If evolution is true, why isn't society run by Natural Selection principles? I don't consider myself a Malthusian or Social-Darwinist, but how do I refute this argument without resorting to an emotional plea like "because Hitler did it, and it's not nice!"?
Wouldn't it drastically improve my environmental fitness by killing all other men, thus ending the competition?
Because evolutionarily the only way for our species to compete successfully against faster, more powerful species was to work together. Culture, language, the separation of labor and to a lesser extent technology itself are all manifestations of our species' evolutionary alliance with itself against all others.
Applying such principles within our own species would actually negate our greatest advantage.
>If evolution is true, why isn't society run by Natural Selection principles?
It is. Unfit societies fall and fit ones spread. That's why you don't see many communist or fascist countries anymore and why Western culture has penetrated every corner of the globe.
>If evolution is true, why isn't society run by Natural Selection principles?
A) It's not natural if it's intentional. B) Society evolves through memetic rather than genetic transmission of information. C) In that sense it is already running on natural selection whether we like it or not.
>I don't consider myself a Malthusian or Social-Darwinist, but how do I refute this argument without resorting to an emotional plea like "because Hitler did it, and it's not nice!"?
The refutation is that it only makes sense with a late-1800s or modern middle-school level understanding of evolution. Seriously considering the idea requires understanding gene-centered evolution, the group selection debate etc. - everything that has happened in evolutionary theory since Darwin.
There are surely things we could do to make our society more adaptive, but most of them would not involve genetics.
>Wouldn't it drastically improve my environmental fitness by killing all other men, thus ending the competition?
Maybe if you were omnipotent, but IRL you go straight to jail and do not pass genes.
Here's a video by some Muslim creationist that does explain the problem pretty well.
Fair enough, but wouldn't cooperation with distant hominids also reduce chances of survival as well?
Birds will warn other birds of their species when a predator is approaching, they may possibly warn other birds not of their species in the same situation, and they won't at all warn other species that aren't related to them of the coming danger. So wouldn't our survival only increase by helping the those were are genetically related to closely?
Like if an Aboriginal family and a black family were both trapped under burning cars, it would be folly to save the black family first, since me and the Aboriginal family both share Neanderthal and Rhodesiensis DNA, where the black family has neither.
>65 million dead from both World Wars added together
Seems a little low
>Like if an Aboriginal family and a black family were both trapped under burning cars, it would be folly to save the black family first, since me and the Aboriginal family both share Neanderthal and Rhodesiensis DNA, where the black family has neither.
Kin selection as an explanation for altruism is a stale meme that'll die out when some more of the old fart biologists kick the bucket.
But then what causes altruism if not reward and survival muh jeans?
>Fair enough, but wouldn't cooperation with distant hominids also reduce chances of survival as well?
Presumably that's why the neanderthals are dead, we didn't cooperate with them, just raped a few. Luckily all the other hominids are dead.
>Kin selection a stale meme
Do you have any better explanations? I've yet to hear one that doesn't invoke theology or 'ethics' in general, and am genuinely curious.
Not that user, but reciprocity is the best explanation I've heard. Simply put, most "altruistic" behaviors aren't actually altruistic. They're long-term reciprocal. You temporarily engage in a behavior that is less than ideal for you, because you know others will do the same to your benefit in the future.
en.wikipedia.org
Riddle me this.
Why feed birds?
>Do you have any better explanations? I've yet to hear one that doesn't invoke theology or 'ethics' in general, and am genuinely curious.
Group selection of some kind. I lean towards environmental inheritance playing a big role. Humans, wasps, ants etc. all share that they make alterations to their environment that pass information to later generations. This gives them a channel for the transmission of information that operates in parallel with individual genetics.
Women are fragile, emotional creatures who're fond of animals. Though the act of feeding the bird itself severely reduces your chances of getting laid, feeding birds around women will drastically increase your chances.
