Ecmandu wrote:
99.99999999999% of species are engaged in the selection of conspicuous consumption aggression and are sexually stratified.
James wrote:
I think that you need to start a thread on that topic (Philosophy Forum) and realistically, philosophically, support exactly why you believe that … and more importantly, try to elaborate on exactly, precisely, what you mean by it.
There’s a concept called run-away sexual selection… there’s the most famous example which is the Irish Elk, the females selected so heavily for the traits of large horns at the expense of more agile males (presumably ganging up on the more agile males so they could mate with the crippled ones) that the Irish Elk evolved to the point that when it reached maturity, it’s horns were so large on the males that they couldn’t lift their heads up off the ground anymore. The species went extinct from this. Plumage on the male peacock is another famous (and current) example.
That is the selection of conspicuous consumption. They are basically the same concept, run-away sexual selection and the selection of conspicuous consumption.
In most species it is the strongest males who get almost all of the mates, even though from a game theory PoV there are so many other weaker mates that they could all gang up on the strong one, and have more of a community… they would fundamentally be more intelligent animals… running consent through group decisions rather than fighting (conspicuous consumption aggression) (fighting which decreases the overall security of the group). [Not many species actually enjoy their orgasms, so there aren’t many species that have sex outside of heat.] This pressure causes what’s called “sex dimorphism”, where one gender is larger than another. It is noted in any species where one gender is significantly larger than the other gender, that this process has occurred, we can rewind and see the conspicuous consumption aggression rather than other forms of game theory being implemented by these creatures. It is noted that the larger one has more aggressive traits in all of these species (it was the aggression which came from being the largest with the most sexual choice that was selected for), though mothers can be quite aggressive to protect the young when the father is gone, she is neither as aggressive as the father or as large in most species.
Sexual stratification occurs throughout the entire animal kingdom with some exceptions. Sexual stratification is defined by two metrics… the first metric is the number of partners one has in a life time, the second is access to at least one sexual resource. As noted above, the largest males are the ones with the most sexual choice, they can and often do (depending on the size of the group), pick hundreds of partners in the wild. This is why conspicuous consumption aggression gets the most partners in terms of species sexual stratification. You can tell just from the sex dimorphism that this is the case.
I didn’t cite a damn thing! This argument stands on its own. Through random mutations some are going to be larger than others, when an entire gender is larger than another gender, it’s proof of sexual stratification, and also conspicuous consumption aggression for the choices in the context of that sexual stratification. Social game theories work better for species survival than “king of the hill” game theories do. Sexual stratification interferes with apathy, depression, agitation (and I forget the other one… I’ll look it up later) in the part of the population which is sexually stratified, particularly in species that enjoy their orgasms, which ends up dividing the community and making the species less adaptive from a game theory PoV.