Butthurt white guys, an Asian virgin and an angry lesbian walk into a bar...

  • Guest, it's time once again for the massively important and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!



    Go here and give us your nominations!
    Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Give us your worst ones!

fanaskin

Well known agitator
<Silver Donator>
55,942
138,362
Well, you've gotten to the heart of this argument.

One side believes that unconscious, biological urges are the driving factor in occupational choices, even occupational choices that revolve solely around forebrain functions. Basically purely Freudian psychoanalytic theory. And there's just never been, since Freud, any real empirical evidence of the mechanisms of the unconscious or proof that psychoanalytic theory is anything other than a good guess for the time.

Then on my side of the argument, there's the next 100 years of sociology, psychosocial theory, behavioral psychology and developmental psychology, showing how social structures have a profound impact on our choices, on our development as human beings, and that socially enforced roles are so powerful that they can impact our own biology by influencing our hormone levels and by spurring structural changes within the brain. Behavioral psychology is the MOST empirically testable and reproducible framework within psychology and the most able to predict future behaviors, and it states that people's actions are primarily predicated on external incentives, not internal urges.
this is potatoe/potato everything is external stimuli, the question is how it interacts on internal innate structure and what tendancies those structures would manifest even when you vary stimuli. everybody accepts the concept of innate structure to some degree.

Behaviorism has also showed that our internal 'feelings' are not the drivers of behavior but actually post-hoc justifications for what we just did. Behavioral psychology basically discounts all internal unconscious desires other than one overarching desire to seek out incentive/reward/reinforcement related activities. And those incentive/reward/reinforcement structures are created bysociety.

And there's the totality of my argument.
you'd have to elaborate more on this, even if this is what is currently thought to be true, social sciences aren't nearly as well understood as physics was in the 1800's and physics underwent radical changes since then. i'd like to see what examples these ideas are derived from
 

Tanoomba

ジョーディーすれいやー
<Banned>
10,170
1,439
the huge problem I have with tanoomba's arguement is he says everything is external stimuli, without crediting the interaction it has on internal innate mechanics, of course everything is external stimuli dummy, the question is what is the interactions all these external stimuli have on internal innate mechanisms.
Well, the difference between you and me is that I'm looking at this question logically. How do we know what "interactions" take place between external stimuli and innate mechanisms? Well, we measure whatever we are capable of and observe the results. We can measure what parts of the brain respond to what stimuli. We can measure how neural pathways are formed and reinforced by external stimuli. We can compare primitive brains with modern brains and see a remarkable difference in the development of the frontal lobes which play a huge role in our ability to even form cogent thoughts. We can map out how frontal lobes developed as a result of the creation of language, which replaced the role previously held by instinct. The communication of thoughts and ideas through language can instill values and shape behavior far more complex than instinct was ever able to. This is not an opinion. The more we observe the brain, the more apparent it becomes that the very way we think is shaped by society around us. You, on the other hand, choose to defend a stance that can't be measured or proven in any way (ie: That instinctual forces are a driving force behind our higher-level decision making), based entirely on your "feels". I have neuroscience on my side, you have sweet dick.
 

mkopec

<Gold Donor>
26,226
39,930
result of the creation of language, which replaced the role previously held by instinct. The communication of thoughts and ideas through language can instill values and shape behavior far more complex than instinct was ever able to. This is not an opinion.
Wha?

And you call this logical?

Youre a fucking idiot. Go back to babysitting 1st graders.
 

Tanoomba

ジョーディーすれいやー
<Banned>
10,170
1,439
Wha?

And you call this logical?

Youre a fucking idiot. Go back to babysitting 1st graders.
...he says, with zero counterargument.

Yes, retard, the near-infinite number of ideas and skills we are able to understand and carry out because of language absolutely dwarfs any instinctual behavior that has ever existed. Why do you have a problem with this?
 

Mist

REEEEeyore
<Gold Donor>
31,197
23,362
Actually "I bet" the obesity rate is about 32% in SK, according to the link I provided. I don't need to speculate, they obviously aren't conquering their hunger instinct.

The better question in your link would be Japan, which is only 5%.

