Conference quark::mennotes-v1

770.0. "Genetic Destiny/Strategy" by BSS::P_BADOVINAC () Mon Mar 16 1992 17:50

	 The following in an excerpt from a newly released SF book by Orson
	 Scott Card called 'Xenocide'.  Valentine is female and Ender's
	 sister.  Planter is a male alien.

         This type of description of 'genetic destiny' has been done before
         but not exactly this way.
	 
	 I find that this explains a lot of gaps between males and females.

	 What do the rest of you think?

	 patrick
	 
	 *************************************************************
	 
         "We human beings are no different.  ... we still spend most of our
         time acting out our genetic destiny.  Take the differences between
         males and females.  Males naturally tend toward a broadcast
	 strategy of reproduction.  Since males make an almost infinite
	 supply of sperm and it costs them nothing to deploy it-"

	 "Not nothing," said Ender.

	 "Nothing," said Valentine, "just to deploy it.  Their most
	 sensible reproductive strategy is to deposit it in every available
	 female--and to make special efforts to deposit it in the healthiest
	 females, the ones most likely to bring their offspring to
	 adulthood.  A male does best, reproductively, if he wanders and
	 copulates as widely as possible."

	 "I've done the wandering," said Ender.  "Somehow I missed out on
	 the copulating."

	 "I'm speaking of overall trends," said Valentine.  "There are
	 always strange individuals who don't follow the norms.  The female
	 strategy is just the opposite, Planter.  Instead of millions and
	 millions of sperm, they only have one egg a month, and each child
	 represents an enormous investment of effort.  So females need
	 stability.  They need to be sure there'll always be plenty of
	 food.  We also spend large amounts of time relatively helpless,
	 unable to find or gather food.  Far from being wanderers, we
	 females need to establish and stay.  If we can't get that, then
	 our next best strategy is to mate with the strongest and
	 healthiest possible males.  But best of all is to get a strong
	 healthy male who'll stay and provide, instead of wandering and
	 copulating at will.

	 "So there are two pressures on males.  The one is to spread their
	 seed, violently if necessary.  The other is to be attractive to
	 females by being stable providers--by suppressing and containing the
	 need to wander and the tendency to use force.  Likewise, there are
	 two pressures on females.  The one is to get the seed of the
	 strongest, most virile males so that their infants will have good
	 genes, which would make the violent, forceful males attractive to
	 them.  The other is to get the protection of the most stable
	 males, nonviolent males, so their infants will be protected and
	 provided for and as many as possible reach adulthood.

	 "Our whole history, all that I've ever found in all my wanderings
	 as an itinerant historian before I finally unhooked myself from
	 this reproductively unavailable brother of mine and had a
	 family--it can all be interpreted as people blindly acting out
	 those genetic strategies.  We get pulled in those two directions.

         "Our great civilizations are nothing more than social machines to
         create the ideal female setting, where a woman can count on
         stability; our legal and moral codes that try to abolish violence
         and promote permanence of ownership and enforce contracts--those
         represent the primary female strategy, the taming of the male.

         "And the tribes of wandering barbarians outside the reach of
         civilization, those follow the mainly male strategy.  Spread the
         seed.  Within the tribe, the strongest, most dominant males take
         possession of the best females, either through formal polygamy or
         spur-of-the-moment copulations that the other males are powerless
         to resist.  But those low-status males are kept in line because
         the leaders take them to war and let thyem rape and pillage their
         brains out when the win a victory.  The act out sexual
         desirability by proving themselves in combat, and then kill all
         the rival males and copulate with their widowed females when they
         win.  Hideous, monstrous behavior-but also a viable acting-out 
         of the genetic strategy. ..."
	 

    Patrick,
    
    I agree. Most things in nature are based on reproduction and survival.
    Unfortunatly my english is not that good, so I can't find the words to
    describe it the way I want (ofcourse I can in my own language).
    
    But it comes close to what is in that book. And maybe I'm such a person
    that don't follow the rules. Still I have no feeling to 'reproduce'
    myself, although I love kids.
    
    Sjaak.

    
    I think that may be the foundation for all animals' behaviors.
    
    I like to think humanity can rise above and accomplish more, reach for
    more, understand more, create new ways of being that enhance discovery
    and learning, that allow more communication and connection, and that
    support cooperation rather than competition.....
    
    -Jody
    

re:.2
	 Jody,

	 I think we have risen above our genetic desire to perpetuate the
	 species but that desire is still very much a part of our physical
	 existence.  I am very much involved with a woman.  Neither she nor
	 I can have anymore children.  So why do I stay in this monogomous
	 relationship?  I feel I can learn about my feminine side by
	 reflecting it off her for one thing.  I feel a very deep and
	 loving spiritual connection with her that transcends anything
	 physical.  But even with all this I still have thoughts from time
	 to time about having a purely physical relationship with various
	 women.  I acknowledge that this desire is part of my physical
	 makeup.  I don't act on it but it helps to know that I'm not
	 *evil*; but simply human.

	 patrick

    This theory is old.  It overlooks any higher emotions that men might
    have (like love for a woman and a child) and reduces us to grotesque
    characatures of raping, pillaging, inseminating machines.
    
    Don't buy it.  Don't rent it.  Don't even borrow it.

    The theory might be old, but it is fundamentally sound although its
    boundaries are too narrow.  It is talking about, at a very high level,
    the enculturalisation of biological reality - that nasty reality that
    Jody naively wishes would go away.  
    
    The old, limbic brain is still within and part of us.  The most
    primitive desires that we inherited from the reptiles are what
    fundamentally drive us, no matter how much we disguise the fact.
    
    Is love a 'higher' emotion?  Yes, but that doesn't invalidate the
    thesis.  Pair bonding is a survival trait.  It is good for our species. 
    It did not evolve to make us 'higher'.  It may, as a side-effect, do
    that, but such is not its purpose.

    Re: .4
    
    Dismissing something one doesn't like because one wants to think better
    of oneself is a defense mechanism.  Sure, humans have the *ability* to
    rise above our collective genetic heritage, but our history of crime,
    war, rapine, and pillage tells us plainly that a healthy majority don't
    have the *desire* to rise above that heritage - at least not enough of
    a desire to raise them above it.  For reasons that can be reduced to
    animal needs and desires we beat each other's brains out, force our
    sexual selves on unwilling others, and steal each other's property.
    
    We're animals.  We're not any better than most of the other animals,
    we're just smarter.  Note I said smarter, not wiser.  There's a big
    difference.  I'd say the scenario painted by .0 is pretty accurate.
    
    -dick