The Link Between Polygamy and War (economist.com) 460
Is there a link between polygamy and war? The Economist explores (might be paywalled): Men in South Sudan typically marry as often as their wealth -- often measured in cattle -- will allow. Perhaps 40 percent of marriages are polygamous. "In [our] culture, the more family you have, the more people respect you," says William, a young IT specialist in search of his second wife. Few South Sudanese see the connection between these matrimonial customs and the country's horrific civil war. If you ask them the reason for the violence, locals will blame tribalism, greedy politicians, weak institutions and perhaps the oil wealth which gives warlords something to fight over. All true, but not the whole story. Wherever it is widely practised, polygamy (specifically polygyny, the taking of multiple wives) destabilises society, largely because it is a form of inequality which creates an urgent distress in the hearts, and loins, of young men. If a rich man has a Lamborghini, that does not mean that a poor man has to walk, for the supply of cars is not fixed. By contrast, every time a rich man takes an extra wife, another poor man must remain single. If the richest and most powerful 10 percent of men have, say, four wives each, the bottom 30 percent of men cannot marry. Young men will take desperate measures to avoid this state. A non-paywalled, syndicated source for the article.
It actually goes both ways. (Score:5, Insightful)
In a polygamous society war can produce a surplus of women. It certainly produces widows and orphans, which in a society with no state social welfare programs and limited economic opportunity for women is a huge problem.
Polygamy is also a way to establish dynastic ties between potential rival groups.
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In a polygamous society war can produce a surplus of women.
That's because in any society, war can produce a surplus of women, right?
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Only if you're a sexist pig and think that women can't get gunned down just as well as any man!
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War produces surpluses of broken women only. The loss of loved ones, the desperation of fending for one's self, and the inevitable horrific abuse of women that almost universally comes with war is in no way a positive trait, nor is it self balancing as "broken goods" are not preferred.
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If you focus on marriage as an emotional institution. As an economic institution you've got a lot of dependents -- you either let them die, develop some kind of state welfare system, or you find a way to patch them into the only support system your society has: family.
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"Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat."
-- Hillary Clinton
"Civilians, particularly women and children, account for the vast majority of those adversely affected by armed conflict."
-- United Nations
Let's have a moment of silence for the biggest victims of war - the women. The men who actually serve in the military? Seems they are the primary perpetrators according to this pervasive worldview.
Link to the Islamic slave trade (Score:5, Informative)
Compared to the Atlantic slave trade, which was mostly men for work, the Islamic slave trade was mostly women for sex.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
In contrast to the Atlantic slave trade, where the male-female ratio was 2:1 or 3:1, the Arab slave trade instead usually had a higher female-to-male ratio. This suggests a general preference for female slaves. Concubinage and reproduction served as incentives for importing female slaves (often Caucasian), though many were also imported mainly for performing household tasks.
In Islam you can have four wives and an unlimited number of sex slaves if you are male.
It's easy to see that polygamy and the inability of poor men to find a wife and thus legally have sex was a driver for this.
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Compared to the Atlantic slave trade, which was mostly men for work, the Islamic slave trade was mostly women for sex.
What I want to know is why they (and you!) are talking about the Arab slave trade like it's a thing of the past. Western women still occasionally escape from a harem. They are still kidnapping women internationally and pressing them into slavery. Where do you think all those missing girls and women go? You don't seriously think they're all winding up in shallow graves, do you? The same thing is happening to them as is happening to valuable cars. They are being stolen, and put on a boat. Granted, they're not
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Oh I agree. It's not just ISIS - the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia and so on all have a slavery going on under the surface with the connivance of the authorities.
In fact in Kuwait a female politician wanted to legalize sex slavery
http://www.ibtimes.com/female-... [ibtimes.com]
Slavery was only banned in Saudi Arabia in 1962, and even now they treat their guest workers and maids like slaves.
What? (Score:2)
"If a rich man has a Lamborghini, that does not mean that a poor man has to walk, for the supply of cars is not fixed. By contrast, every time a rich man takes an extra wife, another poor man must remain single. If the richest and most powerful 10 percent of men have, say, four wives each, the bottom 30 percent of men cannot marry."
