Post
by Singha » Thu Dec 07, 2017 4:03 pm
been thinking where the ship is drifting...while people party on the decks...
Sunset of the Great Ape
looking back at history how did humans live some 2000 or 5000 years ago?
they lived in joint families of closely or loosely related by blood as the inner core
a few such cores formed a village or kabila
the men did all the outside work - farming, hunting, blacksmithy, pottery, protection details
the women did all the inside work - child rearing, keep the house, cooking, washing, building social networks, collectively looking after a pool of infants and kids
people rarely moved 100 miles outside of their birthplace in their lives unless forced by famine or war
life expectancy was around 45 years probably, but there was always a pipeline of younger boys and girls growing up to take the slack as adults aged out and died after brief illnesses. men had total control over womens activities and bodies, but the collective pool of women including grandmas did give her a place to shelter and seek support if the husband treated her badly. these grandmas who were the mothers of these men exerted some influence on the clan as leaders and social bridges.
the next phase was development of technology which made all the tough physical outside work a bit easier from 1200AD onwards
and more and more wars , which meant a lot of men died or were away for years but someone still had to cover the outside work
technology like machines for production and agriculture (think stuff like power looms, power tools) meant more and more women could come out and work, if there was a need (like in WW2 a lot of american women joined work in factories), or russian women did the same as all the men were fighting. or if the husband fell on bad times. or if the husband abandoned her or died.
the gender roles became a bit diffuse and more and more it became part of a set of common tasks that anyone could do like running a printing press or sewing a bag. women were still stereotyped into womanish jobs like secretary, sewing, midwife, scullery maids, food industry and the "deep thinking" jobs like professors , tool makers, generals, politicians were nearly 100% men. just as water continues to erode rocks the diffusion of power and control continued. monogamy got religious sanction and started to get enforced, thrashing the wife was no longer seen as a cool thing to do by the clergy which kept a section of men in line, while others continued to run wild and also philander. education became the norm for women upto some basic level as countries continued to grow richer and richer...albeit education was mostly not in STEM but in "home science" type things to make a good wife out of her, in her designated role , the designation matrix being entirely in the hands of men. new tools of social control of women were devised - religious texts, historical norms, lack of strength, lack of brains, lack of 100% attention to kids/husband if working being a ghor thoughtcrime , media projecting a certain image of what made a woman happy, laying a guilt trip on her .... times changed , tools and levers of control also changed from physical thrashings and social ostracism to more subtle formats aimed at "shaping" and "funneling" her tastes into the right funnels. why do we need to fight someone if from childhood you can direct her thoughts and environment in the way you want? win without a war...
cutting to the late 20th century, there is almost no physically demanding jobs left in the rich countries, everything being highly mechanised and of those that are left, womens nutrition is now enough they are no longer stunted and can handle such jobs easily. the fraction of non-womenable jobs is reducing all over the world incl the developing countries. last barriers like active military service have fallen. in all of the highest paying jobs like law, finance, judiciary, medicine, design, electronics, software, automotive .... there is absolutely little need for any physical strength or great mobility. even someone of sound mind and hand working from a wheelchair can work these and indeed physically challenged people also do.
in parallel the rich nations diverged two ways
- the nanny state - the northern european model of high taxation but high social benefits including a guaranteed old age pension, child bearing tax benefits and aid, unemployment aid, subsidized housing, subsidized higher education . reduce the rich poor living std gap to extent possible and take care of the bottom 20% by taxing the top 20% heavily. some urban pockets are such that only the very rich or very poor can live there - london and nyc are examples.
- the "american" model - trade off social benefits and economic regulations in favour of higher growth, higher take home income and let the "market" and "competition decide" what happens. this has crushed the bottom 20% in a circular loop of no economic mobility across generations and poor benefits, with the kind of jobs they could have done exported to the third world esp china and central america. the top 20% made good money and compete to send their kids to the best univs for their perpetual occupation of the commanding heights in the most lucrative sectors.
the poorer nations incl India are in two buckets
- those that are living in the middle ages wrt to opportunity for women - the entire 58 or such countries of the islamic block, most of africa, most of central america and rural pockets of many nations incl india and eastern europe
- urban pockets which generally follow the american model, as nobody has a pile of looted colonial era money or the political capital to have a northern europe nanny state - population is too high in the tropics. increases in cost of living has forced women to work from high to low - whether a maid supporting her security guard husband, or a IT managers wife doing a IT job to increase savings and pay down huge EMIs, all are on the treadmill now.
if we consider it as a rope, the head of the rope is northern europe, middle is america and tail is the developing world.
and what do we see in northern europe/america?
- people have abandoned religion enmasse
- people have no real interest in slogging decades through marriage and raising kids , separation rates are at record highs
- more and more are willingly childless or are stopping at below replacement fertility rate(1.3 children/woman) - an example is japan , italy ...
- there is rejection of intermarriage with growing number of african and muslim migrants due to religious and racial fault lines
- the state continues to look after people , whether single, separated, widowed does not matter
in developing nations?
- muslim societies continue to be a pressure cooker wrt womens freedom of opportunity and to speak out, desperately trying to exist like a oil droplet and survive by the cosy old mores of male control . but the steam is periodically now coming out as the triple talaq issue shows, or the change in ways of muslim women once they move out of the ghetto into the wider world despite the strong early childhood indoctrination
- in non muslim societies only the lack of a nanny state and money is holding back millions and millions of women from walking out of rather unhappy marriages - people may wax eloquent about sanskriti and sanskari naari but give people the backstop support of a nanny state and see the effect.
