A link between polygamy and war • Hacker News Board

Re: A link between polygamy and war

#71

Post by whack » Tue, Dec 26, 2017, 5:37 PM UTC

pitt1980 wrote: post #68

whack wrote: post #59

I'm opposed to polygamy for the obvious humanitarian concerns, and other issues raised in the article. But at the same time, I'm curious about the long-term genetic impact of monogamy vs polygamy. IQ and many personality traits have been shown to be correlated significantly with genes (many of these studies are based on adopted children, for whom genes and upbringing are decoupled). In monogamous societies like in Am…

Its an interesting thought - couple thoughts, its assumes a cream rises to the top, such that your mating success will correlate with whether you're smart and industrious I suspect that there might be a tendency in polygamous societies for there to be a lot of effort put into setting up structural barriers to prevent mating competition from smart and industrious competitors. Such that you actually weed out a lot of s…

Regarding the historical analysis, we do seem to be in a provably unique point in history. For most of human history, population was constrained by the availability of resources. Ie, the Malthusian trap. The number of healthy children one can raise, was constrained by the amount of material resources one had at his disposal. Not to mention that even in monogamous societies, birth-control was rare, and mistresses/children-born-out-of-wedlock were prevalent.

It's only in the past 100-200 years that the nature of population-control has changed so dramatically. Due to the widespread availability of birth-control, the increasing taboo against mistresses, and the abundance of food/shelter/medical-care, the number of children one sires is no longer well-correlated with financial prosperity.

Luckily, the effects of improved education and nutrition have drowned out any potential genetic effects from the above. But I suspect any potential consequences in natural-selection will take several centuries to fully pan out.

Re: A link between polygamy and war

#72

Post by lkrubner » Tue, Dec 26, 2017, 5:44 PM UTC

lkrubner wrote: post #42

This suggests that political stability depends on young men being able to pursue their romantic dreams. This would apply in any country, not just African countries. In nations in the West, an important limiting factor is the ability to get one's own apartment. That is, the ratio of average male wage to average rent. In the USA, the happiest year for this ratio was 1958, when people were spending 22% of their income o…

I found some charts that are relevant to the economic history that I've mentioned, and I've posted them here:

http://www.smashcompany.com/philosophy/do-men-become-warlike...

Re: A link between polygamy and war

#73

Post by ryanx435 » Tue, Dec 26, 2017, 6:03 PM UTC

whack wrote: post #59

I'm opposed to polygamy for the obvious humanitarian concerns, and other issues raised in the article. But at the same time, I'm curious about the long-term genetic impact of monogamy vs polygamy. IQ and many personality traits have been shown to be correlated significantly with genes (many of these studies are based on adopted children, for whom genes and upbringing are decoupled). In monogamous societies like in Am…

> But over a couple centuries/millenia, I wonder if polygamous societies would wind up as a race of smart-hard-working-competitive-assholes, in comparison to us monogamous dolts.

this has already been happening, if you compare western monogomous societies to islamic polygymous societies.

there are plenty of smart-hard-working-competitive-assholes in both western and islamic society, and there are plenty of dumb-lazy-nice-guys in both islamic and western society as well.

Re: A link between polygamy and war

#74

Post by soundwave106 » Tue, Dec 26, 2017, 6:07 PM UTC

whack wrote: post #71

pitt1980 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its an interesting thought - couple thoughts, its assumes a cream rises to the top, such that your mating success will correlate with whether you're smart and industrious I suspect that there might be a tendency in polygamous societies for there to be a lot of effort put into setting up structural barriers to prevent mating competition from smart and industrious competitors. Such that you actually weed out a lot of s…

Regarding the historical analysis, we do seem to be in a provably unique point in history. For most of human history, population was constrained by the availability of resources. Ie, the Malthusian trap. The number of healthy children one can raise, was constrained by the amount of material resources one had at his disposal. Not to mention that even in monogamous societies, birth-control was rare, and mistresses/chil…

This might end up as a "nature vs. nurture" question.

The flip side of this argument, is that in modern monogamous societies (especially with birth control enabling easy family planning), the smart and industrious couple will probably have the ability to devote more time and resources to the relatively small amount of children they have.

Whereas, the smart and industrious polygamous male (traditional polygamy tends to almost always be patriarchal)'s resources will be spread more thinly among their X wives and Y babies.

At present, I'm not aware of a current polygamous society that is known for technological or intellectual sophistication. In addition to the above, the overall social structure in polygamous society seems to be negatively impacted, owing to the large quantity of unmarried, potentially violent, men that need to be dealt with somehow (as alluded to in The Economist article). Consequently, I'm also not aware of a polygamous society which embraces liberal values politically, or embraces democratic style political structures.

In other words, from the evidence I see, it seems likely to me that the negative consequences of polygamy wipes out any potential genetic benefit.

