Sex at Dawn

Unlike yesterday's book this one gets a recommendation.  Sex At Dawn really made me think about myself and the ways in which I view sexuality as well as being really informative on the subject of the general human tendency towards monogamy.  There is a huge amount of pressure in our culture to view any relationship outside of two people together forever as crime of some sort where obviously someone has been wronged.  In particular we see religious figures preaching the necessity of monogamy and the angelic state of two people fulfilling each other's every need for their entire lives.  There is a narrative that insists that this is the natural state of humankind and that going outside that natural state is dangerous and immoral.  That narrative is wrong and Sex At Dawn very convincingly shows why and how.

The greater part of the book is dedicated to debunking the myth of natural monogamy by talking about primates, medicine and forager societies.  If we look at bonobos and chimps we see all kinds of evidence that suggests that early humans were anything but monogamous.  In particular our large penises, shaped to remove the sperm from a previous lover from the vagina, show that our ancestors were not monogamous and there was much competition to be the one who successfully impregnated the female among the many males who had sex with her in a given cycle.  Gorillas, on the other hand, have micropenises which have no particular design features to suggest sperm competition - they fought their battles with physical might beforehand and have no reason to think the female might be impregnated by another male.

All the talk about the many societies where nonmonogamy is/was the norm is really quite interesting and I found the medical and scientific data to be convincing but as usual it is the psychology that really got me going.  The later parts of the book talk about modern relationships and the ways in which our physiology makes us really quite unsuited to maintaining monogamy over the long term.  Men are turned on and have higher testosterone levels when they experience novelty and variety.  Those high testosterone levels can give a feeling of euphoria; the high of a new relationship.  Over a lifelong relationship there is virtually guaranteed to be a time when men are exposed to an opportunity to be nonmonogamous and the high from that opportunity is amazingly difficult to resist.  This isn't because the relationship was bad or because its participants failed but rather simply based on biology.  This really shifts the discussion of monogamy or not from the realm of morality to the realm of logistics.  How can we create a situation where people can have flings with people other than their partner without damaging their primary relationship?

The book offers a number of clues from societies where monogamy is not practiced.  Many of them arrange specific times, situations or relationships in which people can have sex outside their primary relationship.  Sometimes the option is only available during certain events or only between certain age or social groups.  This makes sure that although people can get the high and excitement of sex with other people it has firm social boundaries that prevent it taking over primary relationships.  This is of course difficult to bring into our society because of the strong boundaries in place enforcing monogamy.  We don't have widely accepted ways in which people can have sex with random others - prostitution is considered dirty or unacceptable where it isn't outright illegal and honestly most of us want someone who wants us, not just someone who will take our money for fifteen minutes of work.

Reading all this stuff really got me further away from the camp of 'I will never love / have sex with multiple people concurrently'.  When I was young I really bought into the moral argument but now I don't.  Many nonmonogamous relationship styles aren't particularly workable but there are plenty that are and we need to have the courage to find the best place for ourselves regardless of what most other people are doing.  This is particularly true when we look at the history of marriage in Western societies and notice that lifelong monogamy hasn't ever really worked for most people anyway.

Deceiving Ourselves

Usually when I pick up a new book it is because Wendy has insisted that I read it (she insists on far more books than I ever get through though) or because I have it recommended by a friend or on a blog I follow.  This particular book I randomly picked up at the library because the title intrigued me for some reason; it turns out that I should probably rely more on recommendations than personal whimsy.  Fooling Ourselves is a book about the various ways in which humans deceive themselves.  The author leads off with some fairly withering criticisms of religion and the other standard ways we insist on believing what obviously ain't so, which appeals to me, but then goes and manages to be somewhat boring and wrong in curious ways.

Boring isn't necessarily much of a criticism.  There are plenty of topics that are very hard to write interestingly about, which I can attest to with the number of blog posts I try to start and abandon because they are crap.  Thing is, I am really interested in the topic of self deception, particularly as it relates to Religion, Politics and Terrorism so in theory I am the sort of person who really *should* be enraptured by this stuff.  Unfortunately I wasn't, so I imagine most other people would find it close to unreadable.

