1,2,3.

[Liquid Blue]

1) Peer Pressure-

The human race is supported and held together by social interaction, or at least was at a time. There are cases where people prefer to live alone, but for the most part, we need to interact with eachother to stay positive in a pyscological sense. This being the case, what do you think is the origin of peer pressure? Why do you think it's such an ingrained and effective method of swaying anywhere from one person to a thousand? Whether where to eat or what type of clothes are popular to wear, peer pressure works, and works well.

I think it originates from way back when humans had to hunt and gather in groups, and peer pressure is sort of an evolved form of a warning system. Think of it this way, if there are 4 humans hunting, and one of the beta males decides to pick some red berries. The alpha male slaps the berries out of his hand, and somehow communicates (either through facial expressions or hand motions) that those berries are bad, and not to eat them. If he's adamant enough, and has been proven before to keep the other beta's safe, I don't see any reason why the beta's would try the berries. Back then that type of shit could have meant death, so they just played it safe rather than going against the flow.

Fast forward to now- wearing a leisure suit won't get you killed, but the "alphas" of society (male and female) will look down upon your choice in clothing, and ridicule you for it. The betas, usually trusting the alpha's sense of style over their own, will go along with it and make a note not to wear leisure suits. On the other side of the coin, if enough alpha's start wearing leisure suits, the beta's will once again (for the most part) forgo their sense of style and copy the sucessful alphas.

That's just my theory, what do you think? Again for those that forgot the questions-

-What do you think is the origin of peer pressure?
-Why do you think it's such an ingrained and effective method of swaying anywhere from one person to a thousand?



2) Selfish

Why are we so selfish? Society and the progression of it is a factor I'm sure, but when did we stop caring about our fellow man on such a base level, or was it always like this?

I go to school near DC, and take the metro nearly every day. Just today I saw 3 people get shoved as they made their way through the crowds, and only one of the people that shoved them bothered to apologize. 2 of the shovers were men, 1 was a woman. The man that apologized even went as far as to lightly touch the person's arm as he apologized, but the other man was focused on something else, his eyes were above the crowd and he didn't seem to even notice knocking a girl back a couple of inches with his shoulder and bag. The woman was in a conversation with some guy as they were heading towards the escalator, and didn't even acknowledge the girl's presence as she hit her with her bag, just kept right on walking and talking.

People cut off others in traffic without signaling, yell at waiters and fast food employees if something is wrong with their food, always thinking about themselves. It's all me, me, me. I need to get home fast, so cutting this guy without signaling is no big deal. I waited 5 whole minutes for this food, and these fries are cold. Fuck that teenage punk, he should have gotten me warm fries. I deserve that promotion, Bob has been here longer but I know I'd be a better manager. I deserve that raise, I've been here for 3 months. I should probably drive that lady home, but I want to call my girlfriend, so I'll make Todd do it. I should go e-mail that proposition- Ken is waiting on it, but I haven't had a smoke in half an hour, the e-mail can wait.

What the fuck is the point? Everyone isn't selfish, but it seems like for every 1 unselfish person, there are 5 more who will take advantage of that person, and only think about themselves. There are just times when I don't see how we could have gotten this far when so many people only think about themselves so much, or always put themselves first. If it's a recent change, then I don't know about the future. I guess I shouldn't care and let the chips fall where they may, but I can't help thinking about it.

Why are we so selfish? Society and the progression of it is a factor I'm sure, but when did we stop caring about our fellow man on such a base level, or was it always like this?

3) Forbidden

What is it about forbidden fruit that is so tempting? Your buddies hot girlfriend, the cash in the wallet you found, that cookie that your mom said you can't have before dinner. Is it just because we can't have it, because we aren't supposed to? Why is breaking the moral standard, crossing the percepted line of right and wrong, so appealing? Even if it's just for a second, just for a taste, just for a touch, why is it exiciting to so many people? Are we wired that way?

If you have a girlfriend, and your buddy has a girlfriend, why does one look, one second of eye contact, one brief, innocent touch get the blood flowing, get the imagination going? What is it about us that wants to try that "something different, something new",when it could jepordize so much, when it could cost us what we hold most dear? Is that whyit's so exciting, because there is so much to lose?

[stark]

acceptance.

