h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, they never even *invited* me. (I reckon they couldn't handle the competition)

Thank you Babel 17 for seeing my little joke for what it was.
Perhaps others got it but you are the 'gent' for mentioning it. The debate became a cock fight, the tense crowd needed a laugh - even if only at my expense, me being just a silly girl.

It did have secondary intentions and results - CS has no sense of humour so I knew he would pounce on my 'underwhelming stupidity' (LOL) and lose his remaining supporters especially among those not so lost in the 'red mist' as to miss my painfully obvious joke.

But my real target was Amy. She refuses to believe men and women think differently.

Predictably, Amy, still thinking like a man to argue with a man, 'patronised' me (ROFL) by being (dare I say) 'man enough' to forgive/excuse/understand/overlook my 'error' (Post#175- the one with the really unfortunate "lust" typo).

Unfair of me perhaps, but I knew she couldn't let a supporter be abused, not with that much testosterone up her snout at the time.

Unfair? Perhaps, but a girl has to win anyway she can.

GW by name, GW by nature.

Yes, that lust typo was a classic, wasn't it!

I still maintain that the thought processes - the underlying brain stuff - of men and women is the same. I also contend that the learned behaviours of men and women are different because society makes it be so.

I am not saying that men and women behave in the same way.

We're not disagreeing. I just failed to explain myself properly to you.

Oh, I found the "thinking like a man" suggestion deeply offensive. I wouldn't mind thinking like peregrin and I would be highly delighted to have the thought processes of Wumbeevil but I do not think like CS.

And in what way could I make my thought processes more female? i am female! What am I supposed to do? Colour my thoughts pink?

I have to leap in here, and say that I agree with Amy on her point aboot people thinking the same. Coelacanth will point out that male & female brain physiology and operating methods really are different, on a physical level.

But somehow, in general, the results come out the same. Except when modified by learned behaviours.

Basically, we're all the same; individuals.

Coo, cliches at dawn!

H&K
Z

And... apologies for patronising you. It wasn't intended. I was tempted not to comment at all but CS would have interpreted that as agreeing with his attitude towards you. I was/am offended on your behalf. He didn't get the Menza joke and I wasn't going to be able to explain it to him.

Coelacanth would be right to do so but there are far, far more similarities than differences.

Many of those differences - tendency towards depression or tourettes, for example - are not relevant here.

None of the research is suggesting that males are more intelligent than females, or the other way round.

In my hypothesis, any sex differences in brain physiology are subsumed in the gender differences of learned behaviours.

I did see an article in a sunday paper yesterday (okay I might have fallen for an April Fools joke, but I thought it was worth mentioning at this stage) mentioning a genetic link between schizotypal tendencies (including manic depression) and genius. Examples being Isaac Newton and Immanuel Kant, neither of whom were entirely stable. Not to mention relatives of other acknowledged genii (geniuses?) showing more pronounced mental illnesses.

It postulated that there was a series of genes that caused mental illnesses but if not all of these were present (or if they were present and hadn't actually led to full blown problems) there was a correlation between them and higher creativity (I think 1-2% of people had these genes).

If you're correct and the brain differences between men and women cause a higher incidence of mental illness this could be linked to a higher incidence of high intelligence in the male population (that flattened bell curve). This is a tenuous argument and my own theorising based on the two sets of information.

The line between genius and insanity is apparently getting narrower

So is anyone else thinking that they might plump for someone not quite so clever if it means they can avoid a nutter? Or are they thinking it's probably worth the risk?

The line between genius and insanity is an abitrary one, used for convenience by most civilised societies (especially America and the old Soviet Union) to control dissent. So-called primitive cultures allow occassional venting ("running amok") and embrace variation the way we welcome new gadgets and toys.

BTW Amy, I think you took GW's ploy very well. But there is no question she was thinking like a woman! Remind me never to play chess with her.

Developmentally, men are more vulnerable than women - the male is in many ways a mutation of the normal (female) body plan, and the presence of only a single X chromosome does lead to greater risks that many genetic defects on that gene would be much less apparent in a woman, but may exhibit themsleves more fully in a male. That may explain some of the underperformance of males at the low end of the bell curve.

There's also a possibility that since males are undeniably more disposable from an evolutionary viewpoint, there may be some 'risky' conditions that actually have a payoff on average if they present themselves in a male, but not in a female, since the 'failure' of some males is possible with little or no effect on the breeding rate.

In the build up to my theory I sidestepped the "what is intelligence theory" but the debate has been held elsewhere and would have detracted from the point of this thread. After the event, my hypothesis is independent of the model of intelligence used unless the model is that intelligence doesn't exist at all and that the phrase "that guy is smart" has no meaning whatsoever.

The problem with bell curves and evidence about mental health and so forth is that a different conclusion must be drawn for each of the models of intelligence that exist and yet none of this affects my basic hypothesis. We're just speculating for the sake of it.

I can't even find any of these much vaunted bell curves on the web.

Maybe it's time to end this line of thought?

Good idea.
Now what do men look for in women?

Or, perhaps more to the point, what to watch out for in a woman!
Duplicity, witchiness, betrayal, infidelity, obfuscation...

Maybe it's time to go to bed - don't you have work to go to tomorrow (today)?

Hmmm - I didn't mean *you*, I meant Amy.

Actually the whole debate is rather superficial. I suspect that many people do not really care about most of the criteria they put in these fora once they actually find someone they really want to be with. Either that or they start twisting the criteria so their current squeeze fits them.

In the short run people have a list of criteria that they are looking for (at ) but in the long run these things probably won't matter much as what people are really looking for is someone that understands what makes them tick and wants to be with them.

How much does being "cherished" matter to a man?

Message to Potholer.

...and the vast majority of people ignore this fact, which is why no-one seems to get anywhere(one) for very long thesedays

This is getting weird - after my first post of my previous two, U162344's simulpost *definitely* appeared as the most recent, which is why I posted the correction. When I look *now*, things don't make sense.

Ooooh Amy - I *love* it when you're angry

(PS - I dropped out of h2g2 for a while last year - did you get that Wacom tablet in the end?)

Amy: to use your own argument, men and women think in the same ways, so how much does being cherished matter to a woman?

I think those with the happiest relationships have discovered this (personal observation of happy couples I know).

Amy,
Re: posting 231 - If you don't mind getting wound up a little, I'd suggest reading 'Why Men Don't Iron'. *Some* of it may be deliberately provocative, but there is some useful information in there.