Women have wildly different interests than men

[Emerald]

16 hours ago, Ajay0 said:

The caste system is an obsolete feudal system similar to that in europe, japan and korea. Privileged western and russian aristocrats for centuries used to trample upon the human rights of the western lower classes, peasants and serfs. 

Modern Indian constitution has rendered the Indian caste system obsolete and provides various privileges for the lower castes and dalits including educational and employment quotas which has resulted in the upliftment of a majority of the lower castes including the dalits.

The socialists and communists also played a major role in their empowerment from feudal chains.

Any sort of caste discrimination can result in imprisonment and heavy fines.

India's present prime minister and president stems from the lowest castes .

I'm not aware of the current circumstances with regard to Indian societal structure and the way that the caste system currently functions.

Though, if it's anything like it is here, there's probably still a lot of inequities along those caste lines... even if there are some existing initiatives to help those in lower castes. Those issues won't go away very quickly.

It's similar to how there might be some small amount of initiatives to help black Americans in the U.S., and we have also had a black president. But in practice, there's still a lot of inequities and discrimination.

But the reason I brought it up is because it was a great lesson about underestimating the survival value of those who have less prestige in society. 

[Basman]

There is nothing inherently mysterious about why women act different than men broadly speaking if you understand the different survival incentives and pressures at play. It is an asymmetrical relation that is meant to compliment reproduction. The things that frustrate you about the opposite sex are there because they serve the goal of reproduction.

[Reciprocality]

It is interesting that we get caught up describing the behavioural or attentional difference between men and women, which are just two sets of distinct attributes, but what if the real reason you are able to identify the difference between these two categories in the first place so clearly as you do is that there is an essential difference between men and women that is invariant under any behavioural context, and of which these behaviours are just particular manifestations?

 

Isn't a man like the rock and a woman like the ocean, absorbing it with its plasticity? What is that softness really? How could one not be self-fixated and socially fixated if the self and sociality is the means to every milestone? How would you feel safe if the only option were to literally run or scream?

[Carl-Richard]

5 hours ago, aurum said:

I've already answered it in this thread.

You didn't answer my point, which is that survival value is so vague that you indeed have to go into more specific things like marketability, scarcity and quantity to tease apart the different contributions of the feminine and the masculine.

 

5 hours ago, aurum said:

I argue masculinity is typically superior for creating survival value in the workplace. That's literally its function, to secure survival for the feminine.

The feminine secures survival of the masculine until the masculine has been adequately cared for and made healthy and mature. Then the masculine secures survival of the feminine. It's hard to pinpoint what is more important, because one feeds into the other. Again, you don't get a Musk or a Besoz or a Jobs if they don't grow up and develop into well-functioning care-taking adults instead of dysfunctional care-needing man-babies.

 

5 hours ago, aurum said:

Enlightenment is not about survival.

We are talking about survival.

Yes, awakening is beyond survival. But almost no one cares about that. And even if you do, most of your time will still be spent doing survival.

No they literally do not.

To have a function first requires an agenda, which in turn requires a self.

If they are simply good in of themselves, that is equivalent to saying that it provides no value to you.

Enlightenment was just an example. The point is you value something because of what it is.

You value water because it provides you survival benefits. You don't only value it when you don't have it. That's like saying you only value your wife, your car and your house when you don't have them, but that when you have them, their value drops to zero. You value your wife because you like being with your wife. You value your car because you like driving your car. You value your house because you like living in your house. And that's what survival is fundamentally about. It's about what you like, what you identify with, what you're attached to. Scarcity is about market value, nothing more, nothing less.

Jordan Peterson's idea (which is not really his idea, but whatever) of a value hierarchy and that you cannot act without it (and that by the way, on top of the hierarchy, is God; enlightenment), is not reducible to mere market value. But it explains why a mother cares for their child, why a man protects their woman, why anybody would protect anything despite it having no market value. Because they value it. We value feminine labor despite its market value. But how much? Maybe it's the wrong question. Maybe "how much?" implies a market, or at least quantitative thinking, which ironically skews masculine.

Edited August 20 by Carl-Richard

[aurum]

57 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

You didn't answer my point, which is that survival value is so vague that you indeed have to go into more specific things like marketability, scarcity and quantity to tease apart the different contributions of the feminine and the masculine.

Yes, survival is inherently amorphous and relative.

That just comes with the territory. It doesn't invalidate it as a concept.

57 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

The feminine secures survival of the masculine until the masculine has been adequately cared for and made healthy and mature. Then the masculine secures survival of the feminine. It's hard to pinpoint what is more important, because one feeds into the other. Again, you don't get a Musk or a Besoz or a Jobs if they don't grow up and develop into well-functioning care-taking adults instead of dysfunctional care-needing man-babies.