Sorry, but that's the dumbest comparison I've ever seen.
If anything, it disproves its case.
If you're just talking about Lamborghinis, there are only about 3500 made each year - p
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And as far as utility, I'm going to guess that the useful reproductive life of a female human - what, 25 years now, nominally?
Depends on how you determine it. If you count from puberty to zero viable eggs, about 30–35 years. Of course, most societies frown upon taking twelve-year-old brides, and even at eighteen, most women prefer to put off having kids until after college and perhaps even for a few more years while they get their careers started. If you start counting at twenty-five and stop counting when the birth defect rate starts to skyrocket, you end up at ten to fifteen years, which is way less than the average ser
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Just for comparison. Vatican city recently raised its age of consent, to 14 (from 12). Only priests, nuns and the swiss guard live in Vatican city.
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Extra win: The most passive men are the least likely to fight, so you're also selectively breeding a more docile poor and middle class.
Given how many died in WWI and WWII, I wonder if there was a noticeable effect there...
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The French still haven't recovered from Napoleon.
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Slashdot (Score:3)
I read the whole article... (Score:3)
Re:I read the whole article... (Score:5, Insightful)
And I was disturbed about ... how we looks way more "animal" than we would like [snip]
We ARE animals. You're just now coming to grips with that on this site of all things? Have you not read about our evolutionary roots which we know more about now than we ever did? Apes are our cousins. If you want a primer, here you go [youtube.com].
The real problem is middle eastern culture (Score:5, Interesting)
Middle eastern culture transforms women (and men too to some extent, as servants or younglings who obey the elders) into property that can must be fought for and/or can be used for fighting.
Btw, I am saying it as an Israeli who's country is gradually adopting these perceptions due to orthodox jewish religion taking over.
If so, War is coming from China... (Score:2)
Because theyâ(TM)ll have 100 million excess young males due to gender specific abortions.
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China's "empty branches" (Score:5, Interesting)
As I posted on The Economist, it is not salacious polygyny but anything that upsets the sex ratio that becomes profoundly destabilising: [Poor] young men see the [few] young women of their villages swept away to better [city] prospects. They can hardly stop it. But it gives them powerful motivation to improve their standing, including by military adventure. A clever "leader" (Bo Xilai?) can tap into this. Most worrying are China's "empty branches", excess young men as a result of China's "one child" policy generating selective abortion/infanticide.
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Stability (Score:5, Interesting)
News for nerds? (Score:2)
I'll be darn, they did it! (Score:2)
They managed to make it the woman's fault.
Misunderstood cause and effect (Score:3)
Its mostly the other way around. A warlike culture has to either accept polygamy or accept lesbian marriage - children require a huge amount of attention and require multiple parents.
It is true that this kind of culture is slightly self-reinforcing, encouraging men to go to war to both maintain the shortage of men and collect the resources necessary to support the children.
But it is mostly the other way around.
Real polygamy takes too much work on the part of the man to be worth it for anyone not in the top 1% wealth wise. As such, while it is viewed as high status, it's actual presence does NOT lead to more war, but instead creates a desire for peace. And fishing. Lots of fishing. Anything to get away from the constant nagging.
Re: Editor, You mixed the links (Score:5, Insightful)
The Mormons were violent when they practiced polygamy. Today it is not practiced by Mormons except for some fringe groups. One thing that is certain, young men without women are a problem regardless of religion.
Re: Editor, You mixed the links (Score:5, Informative)
Look up the documentary "The lost Boys" on how the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (a Mormson off shoot that practices polygamy) Literally kicks out excess male children. May not be a war, but it is violent and sick regardless, and that is here in the USA.
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Do you believe that polygamy is only temporarily forbidden, that polygamy is common in the afterlife, and that God has multiple wives? If you marry and remarry in the Mormon temple, do you keep both wives in heaven? These are all mainstream Mormon doctrine. Mormons are polygamists at heart.
