The Dark Triad
Hat-tip to the one & only Razib for noticing this fascinating New Scientist report:
"Bad guys really do get the most girls"
"...two studies have confirmed it: bad boys get the most girls. The finding may help explain why a nasty suite of antisocial personality traits known as the 'dark triad' persists in the human population, despite their potentially grave cultural costs...
"The traits are the self-obsession of narcissism; the impulsive, thrill-seeking and callous behavior of psychopaths; and the deceitful and exploitative nature of Machiavellianism...
"...being just slightly evil could have an upside: a prolific sex life, says Peter Jonason at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. 'We have some evidence that the three traits are really the same thing and may represent a successful evolutionary strategy.
"Jonason and his colleagues subjected 200 college students to personality tests designed to rank them for each of the dark triad traits. They also asked about their attitudes to sexual relationships and about their sex lives, including how many partners they'd had...
"The study found that those who scored higher on the dark triad personality traits tended to have more partners...
"James Bond epitomises this set of traits, Jonason says...Just as Bond seduces woman after woman, people with dark triad traits may be more successful with a quantity-style or shotgun approach to reproduction, even if they don't stick around for parenting. 'The strategy seems to have worked. We still have these traits,' Jonason says.
"This observation seems to hold across cultures. David Schmitt of Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, presented preliminary results at the same meeting from a survey of more than 35,000 people in 57 countries. He found a similar link between the dark triad and reproductive success in men..."
So there you have it, gentlemen. It's the narcissistic, psychopathic Machiavellian who gets the girls.
Speaking as a sympathetic observer, from the sidelines, of the amatory struggles of nice straight guys, I must say that all this rings quite true. Back in my days teaching high school, I was continually amazed and appalled by the regularity with which all too many of the (seemingly) smartest and prettiest girls in my classes found themselves fawning over some of the worst and most criminally inclined boys.
Sadly, evolution just does not seem very interested in making good guys happy.
P.S.: The comments thread on Razib's post over at GNXP is, as one might expect, fun and interesting.
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God help the while, a bad world I say.
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). . .female viewpoint, which--while it doesn't really explain why "bad" guys do get women--has a reasonable suggestion why "nice" guys don't.
*--And I mean literally "randomly encountered"--I opened the Yahoo! home page and there was the link. Go figure.
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)What is, after all, a femme fatale?
They eat up good guys and spit them out for breakfast. I have no idea what their evolutionary advantage is. But they don't seem to be going extinct, thank God.
--Of course not!
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)Is a male fantasy.
There is a very minor film called Outrageous Fortune, written by a female acquaintance of mine, which has an Homme Fatale. Apparently, women are capable of seeing their sexual fantasies as dark and threatening too.
--More Wagster!
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| parent )...is a great question - and one which I haven't seen my evolutionist friends even *try* to deal with.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )Anyone remember the high school movie where some smartaleck explains this disorder? It isn't googling up for me. Maybe I got the name wrong. I tried the Leia Complex, Leia's dilemma, Han-Luke and so on.
Anyhow, Princess Leia has a problem. She feels she owes it to all that's fair and good to go with Luke, the young blonde-eyed, blue-haired hero, but she's powerfully drawn instead to the rascally, self-absorbed Han Solo. The nice guy came to rescue her, while the smuggler would've been happy to leave her to her fate on the Death Star. Yet who does she fall for? Bingo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cPFnpKk3hc
It's all so unfair.
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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)was her brother.
She may not have known it at the time, but her genes did.
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| parent ).
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )Luke was a whiny putz with a bad haircut.
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| parent )some power converters!
Unless "power converter" is a Tatooine euphemism for "triple-breasted hooker", I think you might be right.
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )I've been planning this as a diary, but have been ridiculously busy for the past several weeks. But I think this will add something to the interesting discussion about bad guys making good here.
Once in awhile the discussion about sociopaths among us crops up...how many are there, does society reward their total lack of empathy, is corporate, legal & political culture the domain of American Psychos, etc. It's routinely slapped down as liberal naivete of one flavor or another.