That's fine, just acknowledge that the point I made was still correct.

That's all I'm asking for.

57 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

That's like saying you only value your wife, your car and your house when you don't have them, but that when you have them, their value drops to zero.

That's exactly right.

You cannot value a need that is already met. The engine of survival is unlimited, unmet needs.

You can never do enough survival. Survival is like a black hole you pour into that is never satisfied.

57 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

You value your wife because you like being with your wife. You value your car because you like driving your car. You value your house because you like living in your house. And that's what survival is fundamentally about. It's about what you like, what you identify with, what you're attached to

Survival is about form maintaining itself, whatever that form is.

I'm not saying you can't value your wife or your car. Just recognize that it's survival and subjective / relative, not because of some innate value.

57 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

But it explains why a mother cares for their child, why a man protects their woman, why anybody would protect anything despite it having no market value. Because they value it.

Market value is a subset of survival value.

Yes, you can have value that transcends formal market dynamics. But market value can be a good way to quantify survival value.

[aurum]

4 hours ago, Emerald said:

Similarly, if I am assessing the value of various commodities towards the end of "surviving"... I can objectively say that water objectively has more "survival value" than vacations.

Perhaps, but then that would still only be relatively true for you.

There is no getting around the fact that survival requires a self and a specific agenda, which makes it inherently subjective. Even if you can find some general trends that seem objective, we could break them.

Edited August 20 by aurum

[Ajay0]

4 hours ago, Emerald said:

I'm not aware of the current circumstances with regard to Indian societal structure and the way that the caste system currently functions.

Though, if it's anything like it is here, there's probably still a lot of inequities along those caste lines... even if there are some existing initiatives to help those in lower castes. Those issues won't go away very quickly.

It's similar to how there might be some small amount of initiatives to help black Americans in the U.S., and we have also had a black president. But in practice, there's still a lot of inequities and discrimination.

I am from the lower castes myself. 

Empowerment of the lower castes in India started with reformatory Hindu sects, as well as  Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism which was critical of the caste system and taught the fraternity and equality of all human beings.

The caste system is not part of the Vedas which are the main religious scriptures in Hinduism.

This is the reason why the Arya Samaj, a reformatory Hindu sect which follows only the vedas ( and not the other later texts or scriptures) from the nineteenth century criticizes the caste system as a non-vedic practice and does not follow it.

The caste system is essentially a feudal or social system to serve socio-economic needs of society back then but is obsolete now.

Political methodologies related to democracy, socialism and communism also aided the empowerment of the lower castes in India.

Democracy, because the lower castes are the majority in India and the governments that come has to formulate policies that benefit them or they will be out of power.

In the west, blacks are a minority compared to the majority whites. Their empowerment came up due to their leaders who build civil rights movements organizing the black population, as well as due to international condemnation of the US.

Socialism and communism also provided political philosophies and methodologies for the lower castes to organize and empower themselves and demand their rights.

In the west, especially in the USA where the minority capitalists control the government, socialism and communism were branded as sedition and socialists/communists were labelled as traitors by capitalist controlled media outlets.

Consequently, the western middle and lower classes were not able to organize themselves and demand their rights and privileges, or design the democratic system to suit their needs.

Federal Reserve data indicates that as of Q4 2021, the top 1% of households in the United States held 30.9% of the country's wealth, while the bottom 50% held just 2.6%.

Hence the increasing wealth gap between the wealthy upper classes who own much of the wealth and those of the middle/lower classes who are struggling with rising inflation, expenses and risk of homelesness.

Even the Chinese and Russians have provisions for free or subsidized housing, medical care and educational expenses for the common man. The russians have pensions for widows, elderly and handicapped.

Such provisions are denied to the American middle and lower classes, which ironically form the majority in so-called democratic America. I am stating this because democracy is considered to value and empower the masses or majority, and it is actually a plutocracy which empowers the rich and wealthy at the expense of the masses.

I have seen videos of Americans who have travelled to other countries and felt that the middle and lower classes were treated much better there than in the US.

Imo, since it is quite hard for the poor politicians and leaders emerging from the lower classes to hold expensive campaigns during elections, the rich ones easily end up winners and then craft policies that further empower the rich minority and ignoring the poor majority.

Edited August 20 by Ajay0

[Emerald]

10 hours ago, aurum said:

Perhaps, but then that would still only be relatively true for you.

There is no getting around the fact that survival requires a self and a specific agenda, which makes it inherently subjective. Even if you can find some general trends that seem objective, we could break them.

That's one of the issues with using the term "survival" in such an overgeneralized loosey goosey way... as it muddies the definition of the phrase "survival value" to the point that it doesn't really mean anything at all.

And that's where you get the problem of over-subjectivizing to the point where you're assessing vacations as possessing more survival value than water.