It's more complicated than that, and more nuanced. Polygamy is strictly forbidden in mortality as of 1890. You may have serial wives (eg. you may remarry after your previous spouse dies or if you get a divorce), but only one wife at a time. It would take a revelation to change this.
The true answer for the afterlife depends on your understanding of the afterlife. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that there are two realms in the Spirit World (paradise and hell) where we await judgment a
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The Mormons were violent when they practiced polygamy. Today it is not practiced by Mormons except for some fringe groups. One thing that is certain, young men without women are a problem regardless of religion.
That's why we need more soy products. Since soy beans make you gay *I'm joking, but some people do believe that*, we should feed kids soy beans to all young boys in hope that many of them will become gay. More gay boys means fewer single males causing trouble because they don't have a woman.
The boys who survive being turned to homosexuality by soy beans can have all the women they want. It's a win-win for everyone. Except the women if they don't want to share men, but who cares what women want, they're
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But being gay is also a nono. They got their bases covered, you can't get out of the game: Get rich or die trying.
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It's not that eating soybeans makes you gay, you are fake news. However, soybeans contain active compounds called isoflavones- these are plant derived phytoestrogens, many of which mimic female hormones such as estrogen and estradiol. There are a number of studies that suggest that soy does indeed have an estrogenic effect on the body, which in turn decreases testosterone levels. Eat too much soy and it makes you less of a man.
I remember years ago, before I had Sirius XM, flipping through radio stations trying to find something to listen to, ended up on an AM station and having a laugh at this one far-right loony (I'm a centrist- I think the extremes of both sides are idiots) calling soy beans a liberal conspiracy to make people gay. As ridiculous as it sounds, the guy was dead-serious (don't remember the name). He thought the "gay-epidemic" was caused by soy beans.
I've since heard a few other times some people blaming soy bean
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In fairness to the Mormons, they'd been on the receiving end of a lot of violence in their earliest days; before they became somewhat militarized out west. After been run out of multiple original settlements its somewhat understandable they would choose to arm themselves and deal with likely malevolent outsiders and people encroaching on their territory violently. It might also be argued the polygamy, which was also not present in the beginnings of the movement was a borne out of need to rapidly increase
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In fairness to the Mormons, they'd been on the receiving end of a lot of violence in their earliest days; before they became somewhat militarized out west. After been run out of multiple original settlements its somewhat understandable they would choose to arm themselves and deal with likely malevolent outsiders and people encroaching on their territory violently. It might also be argued the polygamy, which was also not present in the beginnings of the movement was a borne out of need to rapidly increase their numbers, so they could ward off attacks.
The best you can say about the Mormon situation is that atrocities were committed by both sides, neither was blameless and neither was purely defensive. I like the Mormons these days though. They value family and work ethic and are generally helpful people.
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Watch yourself around Mormons. They all present as 'family/work/values, but it's sometimes pure bullshit.
There is a significant % that are just flatout criminals. Mostly in the higher echelons. It's been that way since the beginning. With such an _obvious_scam_, you know that their are wolves among the trusting morons.
Yes I know a number of ex-mormons. The 'Mormon mafia' is real, just well hidden.
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I am Mormon and the church does teach that family/work/values. Do all members follow that? No. Are there hypocrites in the church, yes. Do they go all the way to the top, possibly. I've always said the best people I know are Mormon and the worst people I know are Mormon. A core principle of almost all religions is that almost everybody is welcome in Gods house. It is a great place for a wolf to hide.
What appealed to me in the Mormon church was how they treated other religions. e.g. most other religions are
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OId Joe translated several books from 'reformed egyptian' to English that were present in his King James bible old testament.
What was amazing about those translations: They had exactly the same mistakes present in Smith's King James bible, translation mistakes that are understood in the context of the original Hebrew.
How did that happen? It is 'statistical proof' that Smith just copied that part of the 'Book for Mormon'. Which doesn't even get into Smiths use of language from the era of King James (thy
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Was arresting Smith 'violence against Mormons' when he was just a conman? Did it only become 'violence against Mormons' when he became a prophet/conman?