- its very hard to find a young educated woman in india these days who definitely wants 2 kids on her own unless the husband has a fetish for 2. even the generation now in late30s and 40s , many many stopped at 1 driven by economic reality-wife has to work, lack of grandparents support and career aspirations.
which brings me to my core arguments
- everyone by biological nature tries to maximise their advantages - if the male dominated order tried to hold the leash earlier, the emergent womens networks have found ways to destroy and discredit the dominant gorilla male chimps even if belatedly but with lethal network effects like the #metoo revelations. none are in jail yet, but position in public life and the income streams attached to that has become untenable and these men will only be able to retire into quiet anonymity at best - a crushing blow to the ego of public figures used to the cocaine of being in limelight and popular
- freedom once attained is rarely if ever voluntarily relinquished
- the nature of work is almost totally going to be unisex
- life is become safer both from physical violence and microbial infections - urban middleclass+ women no longer need a "protector" type man hovering around to lead their day to day life unless they inhabit a lawless region.
- women are generally happier in networks of other women, than trying to fit into some male bro culture like golfing, fishing, tall tales and old school buddy meet cum rum and crying over school hotties gatbandhans ... their topics of life interest are vastly different. no woman in india has any interest in what are the political dynamics of the syrian civil war or the finding of a new species of tortoise in patagonia under a rock. some men could debate for hours on it . every village has a troop of old men who sit under a tree reading every newspaper, talking and giving comments to everyone passing by ... nobody will notice a troop of old women doing that.
- the "desire" for hex as men think of it (conventional penetrative sex) likely bores to death some 95% of women as they never reach a climax through it unless the man lends a hand to it (pun intended) after the act rather than roll over and snore, though 95% of men think its a super great idea, the center of their tantric core and a entire huge industry (prawn industry) is built around that thoughtsphere. for women its as important as say a mildly interesting monthly project like cleaning the chest of drawers or getting a new pair of socks. so if men think their ability to provide hex on demand ( to mens benefit) is going to "glue" the cracked pottery together, I think they are much mistaken and misled. imo women can get by very well pleasuring themselves or entering into mildly LGBT type relationships for that 5% slice of the round pie chart that defines a persons "needs in life". men want hex every 3 hours if they can, a single good session can last women a long time.
the fabric of the whole organized monogamic nuclear family with religious sanction is fraying and the rips are growing larger. there is no social , physical protection, economic or hexual driver to keep it together against the riptide of economic and social changes sweeping at ever faster cycles around the world - with global media and social networks accelerating the pace and depth of disruption.
where does the rabbit hole lead to? I think it leads to groups of women, who might be related siblings or distant relatives or friends child rearing and working together as in the old clan days but with no or very few men around permanently. some variant a matriarchal kibbutz , blood related sorority or whatever you may call it, but 4 generations of women could be living under a mutually supportive network with the men being ghar jamais for limited time to donate their seed and then pack it off back to lone tusker mode until let back in to get another bowl of the cream on some occasions. the fact that women cope with old age and maintaining social relations much better is well proven. a old widow will manage, a old widower will soon be a shambles and fall apart. groups of women living and growing old together is very much probable , whether men are totally out of scene or a limited presence. in any rich country , women always have greater average lifespans and much less prone to the self abusive and indisciplined patterns of behaviour that cut mens lives short by years and sometimes decades. men become cranky with age and revert to being children, women continue to gain wisdom and become matriarchs.
it is also inevitable that genetic engineering will soon find ways to make the "seed" (mens last remaining trump card) artificially in the laboratory. rubber-a natural product was synthesized in the lab by germany to meet wartime shortage and british control of malaya and so will this precious "seed/beej" and that will be the last hammer blow sending men into a kind of irrelevance. the world needs lot of rubber but maybe only a few large vats of seed per annum to keep things um ticking over. and things can be manipulated at genetic level far better in the lab through splicing and editing to beat out the "bad" and usher in the "good" traits of the day - like a potential biochemistry Phd who also runs 100m in 10.5 seconds, does not smoke and is a great cook - all programmed at birth.
nature is wise and many ancient animals live in this mode, the most promiment being the large mammals who live decades like whales, elephants - some arctic species have lifespans longer than humans - always under wise matriarchs while the huge and violent males are let inside the door only when babies are needed and then "managed out" on some performance improvement plan. one difference from 1:1 monogamy(almost everyone gets a chance) is that probably the top10% of the males get 90% of the "opportunity" in the non-human world and have a disproportionate genetic footprint vs their "weaker" male rivals. the "weak" ones slink around trying to find a gap in the fence + avoid being killed if intercepted, or plot and collude to depose the incumbent king. and finding food alone, which the juvenile and matriarch led herds do far more safely and efficiently.
the age of the male ape having first right to all resources incl women is over. the sun has set on it on parts of the world and the shadows are creeping into our longitudes too. just as our kids will all drive EV cars not fossil fuel cars, I am no longer sure of many things.
I am not saying its "fair" or even the best thing to happen, but I am saying thats where the ball is rolling.
and how she should be careful. But to your face, K&N are nice and sweet, she was praising our new staircase and lawn and I know she is a fake.