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Homosexuality in giraffes and other non-human animals

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Re: Homosexuality in giraffes and other non-human animals

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An other reason might be that almost all animals seek to control their peers' access to mates. Humans have developed elaborate bullshit to achieve basically that. Monogamy, possession, shame.

I don't say monogamy is a natural rule everybody should follow but it also is not unnatural "bullshit" invented by humans. As far as I know many wild species are monogamous. Many bird species in particular. I don't mind anybody being polyamory (and even some sort of adore them for breaking a taboo) yet many people are happy in monogamy and they are not necessarily constraining themselves artificially. Also shame can…

Monogamy is pretty much limited to birds. It's uncommon in mammals and in primates in particular. It's interesting that humans arrived at it.

Re: Homosexuality in giraffes and other non-human animals

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't say monogamy is a natural rule everybody should follow but it also is not unnatural "bullshit" invented by humans. As far as I know many wild species are monogamous. Many bird species in particular. I don't mind anybody being polyamory (and even some sort of adore them for breaking a taboo) yet many people are happy in monogamy and they are not necessarily constraining themselves artificially. Also shame can…

I was speaking of repressive cultures, especially those with far less choices available to women.

These are typically cultures also where men have few choices. There is probably no way that a sustainable advantage of one sex over the other, in a reproductive sense, could be maintained by evolution.

Re: Homosexuality in giraffes and other non-human animals

#153
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I didn't mean to imply that all descendants would be gay, only that all would carry the gene and pass it to their descendants in turn. Most would still breed. It doesn't matter. It's a gene that, in the long term, slightly increases the chance of every other individual reproducing while immediately greatly decreasing its own chance. That just doesn't work. >over the lifetime of multiple colonies, the ones that survi…

> It's a gene that, in the long term, slightly increases the chance of every other individual reproducing while immediately greatly decreasing its own chance. That just doesn't work. Don't forget that all those other individuals in vicinity carry some of the same genes - the closer, the more genetically related they are, in general. You'd need to compute how much that small but broad effect can add up to the total pe…

In the case of ants, the beneficiary of the altruism/self-sacrifice is the queen, which always carries the gene. That's why I said:

>Biological altruism will generally mean an organism helping another at a small or no cost and/or the benefited organism is a close relative that likely shares the gene.

Ants and bees are extreme examples of the later.

In your theory, the only beneficiaries of fewer individuals reproducing are the straight (and bi) individuals who are still reproducing. It's a really bad theory to explain homosexuality and I don't know why anyone would insist on it when it's so easy to come up with better ones. Just think of something that would benefit the individuals carrying the genes themselves. Maybe an attraction to muscles (or some other manly characteristic in that species) that leads to stronger offspring when the individual mates with muscular females, but can go too far sometimes leading to homosexuality.

>one surprising (to me) thing that came up is that there have been substantial revisions in the estimated speed of evolution as a process since Darwin's days. Sexual selection in particular is a mechanism that turned out to work much faster than originally anticipated, and can in fact push other traits that wouldn't be viable otherwise over the viability threshold. One theory is that it developed in the first place because faster selection - i.e. adaptability - is itself a selected-for trait, so it's kinda getting very meta.

That's actually really interesting! Got any good links on that? The speed of evolution is something that sometimes bothers me when looking at highly complex adaptations.

Re: Homosexuality in giraffes and other non-human animals

#154
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a gene that, in the long term, slightly increases the chance of every other individual reproducing while immediately greatly decreasing its own chance. That just doesn't work. Don't forget that all those other individuals in vicinity carry some of the same genes - the closer, the more genetically related they are, in general. You'd need to compute how much that small but broad effect can add up to the total pe…

In the case of ants, the beneficiary of the altruism/self-sacrifice is the queen, which always carries the gene. That's why I said: >Biological altruism will generally mean an organism helping another at a small or no cost and/or the benefited organism is a close relative that likely shares the gene. Ants and bees are extreme examples of the later. In your theory, the only beneficiaries of fewer individuals reproduci…

Most of my reading about this was in Russian, and I don't remember the exact sources that were cited there. This particular stuff was mentioned kinda in passing in a broader conversation on evolution of human behavior, as an explanation of how it could get so complicated so fast. But searching around, it looks like there are some very specific papers on it - e.g. this looks interesting:

http://www.unm.edu/~gfmiller/new_papers2/todd%201997%20biodi...

"This paper presents theoretical arguments and simulation results in support of our view that sexual selection creates new fi tness peaks (and thus new niches), helps species escape from old local optima to find new, better peaks, and promotes speciation to increase the number of lineages searching for peaks."

Re: Homosexuality in giraffes and other non-human animals

#155
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ultimately, homosexuality in humans is fine not because it's natural, but because we should, by default, let consenting adults do what they want together. This is so important and so regularly gets ignored by people on all sides. Once, a long time ago, I was talking to a much-smarter-than-me gay friend about the gay marriage debate in the US, and I said that being gay wasn't a choice and that _therefore_ yada yada.…

The motivation behind the "it's not a choice" argument is that society can't reasonably enforce a rule that people can't follow. For example you and I are against Down's syndrome, but we can't make any progress by telling people to stop having it. Your friend's argument would not work at all against people who are against homosexuality, because their answer to all of those questions would simply be "no." The "it's no…

This seems to be conceding ground that shouldn't be given, though. One of the underlying principles of liberal government is that the government needs to justify any and all restrictions placed on the people. The mirror image of this, is that people don't need any particular reason for doing something.

