The sexes don’t feel pain the same way • Hacker News Board

Re: The sexes don’t feel pain the same way

#121

Post by daveslash » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 4:30 PM UTC

foldr wrote: post #97

insickness wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> another example of political correctness It's also the opposite. There's a strain of far left ideology that claims men and women are mentally identical, despite much scientific evidence to the contrary. If they were identical, studies on both genders would be unnecessary.

>There's a strain of far left ideology that claims men and women are mentally identical I've never seen anyone actually claim this. Often, people on the right want people on the left to be claiming this because it would be easy to refute. But in fact what people on the left are usually doing is expressing skepticism that various aspects of the status quo (such as the distribution of genders in various professions) ar…

I've definitely gotten into some very heated discussions about this point, with some very intelligent and well educated people on "the left" who attended prestigious universities. Their position is that "all of the behavioral differences between men and women are purely societal; none are based in biology at all."

Re: The sexes don’t feel pain the same way

#122

Post by YeGoblynQueenne » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 4:34 PM UTC

chimprich wrote: post #78

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The major driver of climate change is energy production and transport. We can reduce our impact by limiting those first, before we get to the food we eat. Everybody doesn't need to have their personal automobile or fly everywhere in jets that consume tons of fossil fuels at a time. Everybody doesn't need to go around with a portable computer in their pants. But everybody does need food to eat. Why would we first limi…

> The major driver of climate change is energy production and transport. We can reduce our impact by limiting those first, before we get to the food we eat. It's not logical to say we need to tackle the biggest problems first before tackling the smaller problems. Tackling the easier problems first, or tackling as many problems as we can simultaneously makes more sense. It's also wrong to imply that food is not a majo…

Well, changing the way people eat is much harder than changing their use of technology. It's not just that it's a larger problem- it's also harder, like you say.

Of course farming uses transport, just as everything else does. But the emissions from transporting food come from transport vehicles. I don't see how these must be assigned to farming. If we reduce transport emissions, we'll reduce all transport emissions, including those from transporting food. If we only reduce emissions from farming we'll still have to deal with transport emissions.

In any case, going by the graphs on this wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas#Anthropogenic_g...

- It really looks like a clear majority of total emissions is from energy production, transport and industry.

Re: The sexes don’t feel pain the same way

#123

Post by foldr » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 4:35 PM UTC

daveslash wrote: post #121

foldr wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There's a strain of far left ideology that claims men and women are mentally identical I've never seen anyone actually claim this. Often, people on the right want people on the left to be claiming this because it would be easy to refute. But in fact what people on the left are usually doing is expressing skepticism that various aspects of the status quo (such as the distribution of genders in various professions) ar…

I've definitely gotten into some very heated discussions about this point, with some very intelligent and well educated people on "the left" who attended prestigious universities. Their position is that "all of the behavioral differences between men and women are purely societal; none are based in biology at all."

That's not the point of view under discussion. The question is whether there are cognitive differences between men and women. One can acknowledge that there are without thinking that it is these (usually quite small) cognitive differences that are primarily responsible for behavioral differences.

That being said, I would be surprised if you could find an example of anyone at all prominent or influential on the left expressing in writing the position that you quote.

Re: The sexes don’t feel pain the same way

#124

Post by YeGoblynQueenne » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 5:43 PM UTC

irb wrote: post #76

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Humanity slaughters billions of animals each year just because they're tasty. It's very likely that people find meat tasty because it's nutritious, just as we find sugar and plant fats tasty. Your comment makes it sound as if eating meat is some kind of indulgence, like eating sweets. Meat is a rich source of protein and energy. We don't need any more justification than that to want to eat other animals. There are…

>> At the end of the day- many animals eat other animals' meat. Why is it any different for humans to do the same? It's a question of moral agency. Generally animals are not held to any kind of moral standard at all - no one thinks a dog that bites a child is "evil", just dangerous. You'd be more likely to blame the owner for not training/controlling it properly.

I assure you that I still think of the dog that bit me twenty years ago as the true incarnation of all evil. Bastard mutt! It just jumped out of nowhere and bit me in the leg. The fuck?

Now, I think the point you're making is that, in terms of moral agency humans are special, so special that we 're not allowed to eat other animals, even though other animals do it (and they'll eat us if given the chance).

Well, I have to say that I've heard the same claim on both sides of the issue. For example, in the past people have claimed that animals don't have a soul, and in modern times, that they don't feel pain (or don't experience it as humans do) or have emotions (or human emotions) and that, therefore, it's fine to treat them anyway we please. In fact, I believe that this special moral agency of humans is used to justify animal experimentation, at least to some degree.