[Facetious]

i think peer pressure has a lot to do with sex. notice when peer pressure regarding looks really hits kids, its around middle school. in elementary school, your appearance has little to do with your popularity, in middle school it has a lot to do with it, and in high school, its even worse. once people get old and lose interest in sex, it goes back to the way it started.

the selfishness i dont really understand so much, but i think in a lot of cases its tied to stupidity. im temping at the george mason university parking office, where they do an absolutely terrible job, and some fat bitch comes up to me and says "you are a failure!" and im like "uh, im a temp, ive been here for a week, i answer the phones, as a temp i cant do anything to shorten the lines" and she goes "youre still a failure!" and storms out. clearly, the lines at the place are long because they havent hired enough people. the low level employees the cunt was interacting with obviously have no power to hire other low level employees. i think she didnt have any idea, though, she just wanted to yell at the people that worked there because she was too stupid to realize the people she really should have complained to are the people that hired the parking company at the school. im sure she didnt call them to complain, the instant satisfaction of yelling at us was good enough for her. i dont understand people like that, but thankfully, i find that the kinds of people im drawn to almost never act like that.

as far as the wallet thing, i think youd be shocked to find out how many people think its okay to take the money out of a wallet they found. i had a 100 bucks in my wallet when i was travelling one time. every time i stand up i pat my back pocket to make sure my wallet was there, but i had two bags in my hands when i stood up to catch the airport shuttle, so i didnt do it last time. i got to the shuttle, tried to get the 10 bucks, and immediately went back to where i was sitting, the wallet wasnt there so i freaked out because i missed the shuttle. apparently someone had found the wallet within 10 seconds of me standing up, taken the 100 bucks, and returned it to lost and found. i bitched about it to several people and a lot of them said they would do the same thing, they didnt consider it stealing. these are people who that really doesnt match up with.

with the friends girlfriends thing, i always intentionally desexualize them. sometimes i dont even notice if they are hot. for some weird reason though, that makes them more attracted to me. its really frustrating because i am incapable of doing that for someone that i am actually allowed to sleep with. overally though i think the appeal of a forbidden activity like that is that we dont have the adventure of being hunted by wild animals anymore to get our blood flowing, so the closest we have is that kind of stuff.

edit: i realize i didnt really answer your questions, just told anecdotes, but hey at least i responded

[Superted]

What do you think is the origin of peer pressure?
Why do you think it's such an ingrained and effective method of swaying anywhere from one person to a thousand?
It seems most of us (or those passve individuals who are more prone to peer pressure) spend our lives hiding from the spotlight. We sit at the back, wear 'normal' clothes and do 'normal' things so as to not attract attention to ourselves. After all, attention just causes embarrasment and so we just do what everyone else is doing, so we can go unnoticed. I may have just re-worded the definition of peer pressure there, sorry.

Why are we so selfish? Society and the progression of it is a factor I'm sure, but when did we stop caring about our fellow man on such a base level, or was it always like this?
Greed and selfishness have always been a trait of man. However, I suspect all our freedoms in the past few decades have just given more oppurtunity for a more hedonistic lifestyle but I could be wrong.

What is it about forbidden fruit that is so tempting?
It seems that we just want what we can't have. We pretty much have everything really, life handed to us on a gold plate but it's enough. We overlook it all and concentrate on the things we don't have, merely because we don't. Maybe it's just a system to better ourselves, I don't know.

[Liquid Blue]

im temping at the george mason university parking office

well holy shit Mason isn't even 30 minutes away from me. Surprise visit time!!1

:fear:

Face, when you say it comes down to sex, do you mean that peer pressure only applies in situations that depend upon our appearance, or the need to appease whichever sex in general? Aka guys wearing what's deemed cool at the time so the girls will think they are hot, or guys wearing what's cool so the other guys will think they fit in.

with the friends girlfriends thing, i always intentionally desexualize them. sometimes i dont even notice if they are hot. for some weird reason though, that makes them more attracted to me. its really frustrating because i am incapable of doing that for someone that i am actually allowed to sleep with. overally though i think the appeal of a forbidden activity like that is that we dont have the adventure of being hunted by wild animals anymore to get our blood flowing, so the closest we have is that kind of stuff.