Allow me to introduce Dr. Robert D. Hare. He's the world's foremost expert on forensic psychopathy and author of the PCL-R checklist used to determine the degree of psychopathy in court systems and police jurisdictions throughout the English-speaking world. The checklist is a 40-point scale based on two factors of psychopathy (or sociopathy, same thing) which correspond roughly to categories of "antisocial personality" in the DSM-IV-TR. Hare calls these factors "aggressive narcissism" and "social deviance", respectively:
Factor1: Aggressive narcissism
1. Glibness / superficial charm
2. Grandiose sense of self-worth
3. Pathological lying
4. Cunning / manipulative
5. Lack of remorse or guilt
6. Shallow
7. Callous / lack of empathy
8. Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
Factor2: Socially deviant lifestyle
1. Need for stimulation / proneness to boredom
2. Parasitic lifestyle
3. Poor behavioral control
4. Lack of realistic, long-term goals
5. Impulsivity
6. Irresponsibility
7. Juvenile delinquency
8. Early behavior problems
9. Revocation of conditional release
Traits not correlated with either factor
1. Many short-term marital relationships
2. Promiscuous sexual behavior
3. Criminal versatility
Rank 30 points or higher on this scale, and you are a sociopath according to most police jurisdictions. I think you can see the scale generally corresponds with the "dark triad" traits, except that Hare has lumped thrillseeking and Machiavellian manipulativeness into the same general antisocial category, leaving lack of empathy/extreme narcissism in the narcissistic category.
Hare describes psychopaths as "intraspecies predators", a term which somewhat reinforces the popular notion that psychopaths are always murderers, but he makes clear this isn't so. Psychopaths are also poachers, free-riders, con artists, manipulators who wear a "mask of sanity," adroit at disguising their intentions by aping certain niceties of social etiquette.
And, according to Hare, society does reward such individuals, which he estimates make up close to 1% of a given population. At least, the highly organized type of psychopath is often rewarded with promotions, money, success in areas of law, business & politics which require cunning and punish traits like remorse, introspection and empathy.
Hare's written two books about psychopaths in everyday life. Snakes in Suits purports to be a manual for corporate types and HR reps, teaching them to identify psychopaths in the work environment before they damage their fellow employees and the company. Because, according to Hare, while some psychopaths are rewarded with success, they also tend to become destructive, sometimes spectacularly so. As with the "bad boys" of the study, the very traits that make for short term success (in sex or business) occasionally backfire with bad consequences for all involved. A modified version of the Hare PCL checklist can be used for screening job applicants.
None of which answers the question of whether psychopathy is a valuable evolutionary trait. Personally I tend to resist a "positivist" interpretation of natural selection which would hold that any current trait must have positive selection characteristics in its own right. The human genome is full of garbage, some of which occasionally emerges into phenotype expression. Same with homologous constructs like language, cultural habitus, etc. A "center-margin" concept of selected traits would be more accurate. Some selected traits are generally good for reproductive success, some manage to hang on in spite of being generally destructive, and occasionally truly atavistic traits emerge only to be slapped back down to the hazy margins of the human. Of course, if social or environmental conditions change drastically, today's atavistic traits could well become tomorrow's survival necessity. And there's always the Genghis Khan effect.
Hare's notion of the "intraspecies predator" seems about right, but "intraspecies parasite" rings even more true applied to the nonviolent psychopath. Like the free rider in economics, there may be an evolutionary niche for the psychopath, but he or she is by and large a liability to the success of the other members of society.
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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)This *should* get a diary of it's own, rather than languishing as a comment here.
Maybe the potential rewards for "intraspecies parasites" decrease as they become more numerous: the ideal world for a "bad boy" might be a world in which all the other guys are good.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )almost as if a callous lack of empathy makes him cheerfully willing to stab other commenters in the back, and a narcissistic need for attention drives him to ever more daring and outrageous behavior.
Or, it could just be sour grapes talking. :^)
Kidding of course, he's exactly the person to take a contrary position on Hare's theories.
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent ).
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )"... how many partners they had had..."
er, ok, and how is this scientific at all?
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)If the scientists just asked them stright out, face-to-face how many partners they had had then yes its not a very reliable study.
But I know a few people who've worked on this sort of research before. Apparently they do the entire questioning process through filling forms and ticking boxes. You know the kind of thing, "Tick Box 1 for 1-2 partners, Tick Box 3 for 3-4 etc." The forms are unsigned and no personal information is collected so what people said cant be traced back to a particular person. They even put them alone in a room to fill the form out so there is no one looking over their shoulder while they do it. All that makes this kind of research much more reliable.
Some people are still going to lie about this topic, but people are a lot more likely to be honest about sex if they dont have to look you in the eye when they respond.