Was it 'violence against Mormons' when he was tarred feathered and run out of town on a rail for what he said to the 15 year old daughter of the town banker? That was AFTER he started his big religion scam.
Re: Editor, You mixed the links (Score:4, Informative)
What part of the Mormons' involvement in the Mountain Meadows Massacre [wikipedia.org] was considered to be "defense", do you figure?
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Just the tip of the iceberg.
Brigham Young also ordered the town of 'Mormon Island' outside Folsom CA (now under the lake) burned to the ground because they weren't tithing.
Dumb dumb dumb dumb....
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I am speaking in generalities. There are certainly exceptions.
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Re: Editor, You mixed the links (Score:5, Informative)
Polygamy isn't responsible for violence. The Mormons, weird as they are, are not violent.
????? [wikipedia.org] Want to check your facts on that? While that list contains incidents where Mormons were victims as well as perpetrators, they were pretty violent in the early days of the religion. Over the years Mormonism has gotten less violent (and also much less tolerant of polygamy, to the point now where it is no longer openly permitted if I understand correctly). It would be more fair to say that Mormonism has evolved so that it no longer promotes/tolerates violence nor polygamy, just as modern day Christianity mostly does not (barring of course evangelicals who are pushing for wars in the Middle East in order to start the second coming/rapture/Armageddon).
This is the issue for Islam: there are many within it that are resisting efforts to modernize the religion. If you want to fix things you can't demonize Islam, you have to support those within the religion who want to moderate and modernize Islam. Animosity and hatred only feeds those who seek to keep Islam in the past.
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While that list contains incidents where Mormons were victims as well as perpetrators, they were pretty violent in the early days of the religion.
As bad as that situation was, I don't think it's completely fair to judge the Mormons as being "pretty violent" in the early days.
They were violent, but you are right in that it is important to put them into context: the mid 1800s in the American West/Midwest was a pretty violent time anyway. Even today we recognize the inherent right of people to protect themselves, and you certainly can't blame people for reacting harshly when they were treated the way Mormons were. The Mormons came to the conclusion that they would need a certain level of ruthlessness to protect themselves. But this proves my point: as society evolved the Mormon
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Right, and Mormon Island just 'accidently' caught fire after they refused to tithe.
Re: Editor, You mixed the links (Score:4, Interesting)
It would be more fair to say that Mormonism has evolved so that it no longer promotes/tolerates violence nor polygamy, just as modern day Christianity mostly does not (barring of course evangelicals who are pushing for wars in the Middle East in order to start the second coming/rapture/Armageddon).
Where would you get the idea that Christianity promotes violence? I know that's a popular meme but as with so many memes it lacks a basis in facts. Please point me towards the New Testament verses promoting wars, I must have missed them. Along the same lines, please point me towards the New Testament verses promoting polygamy as I must have missed those too.
Where did I say that? I said most Christians don't support violence.
This is the issue for Islam: there are many within it that are resisting efforts to modernize the religion. If you want to fix things you can't demonize Islam, you have to support those within the religion who want to moderate and modernize Islam. Animosity and hatred only feeds those who seek to keep Islam in the past.
You do know that the standard practice for an invading Muslim army is to give the conquered people 3 options: convert, die, or become a slave. That's literally taken out of the Koran, it cannot be attributed to wayward followers. There is no reforming that as it's directly from Mohammed. I'm curious where you got the notion that Islam can be reformed.
citation:
https://www.thereligionofpeace... [thereligionofpeace.com]
The natives of South and Central America would like to have a word with you regarding forced conversions to Christianity. And Christian Crusaders would often kill, enslave, and/or rape the entire population of a sacked city, including other Christians.
You missed the entire point of my post: Christianity evolved past the violence of the Crusades (of course it took plenty of wars, persecutions, and inquisitions for it to do so). Islam needs to be given the time and support to do so as well, and that change needs to come from within.
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It would be more fair to say that Mormonism has evolved so that it no longer promotes/tolerates violence nor polygamy, just as modern day Christianity mostly does not (barring of course evangelicals who are pushing for wars in the Middle East in order to start the second coming/rapture/Armageddon).