Re: A link between polygamy and war

#75

Post by tabtab » Tue, Dec 26, 2017, 6:16 PM UTC

I've heard variations of this called "Blue-Balls Theory". Reproduction for males becomes a high-stakes all-or-nothing prospect such that using violence is often a better reproductive strategy than "peaceful failure".

Re: A link between polygamy and war

#76

Post by ap3 » Tue, Dec 26, 2017, 6:42 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #52

jrmurad wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I'm not an economist but I'm not seeing a connection. It seems like you just may not like the idea of capitalism and are trying to connect it to something else which you consider to be bad. Turkmenistan's recent history is as a (Soviet) socialist republic and it ranks very, very low on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_Economic_Freedom . I'd need further convincing that this practice is reflective of a cu…

Surely the attempt to elicit a higher price via marketing is indicative of a capitalist ideal. Under a communist ideal (ie not necessarily a real system that's ever existed on Earth, AFAICT there has yet to be a state that's fully embraced communism; dictatorships don't count) improvement would be sought in order to better the collective good, rather than elicit a particular family's profit. That a transactional syst…

Agreed. In a communist society you would look out for the greater comunal interest. For example, family would be expected to let their marry to have more children, without expecting anything directly in return, but for the greater good of the people.

Re: A link between polygamy and war

#77

Post by AnimalMuppet » Tue, Dec 26, 2017, 6:49 PM UTC

a2tech wrote: post #24

A neat (for lack of a better word) thing to look at is bride prices-this article briefly touches on it but it was something I discussed a lot with our exchange student from Turkmenistan last year. Prior to our conversation I had never spent much time thinking about how buying a bride would work in practice, but it turns out that it ends up being a fine (although horrible) example of capitalist endeavor. So in Turkmen…

> Her parents have effectively improved them to such a point that they've now been priced out of the market.

Out of that market. They're now in a different market. Perhaps it's a smaller one. (And perhaps it's a market where "bride price" isn't the way things are done...)

There's still a market for Mercedes-Benz cars, even though they cost more than Chevrolets...

Re: A link between polygamy and war

#78

Post by Terr_ » Tue, Dec 26, 2017, 7:01 PM UTC

sethammons wrote: post #37

a2tech wrote: post #24

A neat (for lack of a better word) thing to look at is bride prices-this article briefly touches on it but it was something I discussed a lot with our exchange student from Turkmenistan last year. Prior to our conversation I had never spent much time thinking about how buying a bride would work in practice, but it turns out that it ends up being a fine (although horrible) example of capitalist endeavor. So in Turkmen…

Complete aside, and I looked in your profile for a way to pm you instead of making this comment where I am sure to burn karma. I noticed in two separate comments that you are improperly using hyphens. > ... no interest-like people the world ... Hyphens join two words. This sentence was hard to parse and was nonsensical until I realized the hyphen was intended as a separator. Consider spaces around hyphens when joinin…

Personally -- due to laziness -- I just do this when typing plaintext.

Re: A link between polygamy and war

#79

Post by khrm » Tue, Dec 26, 2017, 7:15 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #22

khrm wrote: post #20

"This is a remarkable article: it literally pins the blame for everything bad that non-white people do on the one thing white people (read Western Europeans) have criticized others for for two millennia: polygamy. Violence? Polygamy. Terrorism? Polygamy. Domestic violence? Polygamy. Child mortality? Polygamy. Of course the article is so high on its own supply that it ignores divorce/remarriage of wives of elite polyg…

The first paragraph is unresponsive. The second paragraph ignores the obvious fact that: 1) in the societies at issue here, divorce and remarriage, and extra-marital sex are not common; and 2) statistics showing that polygamy can be common (e.g. 40% of marriages in the Sudan).

Great article. So much well researched that author even doesn't know that place where Arab Spring erupt first (Tunisia) has outlawed polygamy. That article claims that all ills are due to polygamy which is complete nonsense. In Daesh countries (Iraq and Syria) polygamy wasn't that common.

Re: A link between polygamy and war

#80

Post by khrm » Tue, Dec 26, 2017, 7:17 PM UTC

swombat wrote: post #70

kazagistar wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Correlations implying causation are not logical, and there might be numerous possible other factors causing either or both.

It's not necessarily a "correlation implies causation" fallacy when there is clear and detailed reasoning of how one thing causes the other. Correlation does not prevent causation either. It's not enough to prove causation, but it's a hint that there could be something linking the two factors in some way. I find the article provides a convincing story of how one factor causes the other.

That article is factually wrong. Tunisia had outlawed polygamy and got Arab Spring. And how many suicide bombs did Iraq had before Gulf War? In Daesh countries (Iraq and Syria) polygamy wasn't that common.