Now you say you always do it, but did you do this from the first time one of your friends had a girlfriend, or were you tempted once and decided to desexualize the girls from that point forward?

It seems most of us (or those passve individuals who are more prone to peer pressure) spend our lives hiding from the spotlight. We sit at the back, wear 'normal' clothes and do 'normal' things so as to not attract attention to ourselves. After all, attention just causes embarrasment and so we just do what everyone else is doing, so we can go unnoticed. I may have just re-worded the definition of peer pressure there, sorry.

This makes more sense to me than my hunting theory. If this is the case then, why is the idea that "attention just causes embarrasment" the first thing that comes to mind ? Since when was attention create such a gut-negative reaction? Or have we always just been this doubtful about ourselves?

I suspect all our freedoms in the past few decades have just given more oppurtunity for a more hedonistic lifestyle but I could be wrong.

True true, and the intensity and amount of parenting has dropped off as well, which might also be a factor. Parents teach us what is right and wrong, how to share and be nice to others. If we get less lessons like those from our parents, aren't we more likely to act in a negative light? Or are we just more likely to not change our ways after a negative experience?

We overlook it all and concentrate on the things we don't have, merely because we don't.

Hmm, yes indeed.

[Facetious]

well holy shit Mason isn't even 30 minutes away from me. Surprise visit time!!1

:fear:

ha, do it

Face, when you say it comes down to sex, do you mean that peer pressure only applies in situations that depend upon our appearance, or the need to appease whichever sex in general? Aka guys wearing what's deemed cool at the time so the girls will think they are hot, or guys wearing what's cool so the other guys will think they fit in.

i was thinking more along the lines of people competing with each other in a way thats animalistic based but not really relevant to us anymore. women compete with each other over brand-name clothes and brand-name shoes and shit like that CONSTANTLY and all guys care about is do the shoes make her legs look long and does the shirt make the girl look skinny with big tits. still, though, in the girl world there is a whole different level of "attractive" that we dont understand, and what we find attractive alone isnt enough for a girl to feel sexually attractive as far as i can tell. her ass might look better in levis but shed still rather go out in 7 jeans because beating her friends in the "most money wasted on jeans" competition is what enables her to feel like she can snag a hot guy. its like head butting or feather displaying in the animal kingdom only weve lost the element of best feathers or headbutt fight winner actually getting laid. im really fucking tired so that probably didnt make any sense, as far as i know females dont do that in the animal kingdom anyway, oh well.

with guys clothes i think its a matter of effectiveness. i think frat guys know that all in all, if you wear the alligator or the horse, you know youll get laid plenty. if you have no personality, its a lot better than going out on a limb and risking not getting laid at all for the potential gain of getting laid slightly more. trying to look like a frat guy WITHOUT the alligator or the horse, of course, is fucking disasterous. so if you dont have the money youre forced to try something completely different, and typically you end up in a different social group, where you compete over a different set of girls entirely. wow, that didnt make any sense either.

friends girlfriend thing: eh i only really have been attracted to my friends girlfriends that they have treated like shit/cheated on because then the morality lines get a little blurred to me.

[Pearl Jam]

with guys clothes i think its a matter of effectiveness. i think frat guys know that all in all, if you wear the alligator or the horse, you know youll get laid plenty. if you have no personality, its a lot better than going out on a limb and risking not getting laid at all for the potential gain of getting laid slightly more. trying to look like a frat guy WITHOUT the alligator or the horse, of course, is fucking disasterous. so if you dont have the money youre forced to try something completely different, and typically you end up in a different social group, where you compete over a different set of girls entirely. wow, that didnt make any sense either.

As a fairly hardcore frat guy I feel the need to comment on this.

I've always had the money, but I own no polo shirts and don't wear the alligator or the moose (did you mean moose? abercrombie stuff?) ever. I do know for a fact that 90% of the guys in my frat dress the way you speak of, though. I dress like a psuedo-hipster-punk and always stuck out like a sore fucking thumb. I never averted from that though, because I knew early on that that wasn't who I was at all. Your typical sorority girl digs the look you spoke of, not mine. Luckily for me (and this sounds bizzare coming from a frat guy) I never cared for the typical sorority girl.