Where would you get the idea that Christianity promotes violence? I know that's a popular meme but as with so many memes it lacks a basis in facts. Please point me towards the New Testament verses promoting wars, I must have missed them. Along the same lines, please point me towards the New Testament verses promoting polygamy as I must have missed those too.
Where did I say that? I said most Christians don't support violence.
This is the issue for Islam: there are many within it that are resisting efforts to modernize the religion. If you want to fix things you can't demonize Islam, you have to support those within the religion who want to moderate and modernize Islam. Animosity and hatred only feeds those who seek to keep Islam in the past.
You do know that the standard practice for an invading Muslim army is to give the conquered people 3 options: convert, die, or become a slave. That's literally taken out of the Koran, it cannot be attributed to wayward followers. There is no reforming that as it's directly from Mohammed. I'm curious where you got the notion that Islam can be reformed.
citation:
https://www.thereligionofpeace... [thereligionofpeace.com]
The natives of South and Central America would like to have a word with you regarding forced conversions to Christianity. And Christian Crusaders would often kill, enslave, and/or rape the entire population of a sacked city, including other Christians.
You missed the entire point of my post: Christianity evolved past the violence of the Crusades (of course it took plenty of wars, persecutions, and inquisitions for it to do so). Islam needs to be given the time and support to do so as well, and that change needs to come from within.
I think we're somewhat in agreement but I want to clarify on the Crusades. They were a response, albeit delayed and not entirely pure in motive, to the Muslim armies having taken over large chunks of what used to be Christian areas. The popular narrative is that the crusaders came out of nowhere to attack the peaceful Muslims. That's just not accurate. As for the Americas, it wasn't right to force conversions. It also wasn't mandated by Jesus the way that Mohammed mandated that non-Muslims (Infidels) b
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If I had mod points, I'd mod you up.
However, the Islamics get most of their stupid suicide squads from poor young men unable to afford wives. China has a similar problem due to sex-selective abortion. Men without women are brutes, and violent brutes at that.
Re: Editor, You mixed the links (Score:5, Interesting)
If you consider ejecting young men out of your society, into a foreign culture where they are entirely unprepared to survive much less succeed to be nonviolent, then the Mormon practice of polygyny would be nonviolent.
Simply put, polygyny leaves the unmarried men at a significant disadvantage, and in authoritarian societies can lead to such expulsions, or outright violence. Mormons are not so inclined to murder their young men, so expulsion was the most common result. Recently only the fringe fundamentalist Mormon sects practice this, and with predictable results.
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I don't disagree, but that wasn't the AC's hypothesis.
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Those splinter groups call themselves Mormons. Thus they are Mormons. Look at all the splinter groups of Islam and Christianity. They are still regarded as Islamic or Christian even by each other.
Why do you think your (most populous) splinter of Mormonism is a special case? What gives you a golden ticket?
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So you are saying that the more young men who wear suicide vests in jihad, the more OK polygamy becomes?
Wouldn't this cause the leaders to call for jihad, so as to have more women for themselves?
Because I've never seen a jihadi leader actually wearing the vest...
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Yep. That is exactly right
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When was that again?
Re:Equal numbers (Score:5, Informative)
This assumes there are equal numbers of men and women...
According to 2016 estimates of the South Sudanese population, the breakdown is about 46% men to 54% women. Hardly a huge imbalance with only about 12 million people.
Re:Equal numbers (Score:5, Informative)
To add, using a breakdown of only female to males age 15 and above the breakdown is pretty close to 50/50. So that sort invalidates your whole theory.
Data comes from: https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Da... [un.org]
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The proportions seem to confirm what TFA purported. Polygyny leads to the death of male competitors.
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Go on, show some stats for the male:female ratio in South Sudan that prove your point. Bet you can't.
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On the other hand, in a country which is fighting a war war it is usually the men doing the fighting, and thus dying, resulting in an imbalance of women.
That's the concern, isn't it? China doesn't have a high tolerance for homosexuality, so what are they going to do with 25 million excess males? The traditional thing has always been to make war.