Obviously, I don't think that this idea of special human moral powers holds any water. We're animals like the rest. We 're part of the same food chain, where living things feed off each other. Why should we be treated differently than all those other living things? They can eat us, and each other, we can eat them.

Re: The sexes don’t feel pain the same way

#125

Post by switch_kickflip » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 5:45 PM UTC

foldr wrote: post #123

daveslash wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've definitely gotten into some very heated discussions about this point, with some very intelligent and well educated people on "the left" who attended prestigious universities. Their position is that "all of the behavioral differences between men and women are purely societal; none are based in biology at all."

That's not the point of view under discussion. The question is whether there are cognitive differences between men and women. One can acknowledge that there are without thinking that it is these (usually quite small) cognitive differences that are primarily responsible for behavioral differences. That being said, I would be surprised if you could find an example of anyone at all prominent or influential on the left e…

> I would be surprised if you could find an example of anyone at all prominent or influential on the left expressing in writing the position that you quote.

How about this for a prominent and influential source:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00677-x

The headline is "Neurosexism: the myth that men and women have different brains"

Under the sub-heading "Cultural paths":

"So if it’s not brain hard-wiring, how do we explain the often stark differences in behaviour and interests between men and women? Here is where we get to Rippon’s thesis on the impact of a gendered world on the human brain."

You can inject people with testosterone and estrogen and observe behavioral changes (as people attest to in this very thread), so it's certainly a pretty strange position to have. Neuroscience is too important for these nonfactual statements to be accepted, let alone be published in Nature. There's a pretty thorough counter argument here: https://quillette.com/2019/03/29/denying-the-neuroscience-of...

Re: The sexes don’t feel pain the same way

#126

Post by tziki » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 5:51 PM UTC

elil17 wrote: post #90

Obviously these things are highly individual, but my personal experience totally aligns with this article. I’m a transgender woman and when I started taking estrogen my pain tolerance increased noticeably over the course of about a month. Stubbing my toe just doesn’t bother me like it used to

That's interesting, most studies on humans find that women have a lower pain tolerance than men.

Re: The sexes don’t feel pain the same way

#127

Post by daveslash » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 5:53 PM UTC

foldr wrote: post #123

daveslash wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've definitely gotten into some very heated discussions about this point, with some very intelligent and well educated people on "the left" who attended prestigious universities. Their position is that "all of the behavioral differences between men and women are purely societal; none are based in biology at all."

That's not the point of view under discussion. The question is whether there are cognitive differences between men and women. One can acknowledge that there are without thinking that it is these (usually quite small) cognitive differences that are primarily responsible for behavioral differences. That being said, I would be surprised if you could find an example of anyone at all prominent or influential on the left e…

@foldr, You bring up a good point/distinction. When discussing differences between the sexes, one should be careful not to conflate cognitive/brain specific differences and behavioral differences in general. There are biologically based non-brain things (i.e. hormones) that can affect behavior. In your original comment, you were specifically referring to the brain; my reply conflated that with other behavioral differences. I apologize for the confusion on my part.

Re: The sexes don’t feel pain the same way

#128

Post by black-tea » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 6:02 PM UTC

Daniel3 wrote: post #89

black-tea wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, a baby is literally a parasite. Fortunately it's quite easy for women to avoid accidental pregnancy these days.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal In light of current energy crisis and other considerations, I implore you to consider the following proposal.

Unexpected, but excellent.

Re: The sexes don’t feel pain the same way

#129

Post by foldr » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 7:07 PM UTC

switch_kickflip wrote: post #125

foldr wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the point of view under discussion. The question is whether there are cognitive differences between men and women. One can acknowledge that there are without thinking that it is these (usually quite small) cognitive differences that are primarily responsible for behavioral differences. That being said, I would be surprised if you could find an example of anyone at all prominent or influential on the left e…

> I would be surprised if you could find an example of anyone at all prominent or influential on the left expressing in writing the position that you quote. How about this for a prominent and influential source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00677-x The headline is "Neurosexism: the myth that men and women have different brains" Under the sub-heading "Cultural paths": "So if it’s not brain hard-wiring, h…

That's the headline. The actual content of the article consists in discussion of various instances in which male/female brain differences have been exaggerated.

The brain is a bit of a red herring here. We know little about the brain -- far too little to be able to draw any conclusions from whatever differences there may be between average male and female brains. We do, however, have reliable behavioral evidence of small cognitive differences between men and women on average. My point was that there are few if any people who deny the existence of such differences.

Re: The sexes don’t feel pain the same way

#130

Post by dang » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 9:08 PM UTC

torpilla wrote: post #86

My wife also seems to handle physical pain quite well, since she knows it's coming from a place of love, but she doesn't do as well with temperature, especially spending the night outside, in the yard. Especially in the winter.

Please don't do this here.