No, nothing wrong with the questions. I suppose we could all try responding to fly's posts with questions about something totally different.

LOL while I was just mocking you for once again being chummy with only one side, I think that exchange was probably the most insightful answer to the title question.

Refusing to answer a question

Snarky bad faith

Not thinking about that topic.

The three pillars of Conservative Thought.

I know mate. I was just joshing around with you.

Well, thanks for admitting that conservative "principles" are nothing of the sort but instead some gut feels about wanting government to do things you like and not do things you don't like.

Should polygamy be illegal?

(Hoping I hit upon another question that cross political labels.)

No. There are competing principles to weigh. It's possible a society could be so adversely affected by polygamy that it would be something to consider, but we're a long way from that. We're a lot closer to having no marriage.

I notice lagtight didn't deny being bruceZ

is the state legislator who told Beto that his "AR is ready" a good example of a principled conservative?

How come you get to reference *REDACTED*'s name but I get **** insta-deleted when I mention him?

dang no idea

I must have secret dispensation

Dang, I thought maybe you had finally grown up a bit.

I answered your question by saying that I didn't even know who BruceZ is/was. Since that answer wasn't straightforward enough for you: I am not now, not have I ever been, BruceZ.

Wishful thinking.

Sorry, I don't know who you are talking about. If the legislator was implying that he was going to shoot Mr. Beto, then that legislator is evil.

Principles?

Its widely believed in anthropological circles that socially enforced monogamy and strict gender roles (women domestic and men public) was a very pro-adaptive social construct during the time of the agricultural revolution and the birth of large, complex societies. Whether it is still so is debatable.

Anthropological history and biology suggests human's are possibly designed to be more polygamist, specifically polygyny; and the observation that women tend to be pickier than men when it comes to mate choice, supports this. With the breakdown of social mores that were the bedrock of socially enforced monogamy, it is very likely that reverting to a more polygynous social structure could relax social tension.

Of course there is a serious question of what to do with all the mateless young males in such a society. Up to recent times you would just send them off to war, knowing most of them would never come back, so problem solved. Maye the solution will just be some sort of AI/virtual reality, where mateless young males are paired up with non-biologic mates.

kel's utopia

Can you point to some studies that show how widely believed it is? The whole "SOME experts say" sthick tends to be an excuse to appeal to a non existent authority. I highly doubt this is something that there's any consensus on, and it's not even really within the scope of an anthropologists expertise to make statements about the efficacy of social policy - they'd just give an historical account of what was.

There're costs and benefits.

The biggest benefit i can see is to discourage people from shirking their responsibilities to the children they do have. The jordan peterson argument of it placating low value men probably doesn't make the top 5 list of benefits.

The costs otoh are pretty steep. For one, do you want to encourage every man no matter how broke or competent to reproduce? Not that you'd be able to stop rich or powerful men from taking on multiple wives anyways... I mean, you'd just really be stopping them from legally accepting responsibility for their children. If they want to get a woman pregnant they're going to do it.

As long as you keep the worlds oldest profession going strong.

People who want companionship can find companions for non mating purposes - there're tons of ways to have relationships with people besides marriage. People who want sex but can't get it - they should be able to pay for it. What else is there? Wanting a spouse so you can fit the archetypal mould that we push on people?

Even if strict gender roles was an adaptation to complex agricultural societies - that's about 7k-5k years ago, much less for many human populations.

That's clearly not enough time for it to be embedded into our DNA to the point where women need the patriarchy in their bones, even though they don't realize it (as Peterson claims).

My personal theory is that women put up with it back before mass media and even earlier when most commoners were functionally illiterate - so local life is literally all most people knew. People adapt and make the best of things. But by the mid-1900s you have radio and TV. People of all stripes realize how much different life can be than their local circle and customs.

Actually, if your goal was to create a large agrarian society that required intense, low skill menial labor (not to mention plentiful cheap human fodder to fight wars for resources with other societies) this is exactly what you would probably want.

I don't think Peterson would argue the rigidness of gender based roles during the majority of the time of civilization is embedded in our DNA. I think he would argue environment certainly plays a part and there is a lot of flexibility within an environmental milieu.

However, I think he would argue biology plays a much bigger role in our hierarchical structures than is currently appreciated or acknowledged, and the bounds for how varied societies with high fitness can be is a lot narrower than we think.

Saying that he thinks we should go back to a Handsmaid Tale type society or have literal forced marriages is just straw manning. I think instead he is saying we should be a little more critical in thinking about why things are the way they are and the repercussions of change.

Going back to the UBI article WN posted, he definitely thinks that having meaning in life and sense of purpose is something that our current society way undersells, to the detriment of us all.

I don't think I admitted any such thing. But thank you for sharing.

Maybe you just don't understand what principles means, but they aren't principles if they are self-contradictory.

That isn't remotely true. Just about all serious sets of principles have areas where they collide.

You cant comb a hairy ball.

it's handservant and strawpersoning, tyvm