You may have heard on the BBC news yesterday that the Newsnight Presenter Emily Maitlis had been hounded by a stalker for twenty years, to the extent that she had started to think of it like a “chronic illness”. It’s not something you would wish on anybody, and it sounds like she has given up hope it will ever end. As someone who has had an averagely unhappy marriage, the aversive effects of familiarity are pretty clear ( especially for men, who for evolutionary reasons are supposedly looking for the next fix of novelty) and my first, probably unhelpful thought was “maybe it would have been over quicker for her if she had married him”. But then, it occurred to me, more sensitively, that there are technical things on the horizon that could replicate that kind of aversion therapy. One of them is of course augmented reality.

The stalker, during his prison sentence should live in a cell which has been made to look like a home interior. (Photoshopped wedding photos of him and Maitlis, six kids etc). Lots of toys on floor and crap everywhere. Basic family bliss. The dummy of Maitlis will sit on the sofa, (except of course when Newsnight is on, when it will be removed) If this isn’t too much of a cruel and unusual punishment, the augmented reality headset will be locked to the prisoners head. It will show Maitlis superimposed on the dummy, and she will seem to nag on (and on) about folding towels, not putting your feet up on the sofa, how you’re bloody disgrace to the male gender, letting the kids down etc etc. Three years may be enough.. (Ps she could harangue him from “Newsnight” too, but it might be bad for the tv to talk directly to him)
-- DDRopDeadly, Jan 19 2018

I suspect if such a stalker ever gets out of jail, the person portrayed as doing all that verbal abuse is going to get stalked and worse.
-- Vernon, Jan 19 2018


//men, who for evolutionary reasons are supposedly looking for the next fix of novelty//

Sorry to hear about the state of your marriage, but biological determinism might not be helpful here.
-- pertinax, Jan 20 2018


spice up your marriage, role-play, cos-play isnt that stuff all about pretending you’re with someone new? (AR should be good for that too). I can’t argue about biological determinism easily because, even though the brain knows about it, and thinks it can get “outside of it” maybe that’s wishful thinking, there are levels and levels to it I imagine
-- DDRopDeadly, Jan 20 2018


//sorry to hear about the state of your marriage// One uses these things as case studies which are in one’s experience, being sorry is unnecessary. (Now i’m Sorry to sound a bit like Spock)
-- DDRopDeadly, Jan 20 2018


Unless you’re gloating from within a fine marriage - in which case, points to you
-- DDRopDeadly, Jan 20 2018


No; no gloating, no point-scoring.

Rather ...

Well, there are several points to be made to expand on what I said above.

First, there's a general problem with purportedly scientific laws describing specifically human behaviour, namely, that unless the human behaviour in question can be inferred entirely and directly from the traceable behaviour of simpler entities (such as individual cells) that don't talk back, the law that describes it must always be under suspicion of political bias. In this case, the suspicion would be that male promiscuity is actually an expression of male privilege, justified retrospectively by appeal to primitive reproductive strategies. I don't know whether or to what extent that suspicion is justified; it's near-impossible either to prove or disprove. However, what is fairly certain is that the suspicion is likely to cloud any conversation in which you take the position "Science says I need to cheat and you don't", even if you don't say it out loud.

Second, there is some anecdotal evidence that some women do, in fact, like novelty and variety, while some men like to stick with what they know.

Third - and probably most important; supposing that you feel a need for variety, there is no reason to assume that your sex life must be the source of this variety. Your need might be met just as effectively, if not more effectively, by doing something new and interesting not involving your penis.

I mean, if you have enough time and nervous energy to have an affair, then maybe you have enough to start a business or a political movement, or write an artistic manifesto, or something.
-- pertinax, Jan 20 2018


I get what you’re saying, that male priviledge biases the male view point. On the other hand, that very male priviledge is itself somewhat determined by biology, and probably reducible to the purportedly scientific laws you have a problem with. I just think you ladies might have thrown off the shackles a bit more often throughout history and dominated, if such ways came naturally to them.
-- DDRopDeadly, Jan 21 2018


I guess there must be people who can learn to enjoy being stalked in a sense.. if they can get into the correct mindset. That would be one way of dealing with it. Like teasing Jehovah’s Witnesses
-- DDRopDeadly, Jan 21 2018


//that male priviledge biases the male view point//

No, that wasn't really my point (though it may be true). My point was more abstract than that. Also, I'm male.
-- pertinax, Jan 22 2018


Sorry I assumed your gender [pertinax]..I hadn’t even noticed I had done it.. As to your main point about tracing complex human behaviours back to simpler laws and motivations I think it may indeed have difficulties, due to emergent features, but at least it’s a more scientific lead to follow, rather than the obfuscations and fantasies of social sciences, old style psychology and wishful thinking which have nothing to restrain them.

I seem to detect a conservative aversion to the idea of infidelity in you which is not unusual, but at least partly to blame for the distress caused by infidelity. In terms of energy usage, I wouldn’t say infidelity and other activities share the same budget. In terms of artistic / scientific creativity I have one word: muse. More affairs, more potential muses. Muses=energy, increased creativity..
-- DDRopDeadly, Jan 22 2018


Probably it was the // not involving your penis// expression which made me think you were female. You got to admit, it’s a feminine kind of thing to say to a guy ..
-- DDRopDeadly, Jan 22 2018


//conservative aversion//

Ah, that takes me back; a long time ago, when I was a teenager, I briefly believed that social conservatism was the reason why girls wouldn't have sex with me. It turns out, that wasn't the reason. ;-)
-- pertinax, Jan 22 2018



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