Lol if they are afro American then they'd have neanderthal and are even closer then.you because they have noticeable euro admixture.
because its a pile of ideological bullshit, it has no real correlation with how society works or why, and theres no point to it, in the sense that it just decides that fitness selection in a social or economic context is somehow a goal in itself, without any notion as to why
it also presupposes malthusian levels of overpopulation, scarcity and disfunction, kind of how the fascist notion of 'world hygiene' presupposed large scale war
but realy it was just a way for 19th century english and american upper class to explain away some basic problems their societies faced, and flatter themselves how their wealth means they are inherently supperior and that poor people have smaller brains
its not that the general fitness, quality and various capacities and possible talents or traits arent correlated with personal succes or status, its that this is true across the board, in the sense that succesfull rooflayers arent any more or less fit on average than sucesfull doctors that arent more or less fit on average than sucesfull electricians that arent more or less fit on average than succesfull lawyers etc... what varies are perhaps traits relating to whats required to succed in a given field or different talents or personal interests, the rest being up to social, cultural political etc... factors, like education or economic trends
that said the fact some 20% of the population in any given sistem in any given time is usualy on top and controlls/owns 80% of everything is sort of a constant found troughout human cultures and timeperiods, however even with that in mind theres still no realy sensible or practical reason or purpose to apply social-darwinist logic here, its just how human populations functions, theres nothing to better or fix, or ameliorate in the context of 'survival of the fittest', and since its true for every human system its obvious that the selection is either arbitrary or simply that healthy capable people tend to generaly get ahead in life
Yes, but as far as I know, the average aboriginal male doesn't have a 13inch+ cock. So even if I may technically be "kin slaying", it would be an altruistic sacrifice worth making in the long run if it meant the annihilation of BBC, and the facecuming on their women at the interracial breeding grounds. For once, it'll be the white man in charge
See, sometimes selflessness is worth it in the long run
>it would be folly... because sharing genetics from prehistory
but no living human functions that way, if neither of them are people you know, meaning friends or family, or part of a group you somehow directly belong to, you will save the nearest one or just not get involved
theres no teleologicaly motivated behavior that genes code for, its just that the traits selected fit conditions in which they are selected so they get selected in those conditions
none of this can be applied to social context without becoming completely absurd, for the simple reason that it lacks any real meaning
>Hitler
>laissez-faire capitalism
You're describing a altruistic relationship for selection where there is also the natural tendency for closely related organisms to protect each other or war each other in the event of danger (so that some shared genes DO pass on to the next generation). And no, read what this guy said again:
This guy gets it.
We are a species that needs both genetics and memetics (I.E. transmission of information over large groups/ across generations) to survive.
Memetics develop in social, cooperative species, such as wasps, various apes, crows, etc etc etc.
The rampant individualism that has been pushed on most of our species as reality in the last hundred years or so is nothing short of evolutionary suicide.
But perhaps it is nature's way to self-regulate.
en.wikipedia.org
>Might Is Right, or The Survival of the Fittest, is a book by pseudonymous author Ragnar Redbeard. First published in 1890, it heavily advocates amorality, consequentialism and psychological hedonism. In Might Is Right, Redbeard rejects conventional ideas of human and natural rights and argues that only strength or physical might can establish moral right (à la Callicles or Thrasymachus).
“Govenment is founded on property
Property is founded on conquest
Conquest is founded on power
All power is founded on brain and brawn.”
― Ragnar Redbeard, Might is Right
The rules of life are not to be found in Korans, Bibles, Decalogues and Constitutions, but rather the rules of decadence and death. The “law of laws” is not written in Hebrew consonants or upon tables of brass and stone, but in every man’s own heart. He who obeys any standard of right and wrong, but the one set up by his own conscience, betrays himself into the hands of his enemies, who are ever laying in wait to bind him to their millstones. And generally a man’s most dangerous enemies are his neighbors.”
― Ragnar Redbeard, MIght Is Right
Natural selection doesn't necessarily make things 'better', whatever you decide that means. Cancer is an example of natural selection. A cell which propagates itself instead of working for the good of the body will, in the short term, out-compete the rest of the cells. But this doesn't mean cancer is a good thing.
> If evolution is true, why isn't society run by Natural Selection principles?
Because evolution is true. What retards forget is that it work on population level. Society that run on natural selection is backstabbing itself and it can't survive against more unified societies.
> killing all other men
Yeah... And your kids would build civilization from fucking zero?