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| parent )...to the wonderful world of social science.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )What about guys who smell bad all the time? Live with their parents? Dress like they're in eighth grade? Compulsively pick their nose? With bad oral hygiene? Debate the inherent flaws in the genesis story of the Green Lantern?
There are so many other factors here (though yeah, asking guys in college how many partners they've had and believing it is probably the worst) this whole thing smells of confirmation bias. I've known plenty of "nice guys who can't get women" who have plenty of other problems aside from being "nice guys".
The root of the "I can't get laid" problem is usually impossible for the sufferer to see, and probably has nothing to do with being a "bad boy".
Being fat, lazy, dumb, or unattractive works both ways.
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| parent )...that "bad boys" and "good guys" differ much, statistically, in respect of personal hygiene, parental dependency, etc.?
But, yeah, sure. There are all sorts of potentially confounding variables, here. Perhaps you should contact the studies' authors and explain this to them. I suppose it's possible that it never occurred to them.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )if comparing head sizes could help get some insight into this topic as well.
I say let these studies continue. They have to print something on the backs of the ads in Cosmopolitan magazine, after all.
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| parent )to say something you disagree with before starting in on him.
--I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent )to some snark.
I'd mention something about a barbarian and a jackass, but it's way too early for that kind of freaky stuff.
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| parent )NON SEQUITUR?
Apparently, there's something about me that really bugs you.
You need to get over it.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )I have reams of material on the subject. Want to borrow my calipers?
--In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
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| parent )God help the while, a bad world I say.
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)checked the level of the liquor bottle when he gave that line about "It touches them", just to acknowledge that he knows she's dipped into it. But I guess I shouldn't be second-guessing Kazan, he did all right just by himself.
--More Wagster!
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| parent )...and/or he should have more clearly enunciated the line:
"Liquor goes fast in hot weather."
Kazan was the greatest, but he nodded, there, just for a moment.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent ).
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )...until after he rapes her.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )from the get-go. It just becomes more and more apparent to the audience & other characters as time trundles on.
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )Blanche is living in the *right* century. It's everybody around her who's living in the *wrong* century!
(As Norma Desmond might have said.)
But, all jokes aside: up until the rape, Blanche Dubois is nothing if not a canny, manipulative woman of her time, and of her place, and of her "time of life," doing her best to capitalize on her rapidly fading physical charms - but finally undone by her fatal attraction to the ultimate, archetypal "bad boy."
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )But is that what she's undone by? I don't think so.
But I'm also sort of repelled by the view that she's the Old South crushed by the New South. I think that just means the play's good, and we want to give it a broader meaning.
--More Wagster!
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| parent )...she should have ended up married to Mitch.
And, but for Stanley in the way, that's what would have happened.
(In which case: no story, no play.)
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )Not that that's bad...you don't watch Tennessee Williams if you've an aversion to melodrama. A more interesting (to me) reading though is that she's "undone" by her realization that she has no interest in gentlemen callers at all. Or at least not their gentleman aspect. No, Blanche's undoing is her discovery that the squalid new century, with its icky democratic mores, its appalling lack of servants and its waves of immigrants with frighteningly foreign-sounding names turns her on. It's a slumming fantasy after all, and it's no accident that her memento mori is delivered in Spanish.
Blanche isn't delusional when they cart her away. She's just woken up for the first time to the real 20th Century, and she likes it. To her horror.
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )What a mess.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )"what a provocative and unorthodox misprision of the play", then I thank you. :)
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )...that's not it, at all.
There is nothing even slightly "provocative" or "unorthodox" about the reading that you suggest.
It is just the same old same old out from under which I spent my entire academic career trying to shovel my way.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )what you're talking about, even though it doesn't sound too good for my exegesis.
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )Expect the outrage-loving feminist blogs to jump on this with both feet.
Back when I used to hang out on Salon Table Talk this subject used to come up from time to time. Do women like "bad boys" etc. and the women would be outraged OUTRAGED that we men thought there was any truth to it. Direct observation of this phenomena by the male of the species was not considered evidence.
They called it the "nice guy card" as in, why do women date jerks and not nice guys like me. Any guy who played the nice guy card was ipso facto a big jerk.
--Guard, protect and cherish your land, for there is no afterlife for a place that started out as Heaven.
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)It's not me it's you.
--"That Sam-I-am! That Sam-I-am! I do not like that Sam-I-am!"- Dr. Seuss
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| parent )But what's in it for the girls, evoloutionarily?