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Export them to Africa and pick up African woman as wives.
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China has mitigating social, cultural and political differences to places like Susan which prevent such wars.
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Interesting that I was just thinking about the Chinese and the problem with gender imbalance. I have no idea why I was
Re:If polygyny is the problem, say so in the headl (Score:5, Insightful)
Sensationalist trash like this perpetuates misunderstanding of polyamorous people.
How is it sensationalist, and how does it attack the polyamorous? It's not a mistake to believe that it will cause problems if there are no mates for many men. Denying them the opportunity to partner leaves them with a hole in their life. They're going to fill it with something. Polygamy is not inherently about love. It can be a loving relationship, but in a culture which promotes marriage for other reasons, that's unlikely. In a culture in which women have to marry a powerful man in order to be protected from other men, it's especially unlikely.
No culture that forces women to live in bags lest they be raped to death on the street can include any equitable relationships. There is always a power imbalance.
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Re:If polygyny is the problem, say so in the headl (Score:5, Insightful)
For all I know, they have polygamy, because they have war,
Dude, it's not the 1800s. We have wikipedia. We have google. You can find out why they have polygamy. And guess what? They treat women like possessions all day, every day. They are legally inferior. Arguably, all women in their culture are slaves. Polygamy in their culture isn't a disease, it's a symptom of a disease.
Re:If polygyny is the problem, say so in the headl (Score:5, Interesting)
The multiculturalists are going to be up in arms over this comment. You should respect everyone culture, no matter how abhorrent it may be.
I don't have to respect the parts which are not just disrespectful, but actively harmful. I don't have to throw away the good parts because some parts are actively abhorrent, either.
I am not remotely against polyamory, polygyny, or polyandry when these lifestyles are lived by choice. I'm not even against wearing bags, given the same caveat. I believe that given a lack of force, natural tendencies will typically produce small relationship units. Most people seem to have little enough idea how to cooperate as a couple, let alone as a triad or beyond, and perhaps ought to get past that before they explore larger and more complex formal relationships.
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The multiculturalists are going to be up in arms over this comment. You should respect everyone culture, no matter how abhorrent it may be.
They are? Or are you just inventing strawmen to attack?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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This article does not talk about modern Western polyamory. It talks specifically about patriarchal polygyny.
Either your reading comprehension is terrible, or you are butthurt polyamorist with a persecution complex.
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It's *great* that you've cleared that up for everyone. It so perfectly explains polygyny among the Dinka, for example, what with their practice of non-Islamic religion. They must do it in a really Allah-y way.
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You never heard of it? Jesus fucking wept, the actual article you're commenting on talked about it, you dumb fuck. It never ceases to amaze me how people like you proclaim your stupidity and ignorance as a badge of honour.
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Look at it another way. Testosterone rides high until a man gets married. Being with a woman mellows a man out. It's one of the reasons married men gain weight: their metabolism slows.
If there are not enough women to go around, then you have a society with lots of restless and desperate men, resulting in war and chaos.
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It's not like other religions are more keen on wanking, which would certainly take care of that particular problem.
Re:No one identified the real problem (Score:4, Funny)
So, what you're saying is that the leadership is made up of people who strong-arm their way to the top.
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True. I can wank with my other hand if I so choose without my house suddenly being gone.
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No one identified the real problem. Let's not dance around the issue because we're afraid to tell it like it is. The violence is caused by Islam.
This got labeled troll but it's very true that if you show me a majority Islam country I'll show you a shitty country. Yes a country can be crappy without Islam being a factor but when Islam is a factor it's all but guaranteed to be crappy.
Re:No one identified the real problem (Score:5, Informative)
No one identified the real problem. Let's not dance around the issue because we're afraid to tell it like it is. The violence is caused by Islam.
Too bad South Sudan is predominantly Christian. Islam is such a small minority that it doesn't even make the CIA World Factbook on South Sudan. There are more animists than Muslims.
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Que? You need to spell your logic out a little more there, I think. There's not a thing in this article that suggested women in these societies are ever in the top 10% of society.