And if you made that claim anywhere else other than in this very intellectual context where there is social clout associated with complexity of thought, everyone would look at you like you're crazy. And they wouldn't really be wrong either, as it is crazy to believe that vacations serve the ends of survival more than water.

It's just that when we over-intellectualize about a simple concept and get lost in the weeds of the complexity of those paradigms, we can lose grounding to what's actually real... and even the simplest truths can get lost in the mud of that complexity.

So, if everything that humans do to enhance even the most peripheral of creature comforts gets classified as "survival", then we lose the ability to assess for LITERAL survival in the way that the word 'survival' is used colloquially literally everywhere else outside of the Actualized forum. 

So, let's say that we could classify survival in two ways: We could call the the common definition of survival as "Life and Death Survival"...  and the uncommon definition that's frequently used in this specific forum context as "Self-Interest-Based Survival."

Then, we can objectively assess for the common definition of survival, which is objective as it asks the question of "What sustains life better?". 

So, we could state the basic and simple truth that every kindergartener already knows the answer to that, "Water objectively has more survival value than vacations because water is a necessity for sustaining life and vacations are not."

Then, you can also do the more subjective assessment for individuals in terms of "Self-Interest-Based Survival" relative to the question, "What serves your self-interest more at this juncture in time?"

And perhaps one individual can say, "I'd love to go on vacation. I already have tons of water." But another individual is stuck out in the desert and they would say, "There's nothing in the world that I value more than water."

Ultimately, I think it's an issue of over-intellectualizing the word survival to the point where meaning is eroded.

Then, when the claim is made that "Masculinity has more survival value than Femininity" with the conscious or unconscious emotional and psychological agendas behind making such a claim, there is an understood bait and switch.

And that bait and switch is that the meaning starts as "Masculinity has more 'Self-Interested Survival Value' than Femininity" but then gets switched to and interpreted as "Masculinity has more 'Life and Death Survival Value' than Femininity."

And then it just becomes a propaganda tool to devalue women's role in society and our labor... both in historical and traditional contexts AND in contemporary post-industrial workplace scenarios AND in modern day households where women still do the majority of the household labor whether they work a job or stay at home.

Edited August 20 by Emerald

[Emerald]

@Ajay0 Thank you for sharing this. It's an interesting correlation that I wasn't aware of.

Previously, I had assumed that the numbers of people in each of the castes were somewhat equivalent... save for the Brahman caste, as I assumed it was reserved for religious leaders.

And I had also assumed the lowest caste was a somewhat smaller caste as well as, when I learned about the caste system in school, the vibe I got was one of a marginalized minority group.

But given the fact that the lowest caste is the majority, it make sense that it's easier for collective bargaining... and less likely to lead to the discrimination that impacts people who have a minority status within the cultural context.

And I can certainly see the correlation to the feudal system, which I have a framework for understanding in Medieval Western Europe but not in other places.

My understanding of that in the context of European history is one where there's the noble class, merchant class, and peasant class. And it's clear that there are few nobles, a moderate number of merchants, and the majority is the peasants.

Would you say this is similar size breakdown to the size breakdown of the castes in the caste system in India?

[aurum]

12 hours ago, Emerald said:

And if you made that claim anywhere else other than in this very intellectual context where there is social clout associated with complexity of thought, everyone would look at you like you're crazy. And they wouldn't really be wrong either, as it is crazy to believe that vacations serve the ends of survival more than water.

It's just that when we over-intellectualize about a simple concept and get lost in the weeds of the complexity of those paradigms, we can lose grounding to what's actually real... and even the simplest truths can get lost in the mud of that complexity.

That's certainly one interpretation.

I say nothing is being over-intellectualized. I have no interest in holding myself to the intellectual standard of the average person or what they find acceptable.

[Ajay0]

20 hours ago, Emerald said:

My understanding of that in the context of European history is one where there's the noble class, merchant class, and peasant class. And it's clear that there are few nobles, a moderate number of merchants, and the majority is the peasants.

Would you say this is similar size breakdown to the size breakdown of the castes in the caste system in India?

This misses the brahmin caste that is centered on priests, scholars, educators who were at the top of the caste hierarchy.

Other than that , yeah, the size breakdown is similar. 

[LordFall]

Such a weird way to frame the initial topic that guys are more purely intellectual and girls are more self-interested.

I would frame it more that most guys have lost the plot and use their energy for interests that doesn't serve themselves or their families or their friends or their communities. Women are much more in the plot and pragmatic indeed. I run a book club and an investing club and I'd say it's probably 60% more likely that a random girl finds interest in that more than an average guy.

You're bias because you're a man but most men are really dumb and useless people and to paint that as admirable is pretty wild to me lol. I fill my social circle mostly with women and a few select men and it's way more effective and fun that way. 

