Jezebel 
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New York, 5:34 AM
Fri Dec 4
68 posts in the last 24 hours
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03/03/09
On a more serious note: "...If Hrdy is right, a mother's need to care for her children, rather than conflict, is the driving force behind the development of the human species" gives me hope, especially after a day like today...
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I am biased, though, because I'm one of the non-baby people, and I find the concept kinda insulting :(
I think that there are plenty of reasons people like babies, but I am always skeptical of "hardwired" arguments, because I just don't really think that such a concept can be applied to an entire group that contains such diversity. The way I see it, the one thing that should be biologically "hardwired" is the will to survive, right? Then how do people who commit suicide factor in? They're just "wrong" or something? Then I would argue that it's not "hardwired". Maybe I'm totally wrong here, but I would think that if there is existence of something that doesn't line up with that type of argument, it would defeat it.
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Um, I've been in groups of 5 humans and found things to fight over.
In hard times don't people either bond together or fight?
It seems simplistic to say "eh, there were only 2000 people. What would they fight over?"
People fight over everything and nothing from the time they are able.
Not saying she is wrong, she just seems very dismissive of the other point of view. Couldn't they both coexist?
03/03/09
Groups of five people today and groups of five people in pre-domesticated wilderness are quite different.
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03/03/09
Didn't you people read A Swiftly Tilting Planet, for god's sake? Egalitarian communal societies without authority = you can see unicorns and everyone's happy.
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Also: Yes, indeed, science rules. Yes it does.
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You can get to that by the "report a bug" link at the bottom of all the pages.
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03/03/09
It is extremely difficult being on your own, raising a kiddo, without a solid support group of women. Your support network don't all need to be with child, themselves, but have to be in your corner.
It is virtually impossible to raise a kid in a vacuum. I have experience, believe me.
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03/03/09
It's a lie, this notion that one woman can raise children on her own. A lie, and a particularly pernicious one at that.
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03/03/09
Quite compelling, actually.
03/03/09
If I could birth kittens and puppies though, I'd be procreating my ass off!
Ugh nasty mental image though.
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How is her name pronounced?
And: It all makes sense to me -- even though I will admit that "it makes sense" is not exactly science -- so, the really kind of stunning notion was that the population up until the Neolithic Age "may have been around 2,000 breeding adults." That just blows my mind! I'm not sure what I thought -- if I even had a thought about it at all -- but still. My mind? Blown.
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How does one pronounce it, do you think?
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It also makes sense that families may have developed because men eventually realized that if they weren't around to help the mom (economically and otherwise) their children (and therefore genes) weren't going to survive. So the deadbeat dad model of procreation became an evolutionary fail.
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