However, I would never say it's "disastrous". Because I refused to ever dress like anything other than a stoner-skater, I've managed to meet/date women that are more in tune with my personality. It didn't happen as often, but the ones that liked it bit on it HARD. Granted, the random hookups weren't nearly as commonplace, but when I look back on living in a frat house, I'm glad I refused to conform to the atypical style. The connections were fewer in number, but were much stronger.

So basically, even though upon reading this I realize it's barely clinging to sense-making much like your post, I agree with everything you said other than the whole "not dressing like this is disastrous" part.

[Galleleo]

I gotta say tho face, that is probably restricted to America/Canada. In the Netherlands those clothles don't nessecarily mean the same thing, sure it shows you (or most likely your parents) have money and stuff. But we don't really have frat guys over here I think. I wear those kind of clothes.. well I have no Lacoste, but I do have Ralph Lauren (that's the horse pj), and Scapa Sports and stuff, but I don't wear it so I can get laid, I like the clothes, besides wearing that over here, you get called a "kakker" or translated something like: Rich Boy/negative sound atleast.

I don't really care about that, I wear what I wear because I like it. Just wanted to point out that I THINK that mostly on those type of clothles atleast over here is viewed a bit different then what you described, when I look at real college guys, or what I think is the dutch version of frat boys, they usually don't wear the horse and the alligator. I could be wrong, because I come from a biased side. I mean I wear it, but I don't wear it to get laid.. anyway, enough rambling.

[Unorthadox]

The shortest post in this thread is longer then any book i have ever read

LOL THAT RHYMES LIKE DOCTOR S-OO-CE

[Galleleo]

acceptance.

You read a book shorter then this?

[Riesen]

I think peer pressure and selfishness go hand-in-hand. Peer pressure works because a majority of people want to be accepted in the popular group of people. They give into peer pressure because it's easier to fit in with 50 people and have them all like you than it is to stand out and have to work to get 5 people to even talk to you. So, another variable in this equation would be laziness.

I'm not saying that cavemen were lazy, but nowadays, everyone is lazy, it's engrained in our life-styles now. With being able to order pizza from your TV remote, online bill-pay, being able to buy a 3 year supply of Oscar Mayer Bologna and a fashionable Cashmere Sweater all under one roof, etc., etc., there's hardly a need to work for something so menial as an original and true personality. This is especially true in America and other countries like it. Everything is handed to us, even mornic shit we don't need like "Pet Steps" and the "Egg-Wave". Oh, oh, let's not forget the "Clapper". That's the best example of how lazy all of us citizens of free countries have gotten. It has gotten so bad that we can't even be bothered to lean over, or stand up, and flip a switch. When all you have to do is clap your hands like a retard when he finds out that he gets the big slice of cake to turn on a light, who needs to work to be themselves when it's so much easier to adopt someone else's personality and lifestyle as your own and automatically be accepted and well-liked?

As for the forbidden fruit thing, I had an answer in my head, but I'm too stupid right now to put it to words.

[Facetious]

pj, you arent a hardcore frat guy (or at least in the sense that im speaking of) if you dont like those kind of sorority girls or dress like that, and clearly your sense of humor is different from your average frat guy as well. also, you say the word frat, if you were a real frat guy you would have said fraternity, because would you call your country a cunt? anyway, not wearing the alligator or the horse (i mean polo) IS mostly disasterous as far as getting those types of sorority girls, and thats all i meant. also, i could be wrong, but your frat probably isnt the type of frat im speaking of if they have you as a member. anyway, i am aware that different types of frats and frat guys exist. i dont like when people dislike anyone because theyre in a frat, its just as dumb as when frat guys dislike people for not being in a frat. i get along fine with most frat guys and am incidentally wearing a lacoste shirt right now (mismarked for 15 bucks at hechts). i think that fitting into a strict stereotype like that doesnt bode that well for someone's personality, but im willing to have a conversation with anyone no matter how they are dressed.

if the clapper is an example of how lazy people have gotten, what does it mean that nobody on earth uses that anymore?

[genocidal]

I fuck anything.

[Riesen]

if the clapper is an example of how lazy people have gotten, what does it mean that nobody on earth uses that anymore?

People still use it. Granted, it's not as popular as it used to be, but they're still manufacturing them.

[Galleleo]

Polo is part of Ralph Lauren.