Love 'em and leave 'em might be a successful strategy for spreading the boys' genes far and wide, but responding to it looks less successful for the gals'. She needs help getting her offspring to reproducible age. If she is unable to, her genes don't make it, either.
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)The strategy is simple:
(1) *marry* a good guy.
(2) *cheat on him* with one or more bad boys.
(3) hatch out the cuckoo's egg.
Good guys are *so* easily fooled.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )Of course, you mean males with alpha characteristics, which these women might not be able to procure as breadwinners, but which they can procure as lovers. It makes a great deal of evolutionary sense.
--More Wagster!
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| parent )Just as murderous jealousy among non-alpha males makes a great deal of evolutionary sense.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )Okay, whatever helps my gene pool.
--More Wagster!
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| parent )Say a husband bursts in on his wife in the act with another man, and promply shoots them both. He's certainly eliminated the other man from future contribution to the gene pool, but he's also (at least temporarily) hampered his own ability to do so--not to mention the nonzero chance that he just managed to unknowingly wipe out an impending member of his own gene pool (his wife being in it for the fun and not to play cuckoo games). There's the little problem of a probable jail sentence, too. If it's a genetic reaction, it needs to be fine-tuned a bit.
Edit: Sudden thought--for the gene pool as a whole, it could make sense: it eliminates from the gene pool both the guy dumb enough to get caught, and the guy inattentive enough to be utterly gobsmacked when he catches his wife cheating. The less clueless of the latter will probably react more calmly, reaching for a phone to call his divorce lawyer rather than for a shotgun--he'll live on to try again in freedom.
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| parent )legal systems are far too new to have effected evolution.
--I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent ). . .is the inability to adequately punish that sort of behavior without punishing the innocent children in the middle of it, or without giving sanction to violence, as the existence of the mitigated homicide crime of voluntary manslaughter does to an extent--I've seen feminists justifiably complain that the partial sanction of extreme violence in these circumstances is sexism of an appalling variety, but I don't see many feminists going out of their way to condemn the provocative behavior those laws address even in circumstances when it leads to "cuckoo" situations, either. Getting pregnant with another man's child and lying to one's spouse about it is fraud about a rather fundamental matter--society *should* impose a rather harsh sanction for it. . .but being able to find an effective sanction that is limited to the guilty party is a tricky task.
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| parent )In fact, it's impossible.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )If the reproductive fraud can be proven, I would recommend the following:
--the man should immediately be relieved of all child support obligations if he so desires, contrary to current law. The state should provide a reasonable stipend for the care of the child--and compensate the man for child support already paid under fraudulent pretenses*--with the amounts being carefully tracked and interest charged;
--the woman's personal identification should be permanently marked with a symbol that will make it clear to any future romantic prospects exactly who they are dealing with, and to flee. Failure to carry that ID or any attempt to remove the symbol from it should be considered a felony, and grounds for immediate loss of custody of one's children (thus ending support from the state and immediately making the balance of child support plus interest due);
--like child support now, this debt should be non-dischargable in bankruptcy. When that kid leaves the house, the woman starts paying, and keeps paying until she's paid it all off or she dies. Period.
Harsh, but no more so than the state of the law regarding men and child support.
*--of course, if it turns out that the man is playing some sort of confidence game with the woman's assistance, it goes without saying that the state should go after him for fraud with absolutely no mercy.
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| parent ).
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )- Login or register to post comments
| parent ).
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )But when the truth in question is: "I've been known to get pregnant by one man, then deceive another man into paying for the consequences," I'd say that's worth the equivalent of a "Danger: Product May Have Toxic Side-Effects" label. No one's talking about a "Breasts may have been enhanced with inorganic products" label here--that's an assumed risk. :-)
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| parent )Gee, wonder why there's no women posters here at the Forvm?
They must all be posting on some other 'bad-boy' website.
Yeah, that's gotta be it.
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| parent )which is one of the benefits of anonymity. I frequent some technical blogs, where from time to time a poster confesses to be female and to concealing that fact to avoid the inevitable off-topic "what are you doing here? What's the feminist perspective on Ohm's Law? Are you hot?" etc.
Not that anyone here would be so crass. Or that a woman posting here would be so bashful as to not let us all know, and to shoot a poster with real or imagined sexist views right between the eyes verbally.
--In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
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| parent )"Not that anyone here would be so crass."
