can be overcome. For years it was completely debilitating now I can recognise it occuring and keep it largely in check.
Aggressions can be overcome, but it doesn't mean there aren't reasons for it other then social.

By socially determined, I certainly do not mean that someone consciously decided to make it so at any point. I think this is clear though.

I guess what I'm getting at is that when you're socialized to believe, act, think in certain ways (i.e. grown into your own BIP), it's very difficult to even recognize what things you've been socialized into (recognize your bars). And that's the prerequisite for changing your socialization (bars), which is no easier, perhaps even much more difficult.

So yes, I'd agree that on the individual level, the patterns that result from socialization can potentially be changed. It's not a choice to be socialized in the first place, but you can in principle make the choice to change it. But that it's very, very hard, even when it's just a small change. Cumulatively, you tend to be saddled with your socialization for life. On a societal level, it's practically absolute; not many people even try to see through their own socialization, not all who try succeed, not all who succeed try to change it, and not all who try that succeed. I could throw in made-up numbers for the sake of illustration, but I think you get it: Reaching the ultimate point of significantly rejigging a significant proportion of your own socialization is something so few people do, on the societal level it might as well be impossible.

Now, the societal level is extremely important here, because socialization, as the name suggests, is done to you by society, not by individuals. It's done unconsciously rather than consciously, to boot. If your parents are part of the tiny, statistically insignificant minority that's rejigged itself to a significant degree, well, there's still a limit to how much they can stop you being socialized by the rest of the world. And even they are always at risk of being dragged back into more common patterns by the people around them.

I guess what I'm getting at is that socialization is such an overwhelming force that it just doesn't matter very much what innate factors are involved. I take it that innate stuff is usually a matter of tendency and or potential, anyway, not the kind of robot programming it's often portrayed as. So I don't mind conceding that males have a stronger tendency or greater potential for aggression or physical strength than females do, because it doesn't matter all that much; males are pushed to fulfill that potential, regardless of their personal tendencies and preferences. Females are expected not to work on that area of themselves. If it were the other way around, and women were in charge of the (literal) heavy lifting, strife, etc., we would have a bunch of males who have a significant innate potential for aggression and physical strength but are nonetheless "total whimps", and females whose lower potential for those traits has nonetheless been maxed out due to their socialization and can break the guys in half without breaking a sweat or shedding a tear.

Is this making more sense to you now?

Fair enough. It seems far fetched to me, given the testosterone thing - the biggest differentiating factor involved in muscle mass development. Culture is capable of changing the ammount of testosterone produced by women?

I honestly don't know enough about testosterone and muscle mass to say anything for sure. I have heard, kind of anecdotally, that in some farming communities where the physical work is taken on by women just as much as men, there's no significant difference in strength despite the differences in muscle mass.

And it seems to me plausible that hormone production is affected by culture/socialization, since it affects your psychology and that can affect your physiology – but I'm talking out of my ass here, I don't know that much about hormones at all.

Sorry, man, seems I can't talk about fucking anything without slipping a joke in there somewhere. Although, I am seeing a logical progression, given that culture seems to me to be more in the mental domain than the physical, so maybe consciously deciding is the next logical step?

No need to apologize about joking. I miss on jokes sometimes IRL, the medium makes it worse.
Anyhoo, mental is not at all the same as conscious. A whole lot of mental stuff goes on un- or sub-consciously. But like I wrote above, I do think that mental programming (socialization) can potentially be changed by conscious decision (though it's ridiculously difficult). But as I already said before, I'm not trying to argue that the mental stuff completely determines the biological stuff, so there's still definitely a limit to what you can be socialized to do (or not do) or could decide to do (or not do). But since physical habits have a remarkable effect on the body, and habits are generally something that goes through the brain one way or another, socialization can have a totally palpable effect on people's bodies.

Are you getting me now?

[P3nT4gR4m]

No need to apologize about joking. I miss on jokes sometimes IRL, the medium makes it worse.
Anyhoo, mental is not at all the same as conscious. A whole lot of mental stuff goes on un- or sub-consciously. But like I wrote above, I do think that mental programming (socialization) can potentially be changed by conscious decision (though it's ridiculously difficult). But as I already said before, I'm not trying to argue that the mental stuff completely determines the biological stuff, so there's still definitely a limit to what you can be socialized to do (or not do) or could decide to do (or not do). But since physical habits have a remarkable effect on the body, and habits are generally something that goes through the brain one way or another, socialization can have a totally palpable effect on people's bodies.

Are you getting me now?

yeah, I think we're pretty much on the same page, which I wasn't sure about before. I still disagree on your "almost impossible" take on breaking socialization. IMO, Simply being aware of any programmed behaviour, thereby bringing it under conscious scrutiny and making the effort to keep it there (the hard part) eventually brings the behaviour under conscious control.

Yes it's hard but I think you consider it an order of magnitude harder and a lot less common IRL than I do?