[Rishabh R]

1 hour ago, LordFall said:

Such a weird way to frame the initial topic that guys are more purely intellectual and girls are more self-interested.

I would frame it more that most guys have lost the plot and use their energy for interests that doesn't serve themselves or their families or their friends or their communities. Women are much more in the plot and pragmatic indeed. I run a book club and an investing club and I'd say it's probably 60% more likely that a random girl finds interest in that more than an average guy.

You're bias because you're a man but most men are really dumb and useless people and to paint that as admirable is pretty wild to me lol. I fill my social circle mostly with women and a few select men and it's way more effective and fun that way. 

To frame the way this thread is framed is very damaging for both genders.Why not view both genders as worthy equals even though interests might differ for different individual in the same gender.

[Lila9]

On 18/08/2025 at 10:56 AM, Emerald said:

No, I don't acknowledge that because it isn't true and never has been true in any era of human history.

 

100%!

Well said (as always).

And on top of that, women are pressured to spend lots of time and money on beauty in order to receive basic respect and job/relationship opportunities, which men can get without all that labor. 

Women are poorer than men in general, though they work more than men on a daily basis, while women hold only around 30% of the global wealth.
And that’s without even including the invisible emotional labor women do.

Given all the burdens women endure in society, who the fuck has the time to care about UFOs and philosophy and all this shit? Seriously??

Most of my life, like most women, I worked in low-paid jobs, and a good part of my small salary went on clothes and makeup just so people would take me seriously at the workplace and dating, in a naive period in my life in which I believed in romance. 

(Deep inside I was always burning with passion to create and to feed my curiosity, to literally be FREE, but I wasn’t able to do that until I chose to be single and started to work remotely and have more work-life balance). 

Our unique and natural beauty is not enough, so we learned.
We feel pressure to constantly “upgrade” our appearance according to the trends so we will not be left behind in this social matrix.

Because good character, intelligence, being literally superwoman, none of that ever compensates for female “ugliness”, which according to society, is the most horrible thing a woman can do, a true crime equal to murder.

Of course the “ugliness” is more of social construct which changes according to time and era, not really an inherent thing that we posses. Ugliness according to society is not having enough plastic surgeries or the “right” plastic surgeries (not looking Kim Kardeshian enough or any famous super modal or Tik Tok/porn trend of the current year) not wearing enough make up on the face, not having enough clothes (and the trendy ones) in our closet, can grantee us with the label of “ugly”, “unattractive” “neglected” and unworthy of anything worthy in the world.
 

Of course non of it will be said, but we will feel it, and there are multiple ads and social media to pressure us, and people (the brainwashed herd so to speak) will treat us accordingly, until we obey and run to the nearest clothes store, makeup store, or the plastic doctor.

We must religiously follow the cult of beauty otherwise… (reminding me the dark ages?).

And we also must do it in a way that it looks effortless, as we are just born that way. Because God forbid if we show the truth, of the hard work we do to attain the unattainable beauty standards. This devalues our worth already because we are not “natural perfect beauty” (How dare we to born imperfect??)

Society always tries to make us feel insecure and flawed in this unwinnable game. Even if we look like an AI model, society will invent new insecurities for us to be distracted by, so we will NEVER be too focused on the more important things in life, like making money, developing character, learning, seeking truth and wisdom, achieving goals, and making real changes in the world.

This is the anti feminist backlash for the all the feminist movements, because patriarchal society can’t really tolerate “too free” women, so it had to invent a new distraction and tool of oppression for women, the chase after unattainable beauty. Capitalistic toxicity combined with religious dogma. Most people are unaware of it, especially men, they see this as the “natural” order to things.

Even the most rational men who question everything, will never question the beauty oppression women are experiencing. And dumbly (and very naively, in a very annoying way) will believe that they somehow inherently  superior to women because of some divine natural order (rather than politics and systemic oppression).

[Leo Gura]

On 8/20/2025 at 6:08 AM, Emerald said:

But given the fact that the lowest caste is the majority,

Of course the lowest caste is the majority. Society is always organized as a pyramid scheme. A small minority is always exploiting a vast majority. This is true in every society for all of human history. It must be this way otherwise it could not be sustainable.

There is good reason why pyramid schemes are pyramids and not spheres. You can only live in palace when you got thousands of bodies to milk.

Edited August 26 by Leo Gura

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@Leo Gura

To kick this example out to reality - triangles are also the most structurally sound shape in construction & engineering 🙃

Edited August 26 by Natasha Tori Maru

[Leo Gura]

24 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

triangles are also the most structurally sound shape in construction & engineering 🙃

Arch and dome have entered the chat.

[AION]

Having an elite is not something bad. Countries with no elites are like a chicken without a head.