I did find some things really intriguing though, especially the ways in which the author reveals his dearly held preconceptions.  He argues pretty convincingly that fundamentalist religions tend towards cognitive simplicity (not the same as intelligence).  When the only answer you need for anything is "God made it that way" or "God wants it that way" and things are either Right or Wrong without shades of grey you are going to tend to be cognitively simple.  Unfortunately the author is too American and sees Christianity in far too positive a light compared to Islam.  He sees suicide bombings and terrorism as a sign of Islam being even worse than Christianity, as if bombing cities from a US warplane is somehow acceptable, moral behaviour while strapping dynamite to one's own chest and destroying a marketplace is unacceptable.  The difference here is that Muslims would happily bomb Christians with planes if they could, but they can't, so they resort to whatever means they have at their disposal.  There is one particular quote that makes me laugh:

My hypothesis is that monotheism is associated with cognitive simplicity.  This is most clear in Islam; in Christianity cognition is a bit more complex because of the trinity.  In India, where there are 100,000 gods, there is the most complexity.


Right.... the fact that Christianity has a Trinity makes them cognitively more complex.  I would buy that some of the religions in India might promote more complexity because they lack the authoritarian answer "God did it" and actually promote understanding outside the framework of an Angry Man in the Sky who is the Boss.  The idea that Christianity is a step up because in some arcane way they define God to be part of a trinity is completely bogus though; it is just a way for the author to promote his own social group as less of a disaster than the others.  If a religion emphasizes that there are no simple answers and that any belief or tradition, no matter how much conviction is behind it, must be open to criticism and potentially abandonment then you will see cognitive complexity there.  Simply acknowledging "I could be wrong and I will change my mind if the evidence warrants it" is the key; whether or not you see your Angry Man as manifesting as three parts or not has no bearing on the issue.

I certainly don't give any credit to Islamic states and the various atrocities that have been committed in the name of religion there but neither do I doubt what the US would do if the religious folks had unlimited power.  All I have to do is read Rick Santorum's campaign promises to know that there are plenty of people who would happily create a savage theocracy that oppresses anyone who isn't rich, white, Christian, straight, cisgendered and male.  The difference there is the same as the difference between bombing with planes and suicide bombing; the zealots and lunatics in Western nations don't do as many horrible things simply because they lack the means, not because they lack the desire.

Determination of quality

You need a fair bit of expertise in a particular topic to really be able to appreciate just how good a true master really is.  A random person watching the best player of a particular game in the world playing against someone else who is merely quite good is often going to have absolutely no idea which of them is superior unless they can see the score and maybe not even then!  Someone without a trained ear for music (like me, say) won't be able to reliably tell the difference between the best violin player in the world and someone who is merely ok.  Snopes had an interesting little article about the time when Joshua Bell, one of the best violinists in the world, played in a subway station for free and got mostly ignored just like every other busker.  The funny thing was that people were actually surprised that the passersby paid him little mind - since he could sell out a concert hall with tickets at $100 they assumed everyone would go nuts for him playing in a subway station on a 3.5 million dollar violin.

This just goes to show how deluded people are about what we can actually perceive and what we assume is true based on cues around us.  There are obviously some people at a violin concert who really know the violin and would have been able to identify Bell's superior skill in the subway but they are a vanishing minority.  Even then they might have thought nothing of it unless they recognized him in particular since they are on their way somewhere else - time is of the essence.  Nearly every other person passing by couldn't possibly tell how good Bell actually is and even if they could there is no reason to assume they are going to be dumping $100 bills into his violin case nor making a scene.  So what if some busker is absolutely awesome at the violin?

The other thing that gets me is the assumption that we pay a lot for fancy performances specifically based on the quality of the performance.  The experience of a show is composed of many things including the experience of dressing up, anticipating the show ahead of time and being in a crowd of people who appreciate that particular form of expression.  If I strictly want to hear Bell play the violin I can listen to that any time by hitting up YouTube or a music store - just hearing it is nothing special.  The special thing is the whole experience.  I guarantee if people knew Bell was playing it would have been a huge thing because people would have set aside the time for it and expected to be part of a big, excited crowd with common interests.

More than anything I was amused at the surprise when parents dragged their children away from the subway station performance.  Have these people ever tried going anywhere on public transit with children, or taken any long trip for that matter?  The absolute last thing you want is the kid in question dithering over yet another random thing on the way while fussing that they are tired and want to be there already.  Encourage Elli to listen to a violin performance when I am at home?  Sure!  Encourage her to stop and park next to a random busker?  Unlikely!

Natural Sleep

It turns out there are a lot of unintended negative consequences of modern technology.  Obviously there are the ones we hear about all the time like obesity and climate change but there are also weird things we hardly even know about like sleep pattern changes.  This article talks about how people used to sleep in chunks, usually two of them, with a break in the middle of wakefulness.  People would tend to socialize, play games quietly or have sex during this intermediate period and then go back to sleep for the second half of the night.  Apparently it was even a big deal for people to try to break their children of this two sleep habit at some points!  That is all changed now of course because of light.

We no longer have 12 hours a day on average of time when little work can be done.  We aren't limited by the sun, the elements nor the season in our labors so there is a real incentive to cram our sleep into as tiny a space as possible of our day.  We are, by and large, massively sleep deprived as a society as a result.  I can tell you for sure that if the power went off at dusk I would get a hell of a lot more sleep - and like most people probably a lot more sex too.  When you have 12 hours a day of darkness (or more like 15 in the winter) you eventually run out of wanting to sleep and have to find something else to do!

Though it might be healthy for us in a lot of ways to turn off the lights at night we certainly aren't going to do that.  Whether or not this shows that we are dumb or driven I can't really say.

Score one for Einstein

Last year there was quite a kerfuffle on the internet about an experiment at CERN that showed neutrinos travelling faster than the speed of light.  This was a big deal of course if true but mostly the reporting was "Einstein was wrong!!11!!" with a picture of Einstein with big crazy hair.  The odds on bet of course was that the experiment was slightly flawed in some way rather than 'physics is all wrong' and now it sure seems like this is the case.  Apparently the GPS equipment for the experiment wasn't working correctly which would explain the assumption of faster than light travel.

Of course this isn't about Einstein and it was obvious from the outset that the experiment itself made some kind of error whether it be mechanical or mathematical.  The experimenters certainly deserve credit because they stated (paraphrasing here) that clearly they must be wrong but they couldn't figure out where and the result was incredible if true.  Score one up for science:  Get a crazy result, publish with appropriate misgivings, find your error, admit it.  In this case it is just the internet and the reporting at fault, not the scientists.  The speed of light really is the limit, Star Trek fantasies notwithstanding.

Now we need a collection of incredulous articles titled "Einstein was right after all!"

Drug me up

When I was young I acquired a deep hatred of mood altering substances.  I mostly attribute this to watching my classmates in grade 6 sneak booze through school to go to parties with much older people; I was ostracized by these people and came to associate booze, cigarettes and drugs with 'people I hate and who hate me'.  That uninformed attitude hung on for a long time though admittedly I still have no patience whatsoever with smoking.  I like to think my feelings on these issues have become more informed by facts and practicality than tween angst these days but it is clear I still have some old prejudices left behind.  I read a comic today on that very topic which basically said that there is no particular reason to think that using drugs is somehow 'losing control of your feelings' since your feelings are chemical reactions in your brain over which you normally have only nominal control anyhow.  By using specific drugs to change my mental state I am actually taking control of my emotions rather than simply letting them fly.  I sat and thought about that for a bit.  It is clear to me that there is still something irrational buried deep in my brain that wants to be free of such chemical manipulation.