Re: Homosexuality in giraffes and other non-human animals

#156
post #18

I am always so torn when people make the argument that homosexuality is natural and therefore okay. It relies on the naturalistic fallacy which I don't like, but it also shuts down people who make the argument that homosexuality is unnatural and therefore bad, which I do like. Ultimately, homosexuality in humans is fine not because it's natural, but because we should, by default, let consenting adults do what they wa…

because we should, by default, let consenting adults do what they want together Why? This strikes me as a very shallow moral principle. As 'presscast notes it completely misses the point of the nature of a life well-lived. Ironically, in practice it goes against human nature. Atomized society of people passing each other indifferently is certainly freer in some sense but it's also lonely and depressing for many of it…

Why? This strikes me as a very shallow moral principle.

So true -- but here we are talking about it as a legal principle. It's about what the government can't do, not about what people should do.

Re: Homosexuality in giraffes and other non-human animals

#157
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>we should, by default, let consenting adults do what they want together When does "by default" become "actually, no, that's bad and even consenting adults shouldn't do that"? If you want to take a strong position that there should be no such thing as a victimless crime, then that's coherent and valid - but if you want to hedge with "by default", I think you have to provide a stronger framework why this thing is okay…

> I think you have to provide a stronger framework why this thing is okay and that thing isn't. I don't think this is abstract ethical argument, but practical argument about policy. So we don't have to provide any stronger framework. Whoever wishes to argue that something is not OK has to provide detailed arguments backed by evidence about harm that is being produced and demonstrate that someone non-consenting is act…

Whoever wishes to argue that something is not OK has to provide detailed arguments backed by evidence about harm that is being produced and demonstrate that someone non-consenting is actually suffering from that harm (even if the effects are second-order). And the burden of proof needs to be significant.

Yes, this is what limited government is about. It makes policy makers accountable to the people, not the other way around.

Because the government can not really implement a ban per se, but rather a particular policy that hopefully eliminates the harm, policy makers actually have to make a case for something and not just against something. Otherwise, it's just the government proclaiming that the world would be better off without something. In which case, let us start with war, margarine and bad coffee.

Re: Homosexuality in giraffes and other non-human animals

#158
post #93

I am always so torn when people make the argument that homosexuality is natural and therefore okay. It relies on the naturalistic fallacy which I don't like, but it also shuts down people who make the argument that homosexuality is unnatural and therefore bad, which I do like. Ultimately, homosexuality in humans is fine not because it's natural, but because we should, by default, let consenting adults do what they wa…

“Let two consenting adults do what they want to do” has it’s limits too?” Like the guy who agreed to be murdered and eaten in Germany?

It seems strange to me to see a discussion like this conducted in terms of only one principle.

For example, consider how would we know if someone consented to being killed? And how could a consent structure for it be abused? This is where we see it bump against another important principle, that we may not deprive another person of their life without due process of law.

Re: Homosexuality in giraffes and other non-human animals

#159
post #11

I am always so torn when people make the argument that homosexuality is natural and therefore okay. It relies on the naturalistic fallacy which I don't like, but it also shuts down people who make the argument that homosexuality is unnatural and therefore bad, which I do like. Ultimately, homosexuality in humans is fine not because it's natural, but because we should, by default, let consenting adults do what they wa…

> Ultimately, homosexuality in humans is fine not because it's natural, but because we should, by default, let consenting adults do what they want together. This is so important and so regularly gets ignored by people on all sides. Once, a long time ago, I was talking to a much-smarter-than-me gay friend about the gay marriage debate in the US, and I said that being gay wasn't a choice and that _therefore_ yada yada.…

There is a great talk by Sonu Bedi of Dartmouth on this theme:

https://youtu.be/PqTYSy_vuRQ

He argues for gay marriage and the right to an abortion substantially on the basis of limited government. The existing regulations are often substantially motivated by religion, which is contrary to the establishment clause ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...") -- and outside of these motivations the government has not proffered any credible reasons for regulation.

In short, there is no reason for the gay community to prove anything; the government has no reason for its regulations, or at best reasons proffered in bad faith.

With regards to Professor Bedi's over-arching philosophy, of focusing on reasons, I do have some reservations. In particular, I wonder how he proposes to limit government with only this focus. Just the same, in this case he argues clearly and well, that putting the onus on gay people to prove they deserve the right to marry is a strange place to start from, if we are starting from within a framework of limited government.

Re: Homosexuality in giraffes and other non-human animals

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't say monogamy is a natural rule everybody should follow but it also is not unnatural "bullshit" invented by humans. As far as I know many wild species are monogamous. Many bird species in particular. I don't mind anybody being polyamory (and even some sort of adore them for breaking a taboo) yet many people are happy in monogamy and they are not necessarily constraining themselves artificially. Also shame can…

I was speaking of repressive cultures, especially those with far less choices available to women.

I’ll correct myself: far fewer

I’m ashamed.

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