When I read this post I did not expect extreme levels of cynicism and was not prepared. I think David should gave included some sort of warning at the top.
12, Darwinian cynicism is wrong as presented. Evolution does not guarantee that basic desires must be for the benefit of self, family or tribe. Your statement confuses the goal of the desire with its evolutionary explanation. For example, we could very well have a basic desire that every human being flourishes and is happy, with the evolutionary explanation that in the past, that desire was correlated with higher fitness.
Desires with an altruistic object are a bit less intuitive to explain in an evolutionary context, since it’s easy to see why selfish desires will be fitness enhancing. But they are perfectly possible.
Yea I think this “hide behind the proximate level of analysis” is a cope designed to avoid fessing up to Darwinian cynicism. I plan to write about this cope at some point in the future, but in the meantime, I deny your premise. If an ancestral human *truly* desired that every human be happy and flourish, and acted so as to fulfill that desire, while neglecting his family and betraying his allies and lowering his status in service of that goal, then such a human would obviously have lower fitness than his