Japan Has Cut Obesity to 3.5% in a Controversial Way That Wouldnt Fly in America - Mic

Still 24% of Japanese have a BMI over 25. From my previous link, over 32% of South Koreans are > 25 BMI.

http://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/umrfwp/14321.html

Even with SEVERE social fat-shaming, people are still fat. GO FIGURE.
Comparing different definitions. You linked a South Korean paper using their own health ministry's definition of obesity, which is 25 BMI, where the CIA Factbook uses 30 BMI if you look under their Definitions page. So if you want to compare across cultures you need to use the same definitions across countries. Though it's fucking scary seeing that 33% Americans are fucking obese even with that high definition of obesity.
 

Cad

scientia potentia est
<Bronze Donator>
25,426
49,042
Comparing different definitions. You linked a South Korean paper using their own health ministry's definition of obesity, which is 25 BMI, where the CIA Factbook uses 30 BMI if you look under their Definitions page. So if you want to compare across cultures you need to use the same definitions across countries. Though it's fucking scary seeing that 33% Americans are fucking obese even with that high definition of obesity.
I agree. 25 is obese. 30 is REALLY obese. If you're 100lbs yours is probably like 18-19.
 

Mist

REEEEeyore
<Gold Donor>
31,197
23,362
Regardless, you still haven't established even a correlational link between obesity and economic development, as per your original point.
 

mkopec

<Gold Donor>
26,226
39,930
Yes, retard, the near-infinite number of ideas and skills we are able to understand and carry out because of language absolutely dwarfs any instinctual behavior that has ever existed. Why do you have a problem with this?
But no amount of language or the ability to express yourself will ever override the basic instincts of food, shelter, self preservation, reproduction, fight or flight. Some even argue that language itself is instinctual.

Cant talk yourself or others out of it, bro.
 

fanaskin

Well known agitator
<Silver Donator>
55,942
138,362
Well, the difference between you and me is that I'm looking at this question logically.
No you're not, it's pretty obvious there is an innate structure to the way we perceive the world, we are genetically gifted to perceive things like geometric shapes, or harmonic sounds, differentiate rigid bodies in motion, these are universal aspects of cognition that are uncontroversial, but when it comes to higher faculties for whatever reason we have to descend into some kind of mysticism as to why our obviously biological structure has to work differently without any universality. We all posses basically the same genetic capacity to learn the same things, this points to an obviously a similar biological framework of our innate structure but this is used as evidence that there is no innate structure somehow seems absurd.

The communication of thoughts and ideas through language can instill values and shape behavior far more complex than instinct was ever able to. This is not an opinion. The more we observe the brain, the more apparent it becomes that the very way we think is shaped by society around us. You, on the other hand, choose to defend a stance that can't be measured or proven in any way (ie: That instinctual forces are a driving force behind our higher-level decision making), based entirely on your "feels". I have neuroscience on my side, you have sweet dick.
it's somewhat easily measurable in dollars and cents that instinctual forces are a driving force behind decision making. Again the entire public relations industry is based on this, this is in contrast to a few thousand years of society trying to condition people through rigid religious and repressive societal modeling, modeling that has consistently backfired in bloody revolutions throughout history. this new paradigm however seeks to encourage then sate natural desire instead of condition it. this is a situation that you blatantly misrepresent every time and is demonstrably against your position.

you've created an implausible condition that if there is any external stimuli to do this it's all programming the mind which is an closed loop logical fallacy within itself, and disprovable in two seconds, if you place a drop of water near a cockroach it might not do anything, if you place a drop of sugar water near a cockroach it will eat it up, now according to your logic the cockroach was merely responding to external stimuli and there was no innate structure that motivated the cockroach to drink the sugar water, this is how absurd you've made the argument by saying all external influence basically reprograms people on the fly without any interaction to internal innate structure, something that doesn't even have a frontal lobe or higher function fits your definition of reprogramming through external stimuli.
 

Cad

scientia potentia est
<Bronze Donator>
25,426
49,042
Regardless, you still haven't established even a correlational link between obesity and economic development, as per your original point.
My original point only mentioned developed countries because in all likelihood there are undeveloped countries where people are starving and have little to no obesity, and I didn't want anyone bringing that up. As you point out, there are many undeveloped countries with obesity problems as well.

You're hanging on to this developed country thing though rather than addressing the point - as per your usual - which is that no amount of social pressure defeats these peoples urge and instinct to eat.
 

Mist

REEEEeyore
<Gold Donor>
31,197
23,362
But no amount of language or the ability to express yourself will ever override...fight or flight.
This is the entire basis of military training, to influence, via language and skill development, to override one's flight response in the face of a dangerous enemy.

