Dec 14, 2014 1:21 PM GMT
Study supports the theory that 'men are idiots'
-
Dec 14, 2014 1:21 PM GMT -
Dec 14, 2014 2:03 PM GMTI had read this, Paul, and thought about posting it here myself. But I found it a bit problematical.
For one thing, the study puts a lot of value on needless risk taking. But that's also a known hormonal reaction by many young males, and has little to do with genuine idiocy. As men mature they tend to take fewer personal risks - are they becoming less idiotic?
The measurement methodology is therefore open to serious doubts. So I'll just fall back on tried and true subjective personal observation, flavored with a healthy dose of gender bias, and say that women still earn the idiocy crown as a group. No man on Earth can match a scatterbrained blonde woman for pure idiocy. And every man knows this to be true.
-
Dec 14, 2014 6:46 PM GMTI would argue that the higher level of risk taking in men is real and it's because our mental makeup is also controlled by our genes, not just our upbringing and environment.
Before we were civilized, back when we were cavemen, women stayed home and tended the hearth and the children, while the men were out hunting and fighting off tribes that were encroaching on their territory, all naturally risky activities.
This is also why I think men are more aware of their immediate environment. When I was working and taking public transportation I was always seeing women who were "in the way," for example, standing in front of a door, or at the top or bottom of the stairs, in a conversation with another woman. Whereas men are much more likely to automatically move to where they're not blocking traffic.
I also think this is why men are more comfortable with analyzing and understanding things and problems whereas women are more comfortable with learning things by word of mouth.
-
Dec 14, 2014 6:58 PM GMTThat's a separate issue and in fact, a few minutes observation in any supermarket, downtown traffic pattern, or airport will reveal that women specifically seek out bottlenecks where they can block traffic and deliberately plant themselves there. Whether they are "aware" of what they're doing is not clear, but it is not random behavior. -
Dec 14, 2014 8:02 PM GMTmindgarden saidThat's a separate issue and in fact, a few minutes observation in any supermarket, downtown traffic pattern, or airport will reveal that women specifically seek out bottlenecks where they can block traffic and deliberately plant themselves there. Whether they are "aware" of what they're doing is not clear, but it is not random behavior.
I see this all the time, one of the reasons I hate shopping in supermarkets, where women shoppers are often in the majority. I encountered that today with my husband at a supermarket, where women weren't just blocking aisles, they were virtually barricading them.
I hate to be in any crowded places with women present, when you're supposed to be moving along, not setting up camp. Most men do tend to move with a purpose, and remain aware of their surroundings, including others, and the bottlenecks you mention. Whereas women dawdle, meander, stop dead for no reason (they ought to be made to wear brake lights and turn signals on their backs), and blithely act like they're the only creatures on Earth.
As stated here earlier, it may reflect divisions of labor that early humans developed, causing different skills to evolve between the sexes. Men tend to work in groups and as a team more naturally, to organize more quickly, and navigate more accurately & confidently. Like the phrase "Men are from Mars, women are from Venus", I often think that men are like dogs, while women are cats. -
Dec 14, 2014 10:04 PM GMT
-
Dec 14, 2014 11:20 PM GMTDoes this actually work? I just posted a reply that went nowhere. -
Dec 14, 2014 11:22 PM GMTIt was about Republicans. Is that a mystery that it went sideways? They control the chat sites, destroying them. -
Dec 15, 2014 12:00 AM GMTHmm, it seems the theory has been proven yet again. -
Dec 15, 2014 12:09 AM GMTbarriehomeboy saidDoes this actually work? I just posted a reply that went nowhere.
What thread? Link? -
Dec 15, 2014 6:04 PM GMTArt_Deco saidI had read this, Paul, and thought about posting it here myself.
What porn sites are you guys reading that have links to intellectual articles like this? The ones I read only have nudes.
-
Dec 15, 2014 6:04 PM GMTI always considered men to have a lot of intellectual potential because they are allowed to make more mistakes than women in society. Women usually become intelligent quickly form my experience, though they plateau for a long chunk of their life. Overall it's more so a blend I find between sexes with some slight patterns. -
Dec 15, 2014 7:44 PM GMTidiotic study itself, like nothing else to do ... -
Dec 15, 2014 8:01 PM GMTWell, it's not as if there was actually any "study." Someone just counted up the "winners" from one of those "Darwin Awards" web sites and wrote a BS article about it.