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Even if that is true, this doesn't mean that the women are culturally and possibly legally blocked from sleeping with other men. It doesn't lead to an enforced surplus of men that are chaste against their will because there are literally no available women to even compete for.
That's the problem that polygamy creates, rather than polyamory. People may choose to settle down to monogamy after playing the field, so even those who are not especially successful in their early adult years may still find someone
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Go back to /pol you damn dirty retard.
Re:I havenâ(TM)t been able to find a wife eit (Score:5, Funny)
Okay Lennart, get laid already, I'll pay for a hooker weekly, just stop working on systemd
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Sometimes, we in the west foment war/mayhem with bribes too. Just look at what is happening in the Mid East...
Trump is just trying to get the maximum return on our investment into Israel, the entire point of which is to foment hatred and keep the brown people fighting amongst themselves so they don't realize how badly we've been fucking them for decades. His comments on Jerusalem are probably his single most cogent act. Everything else he has tried to do has been done with [tiny] hands of ham. I'm not in favor of his destabilization of the region any more than I'm in favor of our general policy of the same, but thi
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Oh, you mean the "destabilization" that removed 98% of ISIS' territory out from under them (and dropped their fighters' numbers from a peak of 40k to less than 1k or so) starting when you-know-who took office and stopped micromanaging the whole affair from his desk?
Or maybe you meant the fact that Iraq is once again becoming stable after a certain previous president pulled out too early (on a massively flimsy excuse)?
Oh, maybe you meant the massive anti-Wahhabist royal purge/shakeup that recently occurred i
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Oh, you mean the "destabilization" that removed 98% of ISIS' territory out from under them (and dropped their fighters' numbers from a peak of 40k to less than 1k or so) starting when you-know-who took office and stopped micromanaging the whole affair from his desk?
So IOW, that stuff was going to happen anyway, and Obama's strategy was the correct one. That some generals say "we're glad nobody is checking up on us" does not prove that this is what helped us get these wins against ISIS. In fac
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Re:Alt-Right (Score:4, Insightful)
Our current president tapped into them and it helped him win.
No, not really. Our current president got elected by people with money. We know this because polling shows that trump voters have on average a $10,000 higher median income than clinton voters even though they tend to live in more economically depressed areas. Not only would they be more affluent than clinton voters if you transplanted them, but they are vastly more affluent than their neighbors. Those red states are always bleeding money, with only a couple of exceptions, and have to be propped up by blue states. That means that the trump voters are especially well off for where they live, and will have no trouble attracting mates on that basis whatsoever.
Those guys are dangerous, but they did not provide any significant help to trump. He was elected by people with money who believed that he would help them keep their money. Ironically, most of them were wrong. They're going to get punched in the nuts by trump's tax plan in two years.
You're both right and you're wrong (Score:2)
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America has a similar problem brewing with marriage age men who can't get wives, although here it's just the crappy economy rather than polygamy.
Wrong It's not like partnering up with someone could be economical (One bed, two incomes). And just look at the Great Depression, no one got married for years.
There's not a lot more dangerous in this world then a large group of men with no wives, no jobs and no future.
True. See the Democratic party policies designed to destroy African-American family structure over the years.
You're thinking like a man (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, you're last comment is a standard 'what-about-ism' talking point of the alt-right's 'leadership' (I put that in quotes because it's hard to call somebody a leader when they're really just taking advantage of a desperate group to hit them up for money and cheap political power). You should be ashamed of yourself for thinking it let alone writing it in a
Re:Enlightened view (Score:5, Funny)
What is the optimal number of spouses?
Two. Each will think I'm with the other. While I'm actually in the shop getting some work done.
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You don't know, maybe AC can lick his eyebrows.
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Attribute your para or its plagiarism.
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So there's this feller, and he's been found guilty of taking and driving away a Lada. The judge asks if there's any other offences he wants taken into consideration. He admits to bigamy and pirating Star Wars DVDs.
The judge let him off with a warning, saying that he'd already suffered enough.