How can you believe in evolution but no social darwinism

[sophie]

because leftism is not about science but about "feeling good"

So they support Darwin because most of them are atheists but they don't support the conseguences of darwinism because most of them really hate capitalism

So they reject Economics Science because is a "bourgoise science" calling economics fraud and then support "Global Warming" Al-Gore's agenda because "the world is meeeelting"

Mind making that just the slightest bit more coherent for us lucid folks?

 

[Askthepizzaguy]

because leftism is not about science but about "feeling good"

So they support Darwin because most of them are atheists but they don't support the conseguences of darwinism because most of them really hate capitalism

So they reject Economics Science because is a "bourgoise science" calling economics fraud and then support "Global Warming" Al-Gore's agenda because "the world is meeeelting"

Did you accidentally swallow a right-wing radio station?

 

[antidrocefalo]

Did you accidentally swallow a right-wing radio station?

No, I haven't but that seems to pretty much sum-up a pretty reasonable conclusion on the subject.

 

[Askthepizzaguy]

No, I haven't but that seems to pretty much sum-up a pretty reasonable conclusion on the subject.

Pretty reasonable if you've been listening to Rush Limbaugh 24/7 for the past decade and have forgotten how to be objective or fair or coherent.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

because leftism is not about science but about "feeling good"

So they support Darwin because most of them are atheists but they don't support the conseguences of darwinism because most of them really hate capitalism

So they reject Economics Science because is a "bourgoise science" calling economics fraud and then support "Global Warming" Al-Gore's agenda because "the world is meeeelting"

Dear AlioElMage.

Don't ever presume to know what I, as a leftist, use to come to my leftist views. You haven't got a clue. I would appreciate it if you'd let people voice their own arguments instead of strawmanning the hell out of them. It's dishonest, it makes me feel the need to waste time and effort on you, and makes all involved look silly.

Maybe an example would show you what I mean.

No, I haven't but that seems to pretty much sum-up a pretty reasonable conclusion on the subject.

It seems to describe a world view which you feel comfortable with. If you characterize the opposing side in such a strawman fashion it shields you from having to take into account different views. An activity that would make you feel insecure about your own. This is why instead of addressing arguments from 'the other side' you need, and I italize "need" for a reason, you need to portray those views in that fashion, because if you would be honest about the whole deal you would find your arguments lacking. You need to shy away from an intellectually honest debate because of that.

And I'm even sure you actually believe the nonsense you've been spouting the last couple of weeks. With a defensive mechanism in please that reads: "The left hate capitalism, hate freedom and eat their puppies with a side dish of roasted baby seal" you can dismiss anything you read (or should I say, "refuse to read"?) you'd be hard pressed to actually having to perform a tedious activity like using reasoning to counter points which conflict with your own.

I can do Layman Psychology me as well.

Did you like that?

 

[Whiskey_Lord]

What are you babbling about now?

The same self-important, misanthropic drivel as the previous 104 posts repackaged with a slight variation in words.

 

[Askthepizzaguy]

The same self-important, misanthropic drivel as the previous 104 posts repackaged with a slight variation in words.

Hey! Let's not make him feel unwelcome now, just because he's insulting half of the posters here. I think he needs validation. He may even crave it.



Aliothemage, all left-wingers are indeed evil. You're totally right. Nothing they say or do makes any sense, and none of them have truly thought anything through the way you have. You're AWESOME.

You just keep on fighting the good fight. You're a winner.

Insert smiley face here ----->


There. Now I've brightened his day and given him what he came here for. And we can go on debating this "money = worthy human being" sewage; because that's exactly what it is- mental diarrhea.

 

[Cutlass]

because leftism is not about science but about "feeling good"

So they support Darwin because most of them are atheists but they don't support the conseguences of darwinism because most of them really hate capitalism

So they reject Economics Science because is a "bourgoise science" calling economics fraud and then support "Global Warming" Al-Gore's agenda because "the world is meeeelting"

So the left, which respects science isn't about science, where the right, which rejects science, is about science....

 

[Murky]

Wikipedia... Excellent!

Apart from the problem of humanity's notorious genetic sameness, compared to other species, and the problem of lack of radical breaks, as in how the genetics continuously changes between populations, how do you assume any of this to apply on the individual level?

These are, at best, statistical samplings (possible relevant on the aggregate level, extremely problematic on the individual) taken on populations defined by arbitrary historical and cultural categories. It's still the same problem the 19th c. had in defining "races" without appealing to history, language or some other human-made concept onto which biological data gets projected.