I would. I mean, if you call that crass I would be. I might even be so base as to ask them if they can cook :)
--It's not only redundant, it's also repetitive
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| parent )ovulated while listening to a Coldplay CD. Does that count?
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| parent )Missed that earlier. Although I own the Rush of Blood album. Guess I shouldn't admit that now. :)
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )my wife (and other significant people in my life) love them, and I don't actually hate them. They just seem like aural wallpaper to me, I guess.
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| parent )If you'll pardon the phrase, which seemed appropriate here.
For reference, which CD? The one about the yellow bananas?
--In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
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| parent )The ultimate result of shielding man from the effects of folly is to people the world with fools. -Herbert Spencer
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| parent ). . .all of the whining about "why aren't there any women here?" combined with implicit and explicit PC sniping is putting them off.
I'd welcome the contributions of female posters here, but if they're put off by suggestions that women who behave fraudulently should be held as accountable for their actions as men would be and are, then they can go elsewhere for ego-stroking.
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| parent )you disagree with as 'whining', or do you have some other, more creative standard for it?
Lighten up. I'm out to enjoy the excellent weather outside. But I'll leave with some wise words I once read somewhere:
"Some choose to walk the path of pure chastity; others have it thrust upon them."
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| parent )But there are certain subsets here and elsewhere for where it seems to apply most of the time--whining associated with "I was just joking" and the sound of "Brave Sir Robin" heading for the exit when it is accurately described is certainly one of those subsets.
As for the last sentence, there's a John Randolph quote out there somewhere about people who argue by insulting other people's sex lives. You might find Googling "John Randolph," "barbarian," and "jackass" enlightening.
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| parent )wants to do with a barbarian and a jackass is purely his business. I kind of feel sorry for the poor animal, but I'm sure it's all in fun.
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| parent )I know what it's like to the center of female attention.
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )none of them necessarily reflecting well on you. Potentially nvolving activities that may not be legal in some states, depending on what was on the transparencies, whether the audience was a sorority, the audience under the age of majority, and so forth. As your attorney, I advise you to used your moderator cloaking powers to first pretend that you are someone else, and then go into prurient detail - please. I can't define obscenity, but I know it when I see it.
--In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
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| parent )I guess she was that kind of girl. Trouble is, that kind of girl was a dime a dozen, and I had a Traper Keeper zip wallet full of dimes....
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )Keep going!
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )Don't let anybody tell you it isn't a curse to be born irresistible to women. In my line of work you learn to keep it under wraps, or spend your time chased from gym to calculus by wildly screaming teenieboppers in an endless Hard Day's Night of the soul. But I wasn't in high school to cut eye-holes in newspapers. I had perfect attendance because high school had something I wanted. And what I wanted was a ticket to the Intel International Science & Engineering Fair, one way if possible. I was getting out, moving up to the Big Show, and my photo in a heart magnet in some debutante's locker didn't fit the picture. So I stayed out of the sun, dressed like Erkel, affected allergies and asthma. The inhaler kept the dames away. Mostly. But Mrs. Erskine was a problem. She had part of what I wanted, which was an A in AP Geometry. And I had something she wanted. Which was...something she wanted. And no fallen arches or 20-sided dice or highwater chinos were going to stop her. She wanted to keep me around, all right, and if I wasn't careful she'd make sure my stay in the big house was...protracted.
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )Did you ever manage to hold her hand, or do you not want to get into all the graphic details? I'll understand if so.
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| parent )...brilliant.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )The ultimate result of shielding man from the effects of folly is to people the world with fools. -Herbert Spencer
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| parent )what you're calling for is about 50% of state and local governments being devoted to finding out who slept with whom and who said what to whom. Even then, there's a good chance that a substantial percent of the population would get around it. I'm pretty liberal, but there are some things about human nature that you just have to accept without getting the state involved in it except for cleaning up afterwards and taking care of the kids.
--I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent ). . .that the state is already taking sides, by enforcing child support even in cases where the man can prove that the child is not his biologically, by DNA evidence--this is clearly monumentally unjust. The easiest way to enforce my proposal would be to make DNA testing mandatory in all cases where mandated child support is sought. Obviously, if it is a case where the wife has been caught in her deception--leading to divorce--she could avoid the harsh grip of the law by simply declining to ask for child support. Ideally, the harsher aspects of the law would be the equivalent of a guillotine sitting in the family courtroom: a warning not to pull any fast ones in seeking child support, lest the blade fall.