Also, all you're doing is arguing that we still have some instincts. And no one is arguing that we don't have instincts. WHAT NO ONE IN THIS THREAD HAS ACTUALLY DONE is establish via EVIDENCE OR THEORY that there is some biological mechanism for differences in instinctual responses between the genders (which you haven't really even established either) to influence occupation choices with regards to occupations centered around forebrain-related activities and behaviors.
 

Tanoomba

ジョーディーすれいやー
<Banned>
10,170
1,439
But no amount of language or the ability to express yourself will ever override the basic instincts of food, shelter, self preservation, reproduction, fight or flight. Some even argue that language itself is instinctual.

Cant talk yourself or others out of it, bro.
Language is instinctual? Jesus Christ, you are retarded. The only way people learn language, THE ONLY WAY, is through exposure. Nobody is born with an instinctual ability to communicate through language. Our brains have evolved and changed dramatically since the development of language. We can identify several developmental stages an infant's brain goes through, as well as pinpoint what phase of language development they have reached as they struggle with and eventually become familiar with language. Once we can successfully communicate with a child through language, that is how that child will learn everything he or she will ever know for the rest of his or her life. And yes, that includes personal experiences that have nothing to do with being told or reading something: Language allows the brain to make sense of stimuli, organize it into thoughts and retain and make use of that knowledge. That is far, far more powerful than any instinct.
 

Mist

REEEEeyore
<Gold Donor>
31,197
23,362
My original point only mentioned developed countries because in all likelihood there are undeveloped countries where people are starving and have little to no obesity, and I didn't want anyone bringing that up. As you point out, there are many undeveloped countries with obesity problems as well.

You're hanging on to this developed country thing though rather than addressing the point - as per your usual - which is that no amount of social pressure defeats these peoples urge and instinct to eat.
How are you connecting 'we all have an instinct to eat' all the way to 'gender differences in biology cause different occupational choices between the genders.' There's literally dozens of logical leaps you'd have to make to get from point A to point B there.

Meanwhile, you're right that across the genders, Japan has the lowest rate of obesity. But once you break down the categories by gender + nationality, South Korean women have the LOWEST rates of obesity among all respondent categories (categories by gender+nationality) of all OECD countries, while American women have the HIGHEST rates of obesity among all OECD countries.

Showing that yes, social expectations about gender DO influence the instinct to eat.
 

fanaskin

Well known agitator
<Silver Donator>
55,942
138,362
This is the entire basis of military training, to influence, via language and skill development, to override one's flight response in the face of a dangerous enemy.
This kind of shows a universal innate structure in humans doesn't it?

There's conditioning that has to overcome or encourage commonly held innate responses possessed between people, like fear and aggressiveness

most of the military training is used to contend with common innate responses people have, they try to overcome fear or to encourage innate aggressiveness in youth, there is also a noticeable difference in attitudes and ability to use those attitudes in training younger recruits vs older ones which suggests an innate structure in biological development.



 

Tanoomba

ジョーディーすれいやー
<Banned>
10,170
1,439
No you're not, it's pretty obvious there is an innate structure to the way we perceive the world, we are genetically gifted to perceive things like geometric shapes, or harmonic sounds, differentiate rigid bodies in motion, these are universal aspects of cognition that are uncontroversial, but when it comes to higher faculties for whatever reason we have to descend into some kind of mysticism as to why our obviously biological structure has to work differently without any universality. We all posses basically the same genetic capacity to learn the same things, this points to an obviously a similar biological framework of our innate structure but this is used as evidence that there is no innate structure somehow seems absurd."
Neuroscience is not "mysticism", my friend. It's a science and it explains a hell of a lot.

it's somewhat easily measurable in dollars and cents that instinctual forces are a driving force behind decision making. Again the entire public relations industry is based on this, this is in contrast to a few thousand years of society trying to condition people through rigid religious and repressive societal modeling, modeling that has consistently backfired in bloody revolutions throughout history. this new paradigm however seeks to encourage then sate natural desire instead of condition it. this is a situation that you blatantly misrepresent every time and is demonstrably against your position.
"Dollars and cents" is not a scientific study. The fact that advertisers are trying to target people's instincts and believe they are succeeding actually doesn't prove anything, ESPECIALLY since our understanding of how the brain works still allows for what they're doing to work even if they're wrong.