As biological race should be possible to define by genetic factors alone to hold up here. Considering the lack of diversification, the problem of continuous blending (we get more or less perceptible breaks when we know recent history has shuffled populations about in recent centuries, but why that should mean race can be constituted under such conditions if it can't when something like that hasn't happened is unclear), odd things like how malaria causes changes in the genome of such an order we might need to deal with a "post-malarian race of man", and recent come-back kids like epigenetics, I don't think a prescriptive analytical definition quite cuts the mustard. Even if it's underpinned by Wikipedia.

The main problem you have is still to answer is: What races are there exactly? How are they defined, but this time with the rider, in such a fashion that it has relevance on an individual level, not just on an aggregate level of population statistics (which has its own problems).

Good points. I'm no anthropologist and I certainly don't want to feed into any racists ideology. I have my own ideas regarding divergence within the human species but for now I'll just keep them to myself.

It is up to biologists and anthropologist to figure out what the races are exactly─if there is any significant difference. There is work being done to trace back generic lines to the earliest humans. That should be an interesting study to follow.

 

[Defiant47]

Morality is in the realm of beliefs and religion and does not belong in this thread.

Took you long enough.

So you do not want to talk about what should be happening or what is moral and immoral.

That's fine, knock yourself out. Just make sure never to mention the word "morality". I.e. "ruling governments dictate morality" (implied create morality), which is wrong.

Facts are not the same as values. Just because something is the way it is, doesn't mean that it ought to be the way it is.

But like I said, if you don't even want to touch the subject of morality, it's OK as long as you actually don't touch the subject of morality, and mistakenly attribute values to facts.

 

[Narz]

Dawkins explained it very well, evolution are how humans should morally treat each other have little in common. We have rational & compassionate minds which allow us now to take the reigns of evolution ourselves to some degree. We don't have to dominate & destroy "weaker" people anymore just because we can.

Morality is in the realm of beliefs and religion and does not belong in this thread.

That's not true. Morality holds a society together & is deeply ingrained in our DNA. A tribe or culture full of wannabe-Machiavelli's would disintegrate quickly. The only reason some can get away with being sociopaths is because most people aren't.

 

[Traitorfish]

No, this is actually not accurate. Social status back in hunter-gather society was an indicator of who got to mate with the most female -- a direct relation to evolutionary success.

Most hunter-gatherer societies are monogamous, so... I disagree? And also wonder why you believe that social status is necessarily something accorded to men alone, given that there are many human societies exhibiting, to some degree, tendencies towards gynofocality?

That is evolutionary success in every form of the word. Primitive societies may have shared resources, but there was no mistaking who was the leader, who got the choiciest cuts of meat when the kill was brought home, and who got the sleep with the most females. Having high rank is a direct precursor evolutionary success on a biological level, much more than it is now in modern western society.

Actually, primitive societies vary in all those factors. In many, distribution is communistic, in that it it occurs on an as-need basis, social status being derived from one's ability to provide for others, rather than simply being a route to personal material gain. Many also lack the same concept of leadership that more developed societies exhibit, according it, if at all, on a contextual and ad hoc basis. In many cases, the only permanent authority is found in religious and spiritual roles- shamans, in essence- who sit apart from the materialistic hierarchies you suggest. Even in those which do follow the proto-authoritarian model you suggest, it's never the sort of proto-capitalist dog-pile you imagine; status is heavily tied to the collective health of the entire band, and it is both the social duty and in the self-interest of the "leaders" to support others at their own expense. If you tried to establish the sort of exploitative systems found in developed societies in a hunter-gatherer band of a few dozen people, let alone the malformed individualism of contemporary capitalism, you would destroy it within a year.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Someone needs to cite a credible source to definitively end this back-and-forth about hunter-gatherer societies.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Originally Posted by Fallen Angel Lord
Morality is in the realm of beliefs and religion and does not belong in this thread.

That's exactly what everyone was telling you from the start.

 

[Left]

Someone needs to cite a credible source to definitively end this back-and-forth about hunter-gatherer societies.

Hunter gatherer societies did not have material inequality and did not gauge someone's worth by the amount of material they controlled. In fact the informal leadership was often required to distribute more material than they themselves kept. Fallen Angel Lord says the leadership had more reproductive success

http://www.primitivism.com/original-affluent.htm

Now the wealthy control far more material wealth than most people but have lower reproductive success.

 

[Traitorfish]

Someone needs to cite a credible source to definitively end this back-and-forth about hunter-gatherer societies.

Well, I can't offer any authoritative sources right now, but the Hunter-Gatherer Wiki of Ohio State University provides a referenced outline of the sort of thing I'm talking about.

 

[Cheetah]

Either way, though, it goes to show that the societies of Great Apes provide an ineffective illustration of any fundamental "human nature". When both candidates differ so significantly not only form humans but from each other, it becomes nothing more than a desperate appeal to nature.

Well, sure. We may be as different from chimps and bonobos as they are from each other - but the reverse is also true: We may be as equal to one or both of them as they are to each other.

Perhaps, but I don't see what bearing that has on the concept of human "race". (Um, no pun intended. )

Do keep in mind, Murky is suggesting that we consider Africans and Eskimos to be distinct species, or at least sub-species, which is, well, that's a special kind of creepy.

Well, I learned that a specie means that two individuals can have fertile offspring. Furthermore, I see species as being different beings, and races as being variations within one specie. Now, if you say that polar bears and kodaks have undergone speciation and are now two different species, that seems wrong if they can still have fertile offspring. But if you feel able to distinguish between two races of bears to such a degree as naming them different species, then couldn't it follow that Murky is in his right to consider Eskimos and, say, Bushmen, as two different races? Saying they are two different species is wrong in any case, as a pairing of an Eskimo and a Bushman can most definitely have fertile offspring.

Oh yeah. But if you're going to acknowledge that, what's the point of being a social darwinist?
I mean, from that perspective getting rich IS a bad trait. Getting rich requires long term planning and expectation of survival which is bad for having lots of kids. I know some extremely darwinian-fit young men who had more then the average number of kids before they were through high school. Now THERES a darwinian superman.

But all those guys can have offspring that grow up and survive precisely because our society does not allow Social Darwinism - that's the point of our welfare programs, right?

Which hunter-gatherer society is this?

Your problem here is that humans, even hunter-gatherers (maybe even the H-G gang more than most) are damn inventive people. They get up to all kinds of tricks not covered here.

And social status effects under such conditions... Well, it might not be quite what you think. A very famous example from the Khoi-San (in non-PC "bushmen") is how the best hunter does NOT get the choiciest cuts of meat if he brings down a prey. It's divided up according to strict rules which actually maximises his usefulness as superb hunter to the GROUP. (Iirc he gets the head, not the choice cuts of meat.) But since the group is a pretty tightly knit family entity, genetically speaking it might still work out fine. Just not in such a way that this presumed über-hunter-gatherer necessarily profits the most. (And as you said, they have some wacky ideas about private property as well.)

The thing is, human envy is a powerful emotion and needs to be checked. Well, if you're this über-hunter, general smarty-pants, super-strong and tough guy in this kind of society, and then start demanding everyone subject themselves to you as and effect, chances are it's going to get someone's goat eventually, and you will end up with a spear through your ribs in a "hunting accident". It's the same reason if you have something extra nice, and someone admires it, you give it to him. Eventually someone else will make the same observation, and the thing gets passed on, so eventually everyone takes turns owning the nice stuff. This is what tends to happen in that kind of acephalic, non-stratified society. If you're this über-hunter in an already stratified society things will tend to work out more like you have described them.

The second problem here is that in the H-G societies we know of, the actual survival tends to depend not on the occasional game the men bring home, but the continuous daily scrounging the females are engaged in. The group usually could survive on that alone, making these hunters a bit of decoration at times...

And on top of that we get sexual selection. I.e. the wimmien tend to chose whether and what kind of rumpy-pumpy there's going to be...

In whatever society humans exist, conflicts of interests will occur. When that happens, the most powerful will have the final word. It may very well be that the Khoisan are putting the groups interests first, but that can only be possible precisely because the group is small and all members are related in some way. However, because of the dangers of inbreeding, I am sure that there is contact with other, nearby groups. And there is no reason to expect that the groups then act "egalitarian". In fact, murder and violence rates are extremely high among hunter-gatherers, compared to... civilized societies(??).

And it would never be like "one guy tries to dominate the entire group". It would be much more effective if three or four guys go together and decide to dominate the group in unison. Though there may still be one most dominating among them, because the others also profit on it, they will keep it going. An alliance like this will allow a few dominating men to control the group.

And finally, who do women prefer to mate with? The high status, powerful, intelligent, fit and able men. In fact, something like 80% of all women who have existed have descendants who are alive today, but only 40% of all men who have existed have descendants. This is only possible if a few men got many women, and many men got none (either because they were killed, died of disease or starvation, or were never found worthy of a woman). Human sexual selection has never - and will never - be egalitarian.

Dawkins explained it very well, evolution are how humans should morally treat each other have little in common. We have rational & compassionate minds which allow us now to take the reigns of evolution ourselves to some degree. We don't have to dominate & destroy "weaker" people anymore just because we can.

But that still doesn't say anything about whether we shouldn't...

Most hunter-gatherer societies are monogamous, so... I disagree? And also wonder why you believe that social status is necessarily something accorded to men alone, given that there are many human societies exhibiting, to some degree, tendencies towards gynofocality?

Of course social status is not accorded to men only. Social status is something every being in a group has, whether it is a male, female or cub. However, social status is more important for men because it is a sexual selection trait that women look for. Men doesn't care much about a potential mate's social status (as long as it isn't too low for the wrong reasons...). If a woman is young and beautiful she has already achieved close to top score. Men on the other hand has more to win and more to lose by whether or not they have a high social status. Thus, men compete more to gain higher status, men risk more for it, and men are driven more towards it than women.

And while hunter-gatherer pairs may be mostly monogamous, it is fully possible to have serial monogamy. Remember that traditionally, a high percentage of women die in labour, which means that the man is then available to get a new woman.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Well, sure. We may be as different from chimps and bonobos as they are from each other - but the reverse is also true: We may be as equal to one or both of them as they are to each other.

You really think the phenotypic variation in the outside appearance of humans requires 2% of the genome?

 

[Narz]

Most hunter-gatherer societies are monogamous, so... I disagree? And also wonder why you believe that social status is necessarily something accorded to men alone, given that there are many human societies exhibiting, to some degree, tendencies towards gynofocality?

What's gynofocality?

Actually, primitive societies vary in all those factors. In many, distribution is communistic, in that it it occurs on an as-need basis, social status being derived from one's ability to provide for others, rather than simply being a route to personal material gain. Many also lack the same concept of leadership that more developed societies exhibit, according it, if at all, on a contextual and ad hoc basis. In many cases, the only permanent authority is found in religious and spiritual roles- shamans, in essence- who sit apart from the materialistic hierarchies you suggest. Even in those which do follow the proto-authoritarian model you suggest, it's never the sort of proto-capitalist dog-pile you imagine; status is heavily tied to the collective health of the entire band, and it is both the social duty and in the self-interest of the "leaders" to support others at their own expense. If you tried to establish the sort of exploitative systems found in developed societies in a hunter-gatherer band of a few dozen people, let alone the malformed individualism of contemporary capitalism, you would destroy it within a year.

Very well put.

Modern day "dog eat dog" capitalism that so many young fellows like to think represents the epitome of human nature is profoundly unnatural to the human animal. IIRC, wall St. traders have levels of depression 3 or 4x higher than the general population despite making far more money than average.

The joy of life is not in getting the biggest piece of the pie but enjoying your piece of the pie & sharing it with others.

Men have the capacity to be devious, ruthless, manipulative & cruel in order to advance their interests & crush those of their enemies but this is an adaptation out of necessity & if you're living your whole life like that you'll be neither happy nor healthy.

 

[Narz]

And finally, who do women prefer to mate with? The high status, powerful, intelligent, fit and able men. In fact, something like 80% of all women who have existed have descendants who are alive today, but only 40% of all men who have existed have descendants. This is only possible if a few men got many women, and many men got none (either because they were killed, died of disease or starvation, or were never found worthy of a woman). Human sexual selection has never - and will never - be egalitarian.

I don't know where you get those figures but if true 40% is pretty damn high considering all the wars young men have fought in over the millennia.

Of course social status is not accorded to men only. Social status is something every being in a group has, whether it is a male, female or cub. However, social status is more important for men because it is a sexual selection trait that women look for. Men doesn't care much about a potential mate's social status (as long as it isn't too low for the wrong reasons...). If a woman is young and beautiful she has already achieved close to top score. Men on the other hand has more to win and more to lose by whether or not they have a high social status. Thus, men compete more to gain higher status, men risk more for it, and men are driven more towards it than women.

I believe this is semi-true but how to explain why these days (at least in the US) females seem to be much more motivated than males to do well in school, get into a good college, etc.? (I can't objectively quantify this but it seems to be the case)