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loqi comments on Mate selection for the men here - Less Wrong
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Nice casual, sweeping judgment there. Makes me wonder what the net effect of this attitude being widespread among females would be.
You don't have to wonder. The net effect would be the propagation of the genes that led to the formation of this attitude. ;-)
In fact, you have your wondering backwards. Any time you find human behavior to be inexplicable, it would behoove you to work backward to any likely evolutionary cause. Not so that you can prove women (or people in general) are broken and bizarre, but so you can understand why they might feel that way, and accept their concerns and feelings as valid, within their own sphere of reference.
In this particular case, for example, consider what a guy being "creepy" (i.e., lacking social ties) would mean in our ancestral environment.
Indeed, but I wasn't wondering about the attitude's origin, nor did I say I find it inexplicable.
No thanks. There's an evolutionary cause to the male tendency toward violent behavior, and I can empathize with what it feels like to want to hurt someone, but that doesn't mean I accept it as "valid". If I encounter someone whose "sphere of reference" involves public validation of macho violence, I am doing everyone a disservice by pretending it's okay. Likewise for blind prejudice.
So, if you prefer women with certain physical qualities, is that a blind prejudice, too?
If a woman prefers chocolate ice cream, does that mean she's blindly prejudiced against vanilla?
If a company says they prefer job applicants to have references, is that blind prejudice also?
I think you are confused, especially if you're connecting this to violence. To women in general (though not at all always for any particular woman) a man's social connections are his references... and for many, it's also his flavor.
Granted, Alicorn's way of expressing this fact was not especially PC from a male perspective. To a guy, caring about who you know can sound "elitist", in precisely the same way that guys' concerns about various female characteristics can sound "shallow" and un-PC to women.
However, if you understand and correctly translate this female preference to whatever preferences you have for your partners (that women in their turn don't necessarily understand or appreciate), then it would be easy to accept/forgive Alicorn's way of putting it.
Meta-comment unrelated to the substance of this thread: I want to apologize for the above response. I do think your analysis of my perspective is incorrect, but I realized that it's stupidly counterproductive to actively discourage random strangers from taking stabs at my underlying psychology or motivation. I'm usually annoyed by such speculation (not just when it's directed at me) because of its low average accuracy and distracting nature, but the expected utility of just one penetrating insight would easily outweigh the "cost" of ignoring or tersely refuting the inaccurate ones. It's my choice whether or not to "take it personally".
This analogy is based on a reinterpretation of the original statement . Consider instead the trivially false statement: "if you don't have references, you will be a lousy employee".
Which "this"? Your statement seemed to imply that I should "accept as valid" (which I assume means something along the lines of "don't publicly object to") a sentiment or preference with an understandable evolutionary origin. Why not a preference for violence?
According to you, her way of expressing this fact was to express a different fact.
Thanks for draping me with stereotypes and assuming the worst, but that wasn't my objection. I was objecting to the elevation of a mere social intuition or preference to the status of a logical truth (note the if-then, case-by-base logical structure of the original context). If Alicorn had said "I think it's creepy when a guy doesn't know any women", I would not have replied.
Understood, and fair enough. However, it would've been much more helpful if you'd just said that to start with, rather than answering her with a sweeping dismissal.
I personally don't see what she said as that big a deal; I took the "something wrong" part as meaning "you have characteristics women in general will find undesirable" or "you lack characteristics that women in general will require" -- and I see that as a true statement.
If you take this as meaning there is something morally or ethically wrong with you in some absolute sense -- as opposed to merely "wrong" for the result you desire -- then I could see how you might consider it prejudice.
In my case, it's easy to see Alicorn as speaking through the lens of a worldview in which it's simply common sense that of course you would know other people, because otherwise you'd have to be some sort of creep, or at least have a terrible life that's in urgent need of repair. And within the sphere of women's social lives (in general), such an assessment is perfectly logical and sensible.
I mean, "understand why a human being might feel that way and separate your opinion of the behavior from your judgment of the person" - to disagree without being disagreeable, in other words.
I think it's more helpful to sweepingly dismiss sweeping, incorrect generalizations of people that others may take to heart.
I don't, except in the tautological sense ("there's something wrong with men who don't know any women, and that something is women find them undesirable, because they don't know any women").
Ah, I see. You're talking about "wrong" in the sense that it's wrong to have gay friends, if you want to meet Christians.
Out of curiosity, what would you be inclined to say about a random woman who simply did not know any men and who socialized exclusively with women, none of whom knew any men either? Assume this scenario is in a country not dominated by strict Islam or similar social structures.
The mind boggles at such a concept. However, you probably mean a woman who did not know any men she considered potential partners, and who socialized with women, none of whom knew any men they considered introducing as potential partners... in which case, that sounds like a lot of women. ;-)
So, I'm not entirely sure where you meant to draw the line, there. But unless you were trying to imply that she's a nun or a lesbian, though, you need to understand that men (in general, though not always in every specific case) simply wouldn't care.
Likely male responses to this condition in reality would be things like, "Cool, a virgin", or "Great, she won't have anybody to compare me to", or "wow, so many women not knowing guys... think of the opportunities for me!"
In fact, my first joking response that I almost typed at the beginning of this comment was that I'd say, "Welcome to Fantasy Island!" -- because that's more or less the evolutionary-instinctual male response to the idea of "lots of women without any men around", i.e. "awesome".
IOW, the female preference for men to have social connections just doesn't translate in reverse. Men have different evolutionary drives in this respect, which is why guys who think just enough about this stuff to notice it (but not enough to properly translate/balance) tend to end up with all sorts of grudges against women's preferences as being "irrational" and "unfair" (i.e. not-the-same-as-men's).
This wasn't addressed to me, but I have to say I don't quite agree with the responses.
Ignoring its trivial impossibility, I'd believe such a woman was (at least in a romantic sense, and probably in a non-romantic one) very naive and very socially awkward, or that she was a lesbian. As I understand it, it's fairly hard to be a woman without encountering at least a few men, so if a woman totally lacks any male friends in her entire social network, that would signal serious, debilitating shyness, a lack of social skills, or a lack of interest in men. Of course I'd change this belief in the face of any contradictory evidence, but absent further evidence, that's what I'd infer.
Given that I'm male, by definition I haven't known any women in that situation, so I don't have anything to say.