Maybe the actual experiment is measuring how many people cite the "study." -
Dec 15, 2014 8:25 PM GMTAs someone commented: " " semi-naturalistic Christmas party setting" LOL
obviously tongue-in-cheek, all pseudo-sciency and stuff"
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-12-theory-men-idiots.html#jCp -
Dec 16, 2014 3:02 AM GMTwouldn't necessarily agree that men are idiots, its more so that they cave in to social stereotypes. men are expected/largely assumed to be bumbling idiots (turn on any bloody tv sitcom or film) I think many guys feel they have to emulate this stupid behaviour to fit in or be regarded as being "just a dude" and yeah, if they are caving in to meet stereotypes than I guess the hypothesis of this study is indeed true -
Dec 16, 2014 1:39 PM GMTOur worst and best qualities are often two sides of the same coin. The propencity to take fearless risk also drives us to take appropriate chances that result in progress of one sort or another. When our risk taking ends in failure we grow from the experience so that the next time we stand a better chance of succeeding.
So yes, women in general are less likely to take fearless risk and hence less likely to act like idiots. But I think this partially explains why they are less likely to achieve the greatness that can only come from risk. -
Dec 16, 2014 4:43 PM GMTNivek said
So yes, women in general are less likely to take fearless risk and hence less likely to act like idiots. But I think this partially explains why they are less likely to achieve the greatness that can only come from risk.
Yep.
Hence why you have never heard of the Wright Sisters, Tammy Edison, Galilea, etc.
-
Dec 16, 2014 4:50 PM GMTlibertpaulian said
Nivek said
So yes, women in general are less likely to take fearless risk and hence less likely to act like idiots. But I think this partially explains why they are less likely to achieve the greatness that can only come from risk.
Yep.
Hence why you have never heard of the Wright Sisters, Tammy Edison, Galilea, etc.
Except, that explanation fails to acknowledge other factors that have held women back throughout history, including lack of good education options equivalent to those of men, limited access to career & political opportunities, and rigid societal gender roles, to name just a few.
But as Nivek says, it may "partially" explain less greatness by women. The question is the degree of difference between partially and primarily. -
Dec 16, 2014 4:56 PM GMTwomen are the idiots for being the bottom. -
Dec 16, 2014 6:04 PM GMTFlashDrive saididiotic study itself, like nothing else to do ...
+1 -
Dec 16, 2014 6:05 PM GMTpellaz saidwomen are the idiots for being the bottom.
Men might be idiots but women are dingbats. -
Dec 16, 2014 9:11 PM GMTNivek saidThe propensity to take fearless risk also drives us to take appropriate chances that result in progress of one sort or another.
Yes.
The theory of evolution says (at least as I understand it) that things that make an animal survive better can get passed on to their offspring, if the thing was some sort of minor genetic mutation. Then their offspring have a better survival rate compared to their fellow animals who don't have the trait and eventually outnumber them.
Food wasn't always plentiful back when we were cavemen so the man who was a risk taker when food was scarce was more likely to be able to provide for his family. -
Dec 16, 2014 9:18 PM GMTArt_Deco saidExcept, that explanation fails to acknowledge other factors that have held women back throughout history
That's the standard argument, blaming society. But my experience refuted that. I was a computer systems administrator and applications programmer and had plenty of women coworkers. Men who were computer geeks were a dime a dozen, but I never met a woman who loved computers and technology and found it inherently fascinating the way men did.
Even more telling is that in the software field there is a ton of open source free software. Open source means that you can modify and examine the internals of the software. I have never seen an open source project that was done by a woman. And there's absolutely nothing preventing them; no permission is needed or anything. Likewise, there are many blogs by programmers giving help about how to do various things, and blogs by sysadmins. Again, never any by women. Guys do this stuff because they find it rewarding and interesting and inherently enjoyable.
Another standard argument for those situations is that women are sensitive to what men like and men don't like geeky women. But I don't buy that. -
Dec 16, 2014 9:34 PM GMTAs long as we're delving into full-blown misogyny, the sort of "data" used here also would fail to capture another important phenomenon: Women, through their idiocy, tend to get other people killed, rather than themselves. E.g. the "safe" women drivers who cause multi-car accidents by forcing others to make evasive maneuvers.