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| parent )but the "red letter" bits will never work. In my experience mixing sex and alcohol leads to rather interesting (and sometimes literally impossible) recounting of events.
--I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent ). . .will be a chemist who invents a 100% reliable male contraceptive that mixes well with beer. ]:-)
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| parent )... should play Diplomacy! No better training in the ways of mistrust to help keep those cuckold's horns off your head!
(No, as a matter of fact, I didn't get a lot of dates in high school.)
(No, not a lot in college, either.)
(What's your point?)
--Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.
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| parent )...the feeblest segue I've ever seen.
But it's all in a good cause.
So carry on.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )You're welcome.
--Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.
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| parent )... on Charlie Rose, talking about how she met her husband. Apparently he entered the room and made a rude joke, somewhat at her expense. She thought 'what an assh*le' at the same time as she thought 'this is the guy I'm going to marry.' I don't pay much store to social science experimentation, but there's just too much anecdotal evidence on this score.
--More Wagster!
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)....is buying into malicious and unjustified sterotypes:
Low-IQ sociopaths may commit crime, but average or high-IQ sociopaths will become trial lawyers or investment bankers.
:^)
--The ultimate result of shielding man from the effects of folly is to people the world with fools. -Herbert Spencer
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)These are merely statistical, as opposed to universal, generalizations.
I'm sure that nobody here, with the possible exception of P.M., could honestly suspect you of sociopathy.
On the other hand, I have to ask myself: were I married to a woman, would I allow her to approach within a hundred yards of you and your latinate charm?
Probably not.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )I think "bad guys get the girls" is a generally accepted stereotype that most people would agree has some truth, although it's always nice to see scientists working hard to shed light on the human condition. However, the complementary stereotype is that girls settle down with good guys, and I suspect studies would back that up too.
In this day and age, with the widespread use of birth control, I don't think it can be said that sleeping with lots of woman will actually generate "a quantity-style or shotgun approach to reproduction."
Of course, that ignores the degree to which the dark triad qualities are genetic versus a learned behavior designed to result in *sex* rather than reproduction...
--Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson
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)... on reflection, brendan (viz. the genetic predisposition toward bad behavior as a reproductive strategy, vs. the learned emulation of bad behavior as a way to have an active sex life). Since the 'impulsive' element will tend to lead 'bad boys' to pursue sex in any case, and Evolution, in Her infinite Wisdom, has tethered sex to reproduction, it's not clear that the emulated elements of the behavior aren't 'merely' supervenient.
On the other hand, what's going to count as desirable bad beahvior, as opposed to something merely antisocial, has something to do with peculiar habits and mores of a cultural milieu.
--Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.
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| parent )we've basically untethered sex from reproduction, haven't we?
Or are you saying that as far as our biological behavior is concerned we aren't able to comprehend the distinction?
--Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson
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| parent )... that the individual's desire for sex just is, from the 'gene's eye view', the desire for reproduction. Of course we can comprehend the distinction; I'm not sure, however, whether and to what extent we can act on it.
--Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.
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| parent )How much anybody wanna bet that that is the first time that that word has ever appeared on this website?
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )he used it above. What PM would call a tell.
--In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
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| parent )(in the context used above): more than I'm getting.
What else could it mean?
--Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.
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| parent )I think there's at least a decent chance it's come out of catchy's fingers.
--Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.
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| parent )- Login or register to post comments
)But also possibly an indication of something not mentioned in the study.
One reason the dark triad might get more action is because they're more willing to use and discard people who *ahem* have a harder time finding long term partners.
It may still be the case that being a nice guy works better at getting you the more desirable partners.
I, for one, feel no loss at all at having missed out on the rare pleasures of Paula Jones or Gennifer Flowers or cigar-girl.
--Steven Palmer Peterson
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| parent )This is a large part of the issue, in my opinion.
A candid psychologically astute joint biography of Bill & Hillary would be amazing to read.
--Fence post turtles -- They don't get up there by themselves, some moron had to put 'em there.
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| parent ). . .he actually laid hands on--I was thinking of the millions of women who knew that he was a serial adulterer who lied as easily as most men belch and far more often, and yet somehow saw him as a protector figure and voted for him by overwhelming majorities in two national elections. Many *still* see him that way, to this day. And feminists say testosterone makes *men* act like idiots?
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| parent )...evolutionary success story!
But he doesn't hold a candle to Genghis Khan.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )