Entropy?:inquisitive:Quote:
Originally Posted by Hepcat
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Entropy?:inquisitive:Quote:
Originally Posted by Hepcat
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Originally Posted by Gertgregoor
I didnt realise that modern medicane, mechanics, electronics and all the benefits of the modern world and the realitive comfort we live in were in fact created by Jesus. (although you could be sarcastic here in which case I apoligise)
Science pwns everything. Its benefits far outshadow the half baked platitudes of long dead theologians writting about a man most of them never met.
Creationism Critique of Evolution=farceQuote:
Evolution = Nonsense
Except that humanity doesn't have morals that serve the species, eample:Quote:
Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix
I kill you, your children and I take your wife. In some societies that is, or more often was, considered fair and perfectly fine. Its exactly what a lion does. In our society that is considered immoral but in evolutionary terms its counter-productive because if I don't kill you then you'll sire weak offspring and weaken the species as a whole.
In this example I'm taking it as given that you are weaker, maybe you're not, I've never met you.
How have we evolved, our species has become preogressivly more sickly as we fail to adapt to the environment our big brains have created. Only 10% of people are actually keyed to deal with a population of over 150.Quote:
Our progress is result of how evolution looks. Our reasoning capacities within the brain are fairly unique, and can indeed be self-destructive and non-benefitial for the species, but evolution DOES tolerate certain amounts of self-destructive behavior - that's how new species arise. When damaging mutations happen, if they are damaging enough there's very small chance that the coming generations will see development towards the same direction as the species it previously was, with the result that new species arise. Species are LOCAL MAXIMA in a problem solution space.
Most of these societies were governed by strength, Germanic and Celtic warrior cultures were in terms of their developement still quite instinctive. Status was linked to strength and success, just as it is in nature.Quote:
You are almost echoing my message but with different words:
- the thing you call natural state is the state of early homo sapiens and early farming civilizations, up to the Medieval era and maybe just past the age of revolutions in Europe and America - indeed a cruel state. I choose to call that state civilization, because it builds up around a simple theme: questioning of instincts. Questioning of instinctive morality, questioning of power structure of the herd, questioning of where to live, questioning of how to spend the time not occupied by survival etc.
In reply to that I say this:Quote:
The most classical example of this throughout human history - you have power, your reasoning abilities tells you that you can quite easily without anyone stopping you abuse that power and get a lot of short-term enjoyment from it, thus you choose to abuse it. While the instincts give you a sense of vague fear about doing so, instincts and conscience can be suffocated by strong will and persuasion, and many people throughout history have made the mistake of abusing power. An enlightened man would realize why the instincts cause this fear - the man who absues power will be lynched or similar as soon as he loses his power - his survival depends on something as unpredictable and fragile as his own maintenance of the power position. Even the weakest member of the herd has greater chance of survival than such a man, no matter how strong he may be. But an unenlightened man doesn't understand that, he is too wise to see that the instincts lie about the short term, but too stupid to have a proper replacement for them that makes him realize that the instincts tell the truth about the long-term consequences.
- the thing I call natural state is the time before the questioning of instinctive morality and other instincts, something that probably started before the modern species of homo sapiens appeared, possibly when we were at a chimpanzee state or so. But the state before that was in many ways more functional, peaceful and morally stable than any of the civilizations homo sapiens have created - even compared to the best of our modern societies. Mankind still hasn't been able to use reasoning thinking to rebuild the stability and morality of almost completely instinct-driven societies. Instead we're still in a fairly irrational state of very short-sighted thinking, where, as history can confirm, consequences of seemingly insignificant decisions can be wars a 100 years afterwards because our reasoning abilities, unlike instincts, are very limited when it comes to predicting long-term consequences of our actions.
- the thing you call modern state, is almost the same as the concept I call enlightenment. I choose to call it enlightenment, because it's wisdom and not the current time or geographical location that makes European and American societies comparatively peaceful (but both Europe and America are still very primitive and underdeveloped). I also choose to call it enlightenment, because it doesn't make the concept coupled to our modern societies, which still lack a lot of enlightenment, and are still pretty cruel, corrupt and oppressive in many ways. What I'm talking about is a development where rationality and reasoning abilities are able to completely compensate the loss our species had from questioning instincts. The modern state faces many problems for morality: for instance morals change often, morals are usually somewhat arbitrary, many situations are so complex that different sides can't agree on the same moral judgement even when having the same moral axioms (see all existing conflicts and wars in the world), society changes constantly which requires a corresponding change of morals which is usually delayed or refused due to deeply rooted religious or cultural moral values, people lack good insight into society because society is so complex - thus people can't make very good moral judgements other than by norm ethics, which tend to, in civilization (because most norm ethics systems aren't adapted to a changing environment), conflict with consequence ethics. And finally, the greatest problem of them all - assume we have a man with absolute total wisdom. In most of our societies, if he ruthlessly looks at his alternatives and chooses after how benefitial they are, he will in way too many cases come to the conclusion that an immoral decision will be the most benefitital one. As long as that problem exists, the only way to make people follow moral rules is to make sure the truth is denied and hidden. This doesn't work very well in cases where the truth is painfully obvious and known to everyone. A society whose survival is based on denial of truth and irrationality is doomed to failure. That is the classical mistake made since the religious morality of the ancient world - pathetically appealing to people to act in a way that is irrational and hurts them in a society which favors evilness, rather than changing society so that it favors good, and spread enough enlightenment and wisdom that people will understand that acting evil will be of no use for them. While many people follow this irrationality, because they believe it to be true because it's similar to the instinctive morality (and thus feels good), it's enough that only a handful don't, for society to plunge into violence and chaos at regular intervals.
The forms of enlightenment required to compensate for human beings' tendency to question the instinctive moral values are as I see it the following:
a. a society form which doesn't favor immoral behavior and evil actions
b. enough education and enlightenment among the masses that they understand that a is true.
I could write a multi-page essay on this, but I'll try to be as brief as I can:
I assume we're using consequence ethics here, which IMO is the only sensible form of ethics in theoretical usage, whereas norm/rule ethics are better suited in a practical setting, once theory has made sure that through consequence ethics society has been made so that it benefits people who act good judged by the norm/rule ethics.
So, given consequence ethics, there are two judgements involved in determining whether a state or action is "good" or "evil". The first is about deciding, assuming we knew the full, absolute truth, whether the state or action would be positive or negative for mankind's survival. The second judgement is about determining, with the limited abilities of our senses, what action or state it actually is we are seeing/hearing/sensing/etc. Example: "is murder good or evil?" is the first form of judgement, and "was that I murder I saw?" is the second form of judgement. If you choose a certain person, you can mathematically decide whether a theoretical action or state is good or evil, and it's no longer a matter of what someone thinks (though the complexity of such a problem makes it almost impossible to make the judgement exactly true). I choose the concepts "good" and "evil" refer to whether a certain state or action, given a person (species can also do), is benefitial or not for that person according to such a mathetical calculation of utility. As I see it, the second form of judgement doesn't alter the action or state, just like the choice of word to denote an object doesn't affect the object. Whether the unaware thing that causes destruction can be called evil or not then depends on whether you choose the definition that good and evil refers to an action/state or a judgement of the second type of the action/state. Now when I look at common usages of the words "good" and "evil", I mostly see examples of the first, which is my definition (i.e. that the second form of judgement isn't mixed into the concept), for instance: "and he saw that it was good", refers to a state - so that a river rising too high might be denoted evil even if the river has no conscience, "action x is immoral" denotes and action, and "I think it's evil" refers to a judgement of the second form, but the judgement of the second form is clearly denoted by "I think", so that "evil" refers only to the first form of judgement. I therefore think that that is the most logical definition of "good" and "evil", i.e. whether it's benefitial or not for a given person/species, not whether that person's/species' instincts says it's bad or not. For that, I instead use the expression "x causes pain/happiness for y" or "x think y is good/evil" etc.
Which definition of "good" and "evil" is chosen doesn't matter, as long as the philosophical discussion agrees on which definition is used during that discussion. But if you choose to use good and evil to denote a judgement of the second type, then I'm afraid it becomes necessary to make up two new concepts to refer to states and actions that are negative or positive given a certain person or species, for the sake of clarity.
Instict is survival of the fittest, the concience is demostratably a taught concept and an internalisation of a child's association of pain with "wrong" this is why many modern people do not demostrate a concience, they are not properly diciplined.
In short you have it backwards. In the winld he who has power uses it, until he is too weak and then he is replaced, that is nature. You over analyse humanity and assume that the natural state is what we term the "good" and that society has created out "bad" vices. Yet what is bad is defined by society, and therefore what is "good" must be the construct as it does not follow the natural urge of the pack animal.
You're trapped inside the box, watch a pack of lions to see man's natural state, or a pack of wolves, see how you like it.
now you speak about cultural and religious moral systems, and they've been made by a mix of rationality and instinctive thinking. According to what I said about there's absolutely no guarantee (rather the opposite) that such morals would serve the species.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
Lions have inbreeding problems and the species has entered an evolutionary dead end, where chances are great it'll make itself an extinct species.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
Mother nature tolerates a lot of weakness, and in fact it's better to have good variety with many weak than having a few strong individuals reproducing. Killing the weak doesn't improve the next generation, rather the opposite. Plus in civilization societies, people have always had difficulties determining what "weak" truly is. A man who has big biceps and can lift 200 kg and is very fertile is much weaker than anyone else in the herd if he causes chaos, disorder and the death of his other herd members. Most of the removal of "weak" people in higher mammal societies is made by nature itself, not by other human beings. It's necessary to maintain peace and trust within the herd for it to operate successfully. The idea that evolutionary strength lies in physical strength, and that cooperation and altruism isn't benefitial, is a misconception of evolution that became popular around the time of the nazis, which also tried to implement that way of thinking into their society. The nazi society in itself is an interesting example of why physical/military strength has no use if people around you don't trust you because you attack them. Now if you're peaceful and nice, physical strength is a bonus, but if you abuse it you become weaker (from an evolutionary point of view) than the physically weakest in the entire herd.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
The only form of "weak" person that is evolutionary benefitial to kill is someone who is weak by being a murderer, a warmonger or someone who abuses physical strength or power, because that's something that threatens to destroy the entire herd.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
Correctly, our societies have become more sickly and violent because civilization, especially the early forms, used a not very well working power structure, which enabled weak leaders (i.e. weak in the sense of power abusing) to use power structure to fight rebellion (in the natural state rebels quite often would benefit from letting the removed leader survive except when he's so crazy about power that he'll try to retake it even when he's a worse leader than his replacement) and make it impossible to get rid of maniacs quickly. Such leaders remaining in power has created war after war, and for war the healthiest are chosen to take part, and to die or at least stay away from the women at home, so that every generation of war the weakest and most warmongering survive, while the healthy and those who have a feeling of duty are killed. This is "unnatural selection".Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
The inability of many to work in a society with over 150 people isn't a sign of weakness of sicklyness among humans, but yet another sign that we're not adapted to the societies we create. We keep trying to form persons after societies, rather than forming societies after persons, as if we put our society systems above the value of individual human beings.
Indeed, this is what I said. Almost complete instinct-based rule = natural state. Some not very deep rationality with a majority of instincts = early civilizations. Deeper but far from total rationality with many instincts left = modern societies. Enlightenment = much and deep rationality, but also a society adapted to how the instinctive behaviors are triggered, so that the society is safe against people who will never reach deep insight and enlightenment (and safe from for instance children, who tend to act much by instinct, and tend to be the most evil when they're making their first implementations of rational though, and usually but not always end up more benign when they reach deeper rational insight).Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
Again I must point out to you that it's important to understand what "fittest" truly means. A healthy and physically strong person who tends to abuse his power and strength is weaker than the physically weakest and most physically ill person in the entire herd. Herds need trust so they can implement long term Pareto optimal decisions for maximum survival chances. When trust disappears, people end up at a Nash equilibrium or a short term Pareto optimal solution.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
The conscience usually acts as a deterrent, by causing a fear when you reason about maybe committing a certain act. But I choose to also denote the other form of deterrent "conscience" - the deterrent caused by making sure the thought of a certain action never arises. An example: Let's say you stand in a queue at the post office. Do you think "maybe I should go fetch a machinegun and kill everyone in here?" That you never think that thought is just as much a part of the deterrent mechanisms from doing such a thing, as is the bad conscience you would get if you ever had the thought about machinegunning everyone. The deterrent through never really getting the thought of committing a vile action is instinctive, whereas the fear when reasoning about committing an evil action is acquired by a process of learning.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
For successful species, a leader remains in power only for as long as he doesn't abuse it, and for as long as he benefits the herd. If he abuses the power, or tries to control insignificant things that don't improve by having a central leadership, he's a problem for the herd and if the animal is a successful species it usually has a mechanism for removing that leader, sometimes even by teamwork. Think of this: every action that a leader is allowed to control, will affect 150 persons, while every action that a single individual is allowed to control will only affect 1 person. A leader must only control something if there's a huge benefit from having teamwork (such as forming a line during hunt etc.), or else he's a huge risk for the survival of the entire herd.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
I'm afraid it's you who base all your conclusions on a backwards early 20th century view on evolution which has been proved wrong. I think it's you who should look at animals, and perhaps look at some other animals than the lion species. Both wolves and lions are closely related to a number of species which aren't herd animals, which means they've either not had time to develop altruism and other herd strengthening behaviors, or they've reached an evolutionary dead end of inbreeding and other problems and have a great risk of self-extinction. Try looking at animals who have had herd behaviors for a longer period of time, and are omnivores or herbivores.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
Remember in the natural state the following system is true - if a man hurts his herd by provoking others to violence, nature removes him for that evilness. If a man in natural state kills his herd mates, nature removes him for that evilness. If a man in natural state tries to be a judge, but judges unfairly, nature removes him for that evilness. In the long term perspective, nature punishes the evil individuals fairly, based on nothing but the truth about how destructive their behaviors are. If you try to understand how it works you'll see it all clearly. Surely some evil individuals will always arise through new mutations, but in the end the good always win. In the end, in the very, very, very long term. I recommend you to read some of the latest scientific works on altruism among herd animals, for a more updated version of the evolution model. With a long-term view on things it becomes extremely clear that altruism and trust are absolute keys to reproductive fitness.
What you are thinking about is the system that is created when the trust within the herd disappears and everything becomes a war. In war, the so-called Nash equilibrium is the most benefitial choice for surviving. However, a herd that can maintain the trust and choose the long-term Pareto optimal decisions is far more fit for survival than the warring Nash equilibrium herd. Funnily enough, this is more or less Jesus's message in the Bible: maintain the trust so that the Pareto optimal decisions can be followed, and avoid the fear and lack of trust that'll cause the Nash equilibrium, because it will be very destructive. Forgiveness and an attempt to with empathy understand that some things that look like attacks from others aren't, is key to maintaining the Pareto optimal state. AFAIK the bible doesn't really imply that you should turning the other cheek against major and deliberate malevolent threats, so then the biblical message turns out to be exactly the same as the lesson that evolution teaches us. The same recognition of the value of trust and ability to act long-term Pareto optimally can be seen in most other major religions as well. I'd say that isn't a coincidence, but rather a result of the fact that our instincts are such, and that the scientific truth is such. They probably didn't fully realize how clever their messages were, or exactly what their messages were (resulting in it being written down in vague phrasings), but it's still quite amazing.
Especially if it thinks it's being watched by a biologist!Quote:
Originally Posted by Banquo's Ghost
No kidding!Quote:
Originally Posted by Aenlic
At work I am currently trying to force a certain bacterial strain to "ingest" a plasmid (a little bit o' DNA) that would make it immune to a virus. Now, mind you, this is for a very expensive patent project for my company, and I need this bacteria to eat the DNA and grow all nicely within this week. And because I need this to happen this week, the bacteria has decided that it no longer wants to grow. Never mind that in the past months, this bacterial strain grew well pretty much no matter what I did (short of putting in antibiotics). Now, it decides to not grow.
Silly biology. :laugh4:
Also: The Spartan, papewaio, and others who said "evolution = nonsense," I hope you were kidding! :wall:
And that 40% of my wonderfully intelligent countrymen do not believe in evolution (though I can prove it in a test tube in 12 hours), well, that doesn't surprise me. Most of us still think there were WMD's in Iraq, and most of us voted for GWB. We really aren't a smart nation...
Believe me. I'm a science guy. Tough I disagree that science pwns. everything. It doesn't pwns man's stupidity.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mithras
That is disgusting.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemur
Time for a little lesson here:
Evolution is a theory which has been proven time and time again and there isn't much evidence which goes against it.
The Bible is a book surrounded by and containing mere assumptions which have been disproven time and time again, but which people still believe because their parents gave them so much encouragement that it was true when they were growing up, likewise for them, thus continuing in a loop which goes back to the founding of the religion. The Bible is written by scores of different people, all of whom follow the first's good idea that he can gain power by taking real events (of his/her own life) and throwing made-up rubbish all over them with a connection to God. Moses is a good example of this. It is sad that so many people choose this presumptuous nonsense over a proven theory. :help:
Legio: If you're right about nature then why does every other species fight and kill and why is it that the physically weak are abandoned or picked off while the hardy and aggressive survive.
I can see absolutely no basis for what you're saying in lower pack-hunter animals, which is what we are. You can contest that if you want but you'll have to explain why our eyes are in the front first.
You're judging all animals by the handful that gets mentioned most often? Do you realize what would happen if all animals would be as cruel and bloodthirsty as you seem to imply? That would be the same as judging human nature after what the most bloodthirsty leaders (who are remembered because of their cruelty, and due to leadership position ability to carry out massacres) do. Fighting within species, cannibalism etc. is destructive for the species, very few species have survived long while doing this, well except for the praying mantis where the female eats the male after mating. The reason it can do so and still survive is because it isn't dependent of trust within a herd, and it gets millions of children so population size -1 compared to +1000000 doesn't hurt it. Of course there will, even among herd mammals, be occasional crazy individuals that are able to survive for a while even despite being harmful to himself/herself and others by being cruel, power abusive or similar. But in the long term they are always removed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
Well we're more closely related to omnivore primates than carnivores. Chimps also have their eyes in the front, but aren't carnivores - they're omnivores. Are eyes being in the front your judgement of how much predator you are? Then try to explain killer whales and pandas, or pretty much every other of the smaller species that are closely related to carnivore species (i.e. certain dogs, bears, half bears, etc.).Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
The importance of altruism in evolution among many mammals is not really disputed anymore among scientists. The view that the most evil and violent survives is a long ago outdated misconception.
Let's put it this way: you have two herds, one in constant war and only few taking part in reproduction, the other in constant cooperation where almost all take part in reproduction for genetical variety. Which herd lives a thousand years later? The first will after thousand year, if it still exists, be heavily inbred, the most warmongering and aggressive will be better at surviving within that herd than the peaceful, meaning a constant escalation of cruelty and violence, so that if it still live it keeps fighting internally. In the second herd, pretty much all individuals from thousand years ago will have carried on genes to the current generation, they'll have stability, peace and genetical variety to account for problems or changes in the environment. So if you uagainst all odds happened to be one of the few to carry on your genes in that first herd, you're so inbred that it's basically incest to reproduce at all. Your herd size will probably be reduced because in the natural state it's difficult to increase population size quickly, it may take a few generations. Unless some other herd shows you mercy, you'll be chanceless. How big are your chances of successfully reproducing? Maybe if you take over another, healthy, herd, and mate with all the women there. But to defeat a healthy herd in cooperation is difficult, you're likely to lack the strength to defeat that, much stronger, herd. And if you against all odds manage to take over that herd, you'll spread your aggressive, inbred genes to that herd, which will either be lucky to get as little from you as possible, in which case it has great chance of surviving, or get more of you, in which case it's likely to go to the same fate as your previous herd. In either case, the violent herd loses, and the males of the peaceful herd you attacked will survive in the first case, or die in the second (less likely) case.
The problem of unenlightened civilizations is that that system is destroyed. People hesitate to rebel against massmurderers and warmongerers, and those dangerous people have better means of in the short term protecting themselves through fear, propaganda and persecution. It's unclear whether that gives them a genetical advantage or they just temporarily make the world hell for millions of people. But in any case the lack of a similar system to the one mentioned above makes earth a not so nice place to live, and makes the self-destruction of mankind very likely.
All animals are combative on one level or another, male rabbits fight for does, rams fight for ewes, Bull for Cows. Not to mention every wild species of cat or dog.Quote:
Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix
A species decended from a predatory animal will obviously still have a those characteristics, particually if its still close to the top of its food chain. Prey have eyes at the side for peripheral vision, predators have eyes in the front for judging distance.Quote:
Well we're more closely related to omnivore primates than carnivores. Chimps also have their eyes in the front, but aren't carnivores - they're omnivores. Are eyes being in the front your judgement of how much predator you are? Then try to explain killer whales and pandas, or pretty much every other of the smaller species that are closely related to carnivore species (i.e. certain dogs, bears, half bears, etc.).
The word evil has no place, here it is a human concept and one which animals do not deserved to be tarred with. In many species combat is used to determine heirarchy, horses or sheep for example. Some of your beloved herd animals.Quote:
The importance of altruism in evolution among many mammals is not really disputed anymore among scientists. The view that the most evil and violent survives is a long ago outdated misconception.
This model has two major flaws right off:Quote:
Let's put it this way: you have two herds, one in constant war and only few taking part in reproduction, the other in constant cooperation where almost all take part in reproduction for genetical variety. Which herd lives a thousand years later? The first will after thousand year, if it still exists, be heavily inbred, the most warmongering and aggressive will be better at surviving within that herd than the peaceful, meaning a constant escalation of cruelty and violence, so that if it still live it keeps fighting internally. In the second herd, pretty much all individuals from thousand years ago will have carried on genes to the current generation, they'll have stability, peace and genetical variety to account for problems or changes in the environment. So if you uagainst all odds happened to be one of the few to carry on your genes in that first herd, you're so inbred that it's basically incest to reproduce at all. Your herd size will probably be reduced because in the natural state it's difficult to increase population size quickly, it may take a few generations. Unless some other herd shows you mercy, you'll be chanceless. How big are your chances of successfully reproducing? Maybe if you take over another, healthy, herd, and mate with all the women there. But to defeat a healthy herd in cooperation is difficult, you're likely to lack the strength to defeat that, much stronger, herd. And if you against all odds manage to take over that herd, you'll spread your aggressive, inbred genes to that herd, which will either be lucky to get as little from you as possible, in which case it has great chance of surviving, or get more of you, in which case it's likely to go to the same fate as your previous herd. In either case, the violent herd loses, and the males of the peaceful herd you attacked will survive in the first case, or die in the second (less likely) case.
1. You assume that combat precludes reproduction, this is not the case. Norse society involved almost constant fighting of one form or another, far apart from the actual warfighting. Yet the race survives a thousand years later, without huge cross breeding, nor has the society collapsed internally.
2. Homo Sapians Sapians are a highly agressive primate which is badly inbred and has succeed in destroying all opposition. Yet we remain many thousands of years later. In breeding can be overcome fairly easily, because the defective offspring die and take their defective genes with them. You can see the truth of this in Pakistan. Currently large numbers of very sickly inbred children, that would have died, are being kept alive by modern healthcare.
In addition you assume that all members of the pack, I refuse to use the word herd to describe man, are always fighting. Humans have clearly evolved with men designed for fighting and women designed for holding society together.
As to your comments on Lions; in the first case they're inbred because large numbers of the population have been killed off and in the second they're right at the top of the food chain and have no presure to evolve firther.
All these horrid horrid men were chosen by their people, for the most part.Quote:
The problem of unenlightened civilizations is that that system is destroyed. People hesitate to rebel against massmurderers and warmongerers, and those dangerous people have better means of in the short term protecting themselves through fear, propaganda and persecution. It's unclear whether that gives them a genetical advantage or they just temporarily make the world hell for millions of people. But in any case the lack of a similar system to the one mentioned above makes earth a not so nice place to live, and makes the self-destruction of mankind very likely.
Rome: democracy, even after the Civil War Caesar wouldn't have gotten anywhere without his good old vets.
Germanic tribes: Democratically chosen warleaders and rulers.
Athens: Democratic.
England: The King's power rested on the good will of the nobles.
HRE: Elected Monarchs
France: Had lots of fun with revolutions.
Arabia: Complex networks of tribes that had to be courted and managed if you wanted to get anywhere.
In all the above cases the rulers were chosen for their force of character (the ability to hold their people together) and their martial skill (the ability to protect their people.)
Give me some examples of these truely evil societies you keep talking about. Generally civilisation collapses it is because of outside presure, in the past it has happened when one administration became geographically overstreched and physically unable to govern.
Reread what I said, I will add italics for emphasis.Quote:
Originally Posted by danfda
I don't believe in Evolution.
Hint:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Yes, but that isn't war, it's competition for status. Again think of the herd example I gave above - which herd will be most successful? The peaceful one of course! Now if the peaceful one can add competitive behavior as a means of choosing the strongest for reproduction, without breaking the peace and trust, it gets even stronger. If you look at the competitive behaviors of most animals, that's indeed what they do - they're able to draw a firm line between open war with the aim of destroying others, and an honorable fight where the opponent is allowed to surrender, and where the peace is reestablished as soon as the status fight is over. Open war on the other hand, is something the herd doesn't benefit from. Same goes for human societies. How many societies haven't been overrun because they've been weakened by internal fighting?Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
What you fail to understand is that the evolutionary path a species has taken matters just as much as it's niche to how it looks. That's why there are rudiments etc. Some species have only recently begun their development into a new niche. Developments take extremely long time, especially if it's a development to counter long-term harmful behavior. If you think all animals you see are perfectly adapted to their niche, you're wrong. Some have only recently begun their branching from their neighboring species, some are on the way to extinction, and only a few are on the way to their survival. New species arise constantly, which makes up for the extincted species. In the long run, the non-self-destructive will triumph over the self-destructive.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
Again see above - it's not combat, it's status fights with an "honor" concept, where the peace, trust and cooperation is reestablished after the fight.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
No, I'm not assuming that at all. If combat happens before reproduction, the individual taking part in the combat will obviously be removed. However, not so obvious, is the "herd evolution", in which entire herds can be hurt by the behavior of a few within the herd. If there's combat between the older individuals, and they hurt the herd's capability of hunting, cooperating etc., they'll hurt the herd. It doesn't hurt themselves as much as combat before reproduction does, but it does hurt them. The evolutionary pressure is a bit lower, but still strong. That means the development towards removing such warmongering individuals is a bit slower, but it's still present. Again you could also look at the natural examples - there's no COMBAT, no WAR, but there's status fighting - a status fighting after which they are capable of reestablishing peace and trust quickly. Notice that even humans in a "status fight" have that tendency - first they just look at each other, then they take turns hitting the other one hit at the time, then maybe there's a fight but there are seldom hits to the groin or face. Usually someone, or both, surrenders at an early stage of such a fight. However in human WAR, there's no trust, there's an aim at destroying the opponent. That's the form of self-destructive behavior that isn't benefitial.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
A few thousand years is no time at all in an evolutionary perspective. Only very high evolutionary pressures can have effects in that period - which mankind has shown. The tendency to abandon long term Pareto optimality immediately favors Nash equilibrium behavior heavily, which has transformed the minds of most humans to become capable of Nash equilibrium tactics but makes them unable to understand long term Pareto optimality reasoning. We've essentially put ourselves in a state of constant war.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
If people with the same ancestor have offspring about 10 generations after that ancestor, there's little enough inbreeding effect to account for a small number of offspring dying each generation. There are something like 100-300 individuals taking part in offspring in each generation. If the choice of partner isn't too bad, 50-150 partners is enough to choose from to prevent inbreeding. But that there's only 50-150 partners to choose from has also made demands on our abilities to choose partner, so that we instinctively feel more attracted to those who stand less chances of causing inbreeding when mating with us. There's also a tendency to be somewhat lightfooted to spread the risks by a limited amount of "swinging".Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
Pakistan has a culture where marriage between cousins is often tradition. No big surprise if that leads to inbreeding.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
I don't understand what you mean here, it seems irrelevant to the discussion and can't be a response to anything I mentioned.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
Of course they have a pressure that can make them extinct - the evolutionary time bomb of inbreeding. Being at the top of the food chain isn't as easy as you might think - eagles frequently take young lions, hyaenas can often defeat small groups of lions in internal strife, and steal prey that the lions hunted down. The more internal fighting and the more killing of other males' offspring that happens, the worse the inbreeding gets. In the short term, the lion that kills the offspring of other males will in a matter of generations totally dominate the herd genetically, but in the long run he's creating a situations which is very likely to lead to destruction. Remember that if a single male lion mates with all the females and no other males are allowed to do that, ALL the children of the next generation will be brothers and sisters, and brothers and sisters shouldn't reproduce or they'll cause heavy inbreeding, diseases etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
[QUOTE=Wigferth Ironwall]
All these horrid horrid men were chosen by their people, for the most part.
[/QUOTE=Wigferth Ironwall]
I think you shot yourself in the foot by that argument. A great number of historical civilizations have had "king by God's grace" who wasn't chosen but where the title was inherited. Many leaders have taken power by coups. Those are the horrible leaders I speak of. The leaders that have done a good job have of course not been a problem, but those are as a matter of fact quite few, less than 50% of leaders have shown any virtue. And as to your examples, a historian ought to know better:
Rome: hardly a democracy. Caesar following the will of his veterans for a while, at the expense of the people, later the praetorian guards and similar are strengthened as a form of secret police. Rebellions for freedom are crushed, and more land is conquered, putting more and more people displeased about the leadership within the borders of the empire. Rome promises local rulers to maintain control over provinces, but systematically removes such leaders and replaces them by own after one or more generations. There are no votes, and if someone except Caesar has any influence at all, it's a small group of rich patricians. Rome eventually develops into a military dictatorship in the 4th century. The hatred towards Rome among the tribes that had ended up inside it's borders after conquests eventually crushed the empire with extreme bloodshed.
England: The King's could only maintain power if he did what the nobles wanted. Thus the nobles, a small oligarchy of people with interests contrary to the average, productive parts of society, oppressed the average farmer. England ended up colonizing large parts of the world. After ww2, most colonies were lost, many of them with extreme bloodshed. England having plenty of soldiers away in their colonies prevented them from putting up a better defense in France in 1940. Most of Africa and much of Asia has ended up primitive, self-destructive, over-populated and disease-stricken societies as a result of that colonialism. England has felt a need to compensate those actions by foreign aid and allowing massive immigration, but many of the immigrants are people who come from the countries who were struck by English colonialism, and some of them still haven't forgotten it. The result is not only the recent domestic terrorism, but also the previous long era of IRA terrorism/freedom fight, which has killed many English people. To counter the problems of all the terrorism, the PM decides to increase the rights of the police and increase surveillance and population control, resulting in a gradual constitutional change towards dictatorship.
France: Had a leader who had the guts to call the productive layers of the population (i.e. the farmers) primitive for wanting the food they produced rather than being taxed to death. The leader's wife also was such a pathetic idiot that she said "but why can't they eat cookies?" when the population demanded bread. The king was advised to start listening to his people, but he didn't follow the advise until there were signs of violence and revolution on the way, in which case it was too late. He also didn't bother to be clear in his statements when he called together the people representatives, in his desire to remain nonchalant and authoritarian-looking. The end-result was the necessity for the survival of the people to execute the king. Once the executions started, and the trust was gone, as always it turned into a real bloodbath. Anyone who could theoretically be classified to belong to the group of the threatening, ended up executed. The revolution didn't end until a person who listened to the demands of the people got to power - Napoleon. Unfortunately Napoleon had large-scale foreign political plans, which involved attacking surrounding nations, breaking the trust and peace situation in the foreign political perspective, which eventually resulted in less and less internal support for him. In fact, he ended up causing so much problems all over Europe that he can be classified to belong to the group of destructive leaders. All casualties in the wars, both for France and others, removed the healthiest and most dutiful citizens of the involved countries, and was destructive for both their societies, and for the human species.
As I explained above - when the long term Pareto optimality is abandoned by breaking of trust, Nash equilibrium strategy immediately becomes the most benefitial, until the mutual destruction is so great that the last chance of survival is peace no matter what. That still doesn't mean the long term Pareto optimal strategy is less benefitial - on the contrary if the long term Pareto optimal strategy can be maintained it'll be extremely much more benefitial than a Nash equilibrium.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
It's not just the leadership that causes overstretching that is a weakness of a society. A constitution which makes it so that about every 10th leader of the country becomes such an overstretching, warmongering person is a harmful constitution. And if you look at historical societies and compare the abilities of relieving harmful leaders of their duty in an animal herd compared to in a historical society, you'll see an extreme difference.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
And if two herds can't share one waterhole what happens? One herd will be driven off. Thats war, human war has only become different in the last two hundred years or so. Prior to that battlefield casualties were quite low, often below 20% for the losing side.Quote:
Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix
Which was precisely my point. An animal decended from a hunter-killer will still have those characteristics, which is some non hunters have eyes in the front of their heads. You defeat the point from your own last post.Quote:
What you fail to understand is that the evolutionary path a species has taken matters just as much as it's niche to how it looks. That's why there are rudiments etc. Some species have only recently begun their development into a new niche. Developments take extremely long time, especially if it's a development to counter long-term harmful behavior. If you think all animals you see are perfectly adapted to their niche, you're wrong. Some have only recently begun their branching from their neighboring species, some are on the way to extinction, and only a few are on the way to their survival. New species arise constantly, which makes up for the extincted species. In the long run, the non-self-destructive will triumph over the self-destructive.
You used the word "evil" now you use the word "honor." Both are human concepts and should not be applied to animals.Quote:
Again see above - it's not combat, it's status fights with an "honor" concept, where the peace, trust and cooperation is reestablished after the fight.
Man has been around a few hundred thousand years and it supposedly decended from 6,000 odd individuals. Status fighting is combat the same thing happens when two bulls lock horns as when two norsemen cross swords. War is caused by competion over resources, which also happens in nature, see the two herds example above.Quote:
No, I'm not assuming that at all. If combat happens before reproduction, the individual taking part in the combat will obviously be removed. However, not so obvious, is the "herd evolution", in which entire herds can be hurt by the behavior of a few within the herd. If there's combat between the older individuals, and they hurt the herd's capability of hunting, cooperating etc., they'll hurt the herd. It doesn't hurt themselves as much as combat before reproduction does, but it does hurt them. The evolutionary pressure is a bit lower, but still strong. That means the development towards removing such warmongering individuals is a bit slower, but it's still present. Again you could also look at the natural examples - there's no COMBAT, no WAR, but there's status fighting - a status fighting after which they are capable of reestablishing peace and trust quickly. Notice that even humans in a "status fight" have that tendency - first they just look at each other, then they take turns hitting the other one hit at the time, then maybe there's a fight but there are seldom hits to the groin or face. Usually someone, or both, surrenders at an early stage of such a fight. However in human WAR, there's no trust, there's an aim at destroying the opponent. That's the form of self-destructive behavior that isn't benefitial.
A few thousand years is no time at all in an evolutionary perspective. Only very high evolutionary pressures can have effects in that period - which mankind has shown. The tendency to abandon long term Pareto optimality immediately favors Nash equilibrium behavior heavily, which has transformed the minds of most humans to become capable of Nash equilibrium tactics but makes them unable to understand long term Pareto optimality reasoning. We've essentially put ourselves in a state of constant war.
Your point? What I meant was that in a smaller, less ideal population the inbreeding will eventually breed itself out, by which time the population will hopefully have expanded enough that they can spread it around a bit more.Quote:
If people with the same ancestor have offspring about 10 generations after that ancestor, there's little enough inbreeding effect to account for a small number of offspring dying each generation. There are something like 100-300 individuals taking part in offspring in each generation. If the choice of partner isn't too bad, 50-150 partners is enough to choose from to prevent inbreeding. But that there's only 50-150 partners to choose from has also made demands on our abilities to choose partner, so that we instinctively feel more attracted to those who stand less chances of causing inbreeding when mating with us. There's also a tendency to be somewhat lightfooted to spread the risks by a limited amount of "swinging".
Yet Pakistanis only have problems now because the sickly children survive. Despite inbreeding the population as a whole has not died out. That was my point.Quote:
Pakistan has a culture where marriage between cousins is often tradition. No big surprise if that leads to inbreeding.
Man is a highly developed killing machine, were it not for woman that is likely all he would do. Yet you seem to see the incesant warfare as a result of society, rather than nature. Or at least you did. You seem to have flipped now.Quote:
I don't understand what you mean here, it seems irrelevant to the discussion and can't be a response to anything I mentioned.
Yes all the children of the next generation will be brothers and sisters but the males will be kicked out before they can chalenge daddy and he in turn will eventually be overthrown by a male kicked out of another pride. So the effect of inbreeding is mitigated.Quote:
Of course they have a pressure that can make them extinct - the evolutionary time bomb of inbreeding. Being at the top of the food chain isn't as easy as you might think - eagles frequently take young lions, hyaenas can often defeat small groups of lions in internal strife, and steal prey that the lions hunted down. The more internal fighting and the more killing of other males' offspring that happens, the worse the inbreeding gets. In the short term, the lion that kills the offspring of other males will in a matter of generations totally dominate the herd genetically, but in the long run he's creating a situations which is very likely to lead to destruction. Remember that if a single male lion mates with all the females and no other males are allowed to do that, ALL the children of the next generation will be brothers and sisters, and brothers and sisters shouldn't reproduce or they'll cause heavy inbreeding, diseases etc.
How about Cyrus, Darius, Alexander, Alfred? Just to name a few. I am ahistorian, you clearly are not.Quote:
I think you shot yourself in the foot by that argument. A great number of historical civilizations have had "king by God's grace" who wasn't chosen but where the title was inherited. Many leaders have taken power by coups. Those are the horrible leaders I speak of. The leaders that have done a good job have of course not been a problem, but those are as a matter of fact quite few, less than 50% of leaders have shown any virtue. And as to your examples, a historian ought to know better:
Caesar, not to be confused with the Emperors had the support of a large number of the Patricians and the Plebs, Tiberius was forced to take the role of Princeps by the Senate and people, Claudius was demanded by the people in preference to democracy. Nerva-Marcus Auralius were designated successors who ruled with the blessing and full support of the Senate, Nerva was actually elected. Besides which the arguement is not whether they were good rulers, until Commodus the majoriety were, the point is that they were chosen. None of them siezed power alone. In many cases client kingdoms kept their rulers, until they rebelled and threatened Rome. As to conquest, it usually happened when Rome was threatened by another power and was the end result of the Roman way of war. Mercy was not a Roman concept, Caesar practiced it and it was one of the reasons he was killed. Generally Roman rule was no bad thing, unless you rebelled, which you would only do if you wanted "freedom" i.e. a local tyrant.Quote:
Rome: hardly a democracy. Caesar following the will of his veterans for a while, at the expense of the people, later the praetorian guards and similar are strengthened as a form of secret police. Rebellions for freedom are crushed, and more land is conquered, putting more and more people displeased about the leadership within the borders of the empire. Rome promises local rulers to maintain control over provinces, but systematically removes such leaders and replaces them by own after one or more generations. There are no votes, and if someone except Caesar has any influence at all, it's a small group of rich patricians. Rome eventually develops into a military dictatorship in the 4th century. The hatred towards Rome among the tribes that had ended up inside it's borders after conquests eventually crushed the empire with extreme bloodshed.
You confue England and Britain, England ceased to be a seperate entity after the Act of Union. Until 1066 our kings wer elected and even afterward the king's power was held in check by the nobles. For much our history the nobles power has in tern rested on the commons. There was a black period between 1100 and 1300 where it really didn't but if we're going to talk about power, i.e. martial strength, you'll find our armies have always been peasants, not nobles.Quote:
England: The King's could only maintain power if he did what the nobles wanted. Thus the nobles, a small oligarchy of people with interests contrary to the average, productive parts of society, oppressed the average farmer. England ended up colonizing large parts of the world. After ww2, most colonies were lost, many of them with extreme bloodshed. England having plenty of soldiers away in their colonies prevented them from putting up a better defense in France in 1940. Most of Africa and much of Asia has ended up primitive, self-destructive, over-populated and disease-stricken societies as a result of that colonialism. England has felt a need to compensate those actions by foreign aid and allowing massive immigration, but many of the immigrants are people who come from the countries who were struck by English colonialism, and some of them still haven't forgotten it. The result is not only the recent domestic terrorism, but also the previous long era of IRA terrorism/freedom fight, which has killed many English people. To counter the problems of all the terrorism, the PM decides to increase the rights of the police and increase surveillance and population control, resulting in a gradual constitutional change towards dictatorship.
At this time the armies of the great nations were generally made up of criminals and ne'er do wells who joined the army to escape poverty or punishment. Naploeon was no different to any of the other leaders of the day. There was no "trust" among the great nations and infact prior to his rise France was fighting with England anyway. If anything Napoleon brought peace because he managed to unify Catholic and Protestant countries against him and help bury the religious hatred of the previous centuries. Nor was the King a bad man, he was out of touch and not in control. Oh and the quotation is:Quote:
France: Had a leader who had the guts to call the productive layers of the population (i.e. the farmers) primitive for wanting the food they produced rather than being taxed to death. The leader's wife also was such a pathetic idiot that she said "but why can't they eat cookies?" when the population demanded bread. The king was advised to start listening to his people, but he didn't follow the advise until there were signs of violence and revolution on the way, in which case it was too late. He also didn't bother to be clear in his statements when he called together the people representatives, in his desire to remain nonchalant and authoritarian-looking. The end-result was the necessity for the survival of the people to execute the king. Once the executions started, and the trust was gone, as always it turned into a real bloodbath. Anyone who could theoretically be classified to belong to the group of the threatening, ended up executed. The revolution didn't end until a person who listened to the demands of the people got to power - Napoleon. Unfortunately Napoleon had large-scale foreign political plans, which involved attacking surrounding nations, breaking the trust and peace situation in the foreign political perspective, which eventually resulted in less and less internal support for him. In fact, he ended up causing so much problems all over Europe that he can be classified to belong to the group of destructive leaders. All casualties in the wars, both for France and others, removed the healthiest and most dutiful citizens of the involved countries, and was destructive for both their societies, and for the human species.
"Let them eat cake."
I wouldn't hold your breath for any great change, if I were you. Violence and conflict are either in our genetics or our soul. Despite which, or more likely because of, our societies have grown and flourished.Quote:
As I explained above - when the long term Pareto optimality is abandoned by breaking of trust, Nash equilibrium strategy immediately becomes the most benefitial, until the mutual destruction is so great that the last chance of survival is peace no matter what. That still doesn't mean the long term Pareto optimal strategy is less benefitial - on the contrary if the long term Pareto optimal strategy can be maintained it'll be extremely much more benefitial than a Nash equilibrium.
I think there's a spelling mistake here, or your gammar is wrong. That last part doesn't make sense.Quote:
It's not just the leadership that causes overstretching that is a weakness of a society. A constitution which makes it so that about every 10th leader of the country becomes such an overstretching, warmongering person is a harmful constitution. And if you look at historical societies and compare the abilities of relieving harmful leaders of their duty in an animal herd compared to in a historical society, you'll see an extreme difference.
Animals have buffer zones, and some even patrol their boundaries. Animals know the importance of maintaining peace and avoiding large-scale conflicts between herds, and take precautions. Full herd vs herd fights is something that hasn't been observed often in nature, and the few observations that have been made have been made among, yes you guessed it, monkeys closely related to humans. It's never been observed among other animals though. Seriously, have you ever seen a pack of wolves kill each others with machineguns?Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
Eh...excuse me? I gave plenty of examples of hunters without eyes in front, and of animals with eyes in front who weren't hunters. If you stem from hunters you might have kept eyes in front but not aggressiveness, if you stem from hebivores the first thing you get to adapt to a new life as hunter might be eyes in front. Also, why did a discussion on eyes in front start? I don't see how it related to the debate that a constant war and fear state is less benefitial than peace and cooperation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
Why is evil and honor not allowed to use about animals? "Animal" is a human concept but that doesn't prevent me from using it about animals. Whether you like it or not, every animal has morality instincts and the more benefitial their behaviors are the better chances they stand of surviving, and altruism turns out to, especially for fragile herd animals like humans, be one of the most benefitial behaviors in the long run.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
You got that part right - exactly the same is what I've been claiming all along: status fighting and war are separate matters. Again, war is uncommon in nature, in fact only very few incidents among gorillas have been observed and no incidents at all for non-primates. Status fighting on the other hand is common. You can see how sometimes the status fights aren't really abandoned, and sometimes (albeit very seldom) are fought out to the death because neither side surrenders. But it's surprising how good most animals are at fighting these fights with a sense of honor, so that the loser accepts the lower status and they can go on with their cooperation as if the fight never took place. Again there are a few short term developments which haven't been corrected, which has resulted in a few exceptions - for instance deer have developed horns, probably quite recently in evolutionary terms, and their status fighting behavior hasn't caught up with the development, which means they tend to be overly aggressive and many deer die in such fights. But still, deaths in such fights are extremely rare even among animals such as deer.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
In a small population, inbreeding tends to get worse than in larger groups. Inbreeding isn't just a property of an individual, but a property of a herd. If you and your sister constitute a herd, I can call that herd inbred, even if both of you are healthy. An inbred herd is an evolutionary time bomb. Only if it's very lucky will it survive the inbreeding, and it'll take maybe up to three hundred years or so for it to reach the same population as before, and maybe thousand years to get rid of the inbreeding problems. New mutations are a rare and precious thing that can't be afforded to be wasted. And if the herd happened to get into the inbreeding business by internal fighting and refusal to allow most males to take part in the reproduction for next generation, chances are great they'll remain inbred and never repair the damage made by the first fighting and inbreeding, because the survivors of the first problems are those who were least tolerant to other males reproducing, and most violent. It's a simple example of what can be called evolutionary time bomb - there are certain situations that cause a herd to favor the most self-destructive for a few generations, accelerating the destruction of the herd, until it reaches a point where it extincts itself. We should be thankful for that phenomenon, or both humans and other animals would be a lot more evil.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
The reason why Pakistanis and others can survive despite inbreeding culture, is because 1. their population is much larger, thus the inbreeding levels of the herd as a whole don't get nearly as high nearly as fast as in a smaller herd, 2. the culture with cousins marrying is relatively new. The time it has been going on is a very short time in an evolutionary perspective.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
I've not flipped. I've always claimed, supported by most scientists in the field, that man is hardly a killing machine, but has gradually moved towards putting itself in a dangerous evolutionary dead end, but more importantly through society structure have enabled the evilness and violence to flourish for much longer before it can kill itself. For example if leaders like Hitler and Stalin would in the natural state only get to command a herd consisting of a few 100 humans, then they would self-destruct that herd and thus also themselves rather quickly, and peace would remain almost undisturbed. Now however, they get to command 50 million people, they can stay at home while innocents are sent to the battlefields to die for their countries, some of them can even live in luxury and carry out systematic rape to bring their genes to the next generation, and the inbreeding doesn't hurt them immediately because the herd is larger due to the globalization, movement of people and urbanization. At the same time, many Hitlers and Stalins never even get to power, and then their violence is never awaken, so that they end up having families and children and silently carry on their cruelty to another generation. That's what society does - it disrupts natural state systems that effectively and quickly countered the forms of self-destructive behavior that war and genocide is. It's difficult to say whether human beings have become evil enough to self-destruct, or whether they're still able to reverse the process.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
So who will take over the herd? Some unknown outsider? There are usually quite few herds in a region, which means you get to choose between something like 5 herd, which is essentially like choosing between 5 individuals because of the inbreeding - less than you can choose from in a healthy not inbred herd.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
What about them? I don't see how a handful of examples of exception from the ordinary would have any significance to a debate concerning millions and million of regular people. I can see you're a historian - you believe in evil triumphing over good also in a medium long term, which is exactly what our societies, as opposed to the natural state, have enabled. You make a weak point in a discussion over evolution by looking only at a, from evolutionary perspective, extremely short period which is an exception from most rules, and thinking the rest of evolution works that way. When you discuss evolution you must keep in mind that what happens in 100-300 years - a long period in history - is a ridiculously short period - a second - in evolution. You may also want to check out what scientists in evolution say, because what I say is exactly what the leading experts in the field are saying.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
As for your comments to my historical descriptions, you're trying to sound like you're arguing against them but you're not treally pointing out any specific errors in what I wrote and you're taking a historical perspective rather than an evolutionary, systemic and long-term utilitarian perspective, so the comments you have given are mostly irrelevant to the subject discussed here. We're not discussing history here - in such a debate I wouldn't fare that well against a historian such as yourself. We're at the most discussing systemic aspects of historical societies as a side-track of a discussion about evolution. For instance in such a debate it doesn't matter if a queen said "Let them have cakes" or "Give them cakes" or "Why not eat cakes?" or "Caketi-cakes are fun, better than bread, yippie-dippie-day", but it matters that she was ignorant, nonchalant and humiliated her own oppressed people. Nor does it in a systemic rough perspective matter to an argument about "breaking of trust" if a nation was at war with ONE other nation at before it ended up attacking 10 nations or more. Such details are insignificant in such a perspective. Russia for instance, that turned out to be crucial to defeating Nappy, at the beginning trusted Nappy and for a long time had an alliance with them IIRC. History provides the material for systemic discussions, and I'm aware of the most significant of the generalizations I do, even though, when I make the generalizations, it might sound like I forgot about one or more events. You don't need to show you know history better than me, I don't doubt it, but the key point this particular discussion is the systemic perspective and not the details. If you can point out a generalization to be wrong where for instance I say a majority of nations were NOT at war with the first nation, and you can prove that 6 nations out of 10 were actually at war with the first nation, then you're making a point. But if you in reply to my statement that "it was mostly peace" come with examples of 1 nations out of 10 that was at war with the first nation, then you're not really contributing to the systemic perspective discussion.
No, it makes perfect sense, if you read what it says. But I say it again in other words:Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
If a society has a constitution that makes leaders who are destructive for that society and the people of that society come to power every once in a while - even if it's very seldom, then it'll be weaker than a society with a constitution that makes sure no self-destructive leaders come to power at all, and weaker than a society with a constitution that makes sure than when/if a self-destructive leader comes to power his influence is limited so that the damage he can do is limited. If you look at historical societies with a systemic, rough perspective and compare them to natural state society, you'll notice that: 1. the societies are larger so when/if bad leaders come to power they affect more people, 2. it's more difficult in society to remove a destructive, violent leader than it is to do so in the natural state, 3. leaders in human societies have great capabilities of protecting themselves in ways such that if they are hamrful, evil and violent they still stand good chances of getting an offspring and survive genetically even in the medium long term. Things that allow such things are - money (allowing power to be inherited), abuse of herd mentaliy through scare tactics, and armies and bodyguards.
Another evolution debate... oh boy. I think I'll stay out of this one.
BTW legio, thanks for honoring me with a place in your sig. :2thumbsup:
You're welcome :bow:Quote:
Originally Posted by Ice
wise, verry wise.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ice
I'm not going to join either. The posts are to long for me to read and reply to.
It's true, Legio and Wigferth's posts have been books in themselves.
I think I'll quit the debate too now, I've said almost everything there is to say, but I'll add one final comment before leaving: a violent or war-mongering man's greatest chance of evolutionary surviving lies in allowing any of his brothers that happens to be less violent or war-mongering to survive. Then most components of himself, except the violent or war-mongering part of him, survives to the next generation. The violent and war-mongering man should at the same time make sure not to not take part in the reproduction, and he'll then have yielded something that will remain within his herd forever, unlike what is the case if he starts destruction, which decreases the chances of his genes surviving at all drastically. Also, in the long term perspective, because every generation means a mix, for every generation the number of offspring that has genes from you almost doubles, while the percentage of your genes within each individual is halved. On average, 50% of your DNA will have come from the same parent that the same parts of the genomes of your brother came from, and within a species up to 99% of the DNA is exactly the same, which means on average 99.5% of your DNA is indentical to that of your brother. This means that in the long run, in a scenario where either you or your brother can take part in reproduction, it doesn't really matter much which one of you does so. In an even longer perspective, it doesn't matter if it's your or your cousins reproducing. And in a very long perspective, it doesn't matter which ones in your herd reproduces. In the ultimate long term perspective, the survival of your species is the only thing that matters. Because in the long term the new mutations will triumph over survival of one individual rather than another. What survives are good genes, DNA that is able to encapsulate itself in a being that does well in making sure the DNA will keep replicating over both the current generation and hundreds of generations to come. Evolution isn't about the survival of organisms as much as it is about the survival of DNA. There's also microscopic-level survival aspects - certain combinations of G,C,A,T are more easily mutated, and for critical functions a gene that produces proteins less benefitial for the organism might be preferable because they're not as easily mutated into producing another protein which is harmful or no protein at all. Unless any of the new posts contain any question which isn't answered by my posts above and this one, I'll consider this my last entry in this thread. The lesson to learn is that our reasoning abilities still haven't allowed the average human being to truly be able to understand what is evolutionary benefitial, and that many behaviors created by reasoning thinking is still less benefitial than the behaviors created by our instincts. But as mentioned before, instincts are primitive and don't adapt well, so when environment changes they misfire, because they're not triggered by causalities, but by correlations (i.e. certain sensory inputs are in a certain way triggers a certain behavior, not certain things are in certain ways triggers certain behavior, that means certain sensory inputs can exist in situations when they should cause the certain behavior that the instincts are programmed to unleash when sensing those particular inputs, resulting in non-benefitial behaviors). That's the case in modern societies - we can't be guided by our instincts, because they tend to misfire. On the other hand our reasoning abilities aren't still fully capable of carrying out as accurate thinking about long term consequences of our actions as the instincts have been hardwired to be able to do.
Comment???Quote:
Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix
Well if you want to try and come up with a better theory, then be my guest. But so far Evolution is by far the most correct sounding theory.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Spartan
As far as I'm concerned, we're all still animals. I rather like it that way, anyway.
We are aren't we? We're part of the animal kingdom (or whatever they call it in English) according to biology's classifications, no?
I believe we shifted onto evolution by accident, actually. My original contention was that man's natural state is violent and destructive and that as society curbs this to some degree it is a good thing but that Legio's vision of a peaceful future is essentially, for me, a distopia.
The reason I believe this is that if man is not in conflict with himself he will be in conflict with nothing.
As to use the words such as "evil" "honour" and "morality" these are all abstract and human concepts, as a result it is unfair to apply them to animals. Since you cannot demonstrate that an animal has any of these abtract traits you shouldn't apply them, because the animal may or may not have the trait. I believe passing such human judgements is unfair.
One final point, I did not say that animals fight wars, merely that they will fight over limited resources. Man has simply become much more efficiant at killing and being so numerous we can afford to lose a few thousant men every now and then.
Yay for us.:inquisitive:
Oh, and I don't believe good or evil triumph in the medium to long term.
Of course you can see evolution in action, just read up on studies about the galapagous island finches and beak length.
Tiny little misconception, according from the evolutiontheory didn't come from monkeys, we share an ancestor but developed in different ways.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hepcat
The Sahelanthropus tchadensis is the the probable ancestor of both the later humans and chimpanzees. I believe that's where it split up.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fragony
Here's a nice evolution tree I found. It's starts later tough, The S.T. isn't on it anymore as it starts with the genus Ardipithecus. (the kadabba isn't on there tough.)
edit: the link:http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanor...ha/a_tree.html
Yes exactly, it is kind of hard to explain on the forums but I think we may be making people slowly realise that there is more to it than just coming from monkeys :2thumbsup:
Most of the time it isn't that people are stupid or pig headed about things like this, it is just that they don't know much about it.
Woot I forgot to post the link to that tree.
I doubt it's the part of knowledge. Most people here are fairly knowledged. IT's faith and the enviroment. We'll just blame the chinese! ~;)