you've created an implausible condition that if there is any external stimuli to do this it's all programming the mind which is an closed loop logical fallacy within itself, and disprovable in two seconds, if you place a drop of water near a cockroach it might not do anything, if you place a drop of sugar water near a cockroach it will eat it up, now according to your logic the cockroach was merely responding to external stimuli and there was no innate structure that motivated the cockroach to drink the sugar water, this is how absurd you've made the argument by saying all external influence basically reprograms people on the fly without any interaction to internal innate structure, something that doesn't even have a frontal lobe or higher function fits your definition of reprogramming through external stimuli.
How does an example of creature driven ENTIRELY by instinct contradict anything I've said about how we're NOT driven by instinct?
 

Cad

scientia potentia est
<Bronze Donator>
25,426
49,042
This is the entire basis of military training, to influence, via language and skill development, to override one's flight response in the face of a dangerous enemy.

Also, all you're doing is arguing that we still have some instincts. And no one is arguing that we don't have instincts. WHAT NO ONE IN THIS THREAD HAS ACTUALLY DONE is establish via EVIDENCE OR THEORY that there is some biological mechanism for differences in instinctual responses between the genders (which you haven't really even established either) to influence occupation choices with regards to occupations centered around forebrain-related activities and behaviors.
Young female chimpanzees treat sticks as dolls: Growing evidence of biological basis for gender-specific play in humans -- ScienceDaily

http://web.stanford.edu/~niederle/Ge...NO.revised.pdf

http://www.bec.ucla.edu/papers/HoffmanPaper1.pdf

Biology of Sex Differences | Full text | Tempests and Tales: Challenges to the Study of Sex Differences in the Brain.

Sex Differences in the Brain: The Not So Inconvenient Truth

http://www4.ncsu.edu/~awmeade/Links/...er(SIOP07).pdf

Turns out there's plenty of actual science on this. Maybe not so cut and dry as the retard brigade would have us believe.

Hmmmmmm
 

Mist

REEEEeyore
<Gold Donor>
31,197
23,362
This kind of shows a universal innate structure in humans doesn't it?

There's conditioning that has to overcome or encourage commonly held innate responses possessed between people, like fear and aggressiveness

majority of time military training is used to overcome fear or to encourage innate aggressiveness in youth, there is a noticeable difference in attitudes and ability to use those attitudes in training younger recruits vs older ones which shows an innate difference in biological development.



What is your point here? My point is that the better the quality of the training, which is conveyed via language, the more able a subject is to suppress their natural flight response. So yes, language CAN influence your instincts, making mkopec's point look fucking retarded.
 

fanaskin

Well known agitator
<Silver Donator>
55,942
138,362
What is your point here? My point is that the better the quality of the training, which is conveyed via language, the more able a subject is to suppress their natural flight response. So yes, language CAN influence your instincts, making mkopec's point look fucking retarded.
right but you seem to concede the point that there is an initial innate structure that recruits share. whether or not you can mold people hasn't really been in contention for a few thousand years far as I knew. If you want to be highly manipulative and controlling you can do practically whatever you want in a Pavlovian sense, the argument as I perceived it is whether there is innate structure or nurtured structure and in a free society that's absent from overt coercion what would people naturally choose.
 

Cad

scientia potentia est
<Bronze Donator>
25,426
49,042
right but you seem to concede the point that there is an initial innate structure that recruits share. whether or not you can mold people hasn't really been in contention for a few thousand years far as I knew, the argument as I perceived it is whether there is innate structure or nurtured structure.
I think her contention was that instincts and biological urges are "obsolete" because everything is done by our social fabric and influences now. The instincts still exist but our social programming overrides them all. I think is basically her position.
 

mkopec

<Gold Donor>
26,226
39,930
What is your point here? My point is that the better the quality of the training, which is conveyed via language, the more able a subject is to suppress their natural flight response. So yes, language CAN influence your instincts, making mkopec's point look fucking retarded.
I can train myself not to have sex, or go hungry for extended periods of time. This does not exclude instinct as a driving force behind those mechanisms. Being trained to desensitize yourself to fight or flight does not get rid of this instinct entirely.

And tanooba, there is literature out there debating that syntax of language is instinctual. Definitely debatable, but the theory is there.

Broca's area and the language instinct - Nature Neuroscience

Amazon.com: The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language (P.S.) (9780061336461): Steven Pinker: Books