Some people can just let their emotions be a lot more comfortably than others.  Today Penelope Trunk wrote about the various medications she has tried for her collection of mental conditions (Asperger's, borderline personality disorder) and was very open about the effects these different drugs have had on her life.  Penelope has extreme issues with normal life and can be a lot more functional when on the correct drugs and I think it is really excellent to have someone so influential write honestly and openly about their mental health issues and potential solutions.  Depression and other mental disorders are so often erroneously linked to moral failing that it is a very hard thing to admit in public; much of the worst part of depression is how difficult it is to admit to and talk about.  People have a hard enough time speaking about getting cancer or other such diseases where personal fault is rarely implied and when people admit to depression personal weakness is often blamed, adding to the troubles of the sufferer.

I have been depressed in the past but never took drugs for it.  Like many or most people in that situation I didn't really realize the situation I was in until long afterwards.  Whether or not I could have benefited from medical assistance back then I will never know.  Thankfully I don't have that problem now and I don't see it returning; it likely wasn't depression in the clinical sense so much as a lasting sadness creating by my specific circumstances.  Wendy has suffered from depression throughout much of her life and in particular had postpartum depression after Elli was born.  We had some really difficult discussions and tried everything else we could think of before Wendy decided she needed to try anti depressants to deal with the problem.  It hasn't been perfect or easy but things have notably improved and I think Wendy is a good example of someone who can really have a better life when drugs are used to help take the edge off of her depression.

It should be noted that I don't particularly trust drug companies.  There are success stories of various medications for mental disorders and there are horror stories too.  I certainly didn't want Wendy to try antidepressants until we had given everything else a try first; those things just didn't work well enough.  Some people are not particularly benefited by drugs, some people are made worse.  That said, I now keep a really open mind about what we can and should try to help people deal with mental disorders and I have no problem with alcohol or soft drugs when used responsibly.  There are plenty of good things that can come from changing our brain chemistry when it is done right.  Of course we have the responsibility to take our cues from pretty much anybody but the marketing department of Big Pharma, that goes without saying.

Revolution porn

Awhile ago I talked about "Mommy porn" which is the depiction of famous parents (Angenlina Jolie and Brad Pitt, say) on the covers of magazines with their incredible careers and packs of beautiful children.  Of course they don't actually raise those children themselves, so this is really just a ridiculous fantasy, hence the name.  A couple days ago I stumbled on an article that is of an entirely different type and which I think warrants the title "Revolution porn".  The article talks about the desperate situation in Greece and the violence and destruction that has been going on there.  It includes a picture of a police officer being burned by a fiery explosion created by some protester's homemade bomb.  The thing that makes my mind explode is that the author *celebrates* the violence, indeed he would have been crushed if there weren't arson and violent revolution in the streets of Athens.

The ridiculous fantasy here is that by burning down your neighbour's house or by trying to murder police officers you are striking a blow against the rich bankers who rule the world.  You aren't.  There are certainly police officers who are bad people that abuse their power to support awful regimes but the great majority of police really are normal people who are willing to do a hard and dangerous job to protect people from each other.  It must be tremendous fun to sit in an office in a country that is in pretty good shape and wax poetic about how wonderful it is to be a violent revolutionary and how much those random police officers deserve burning but the reality is something else entirely.  It is a fictional situation, one that is inspiring from a great distance and without thinking too much.

Random violence is not a useful response to this situation.  There are situations that do call for violent responses but your country's politicians trying to run a balanced budget does not warrant chucking firebombs at people.  I can almost imagine the author of the article sitting at his computer desk saying "Heh heh, they are totally burning those cops, heh heh" like a Beavis and Butthead video.  Is it understandable for someone to feel this way?  Sure!  There are plenty of people who want to see someone sticking it to the man and are glad they can do so from a long way away.  We shouldn't credit this desire with any more a glorious name than Revolution Porn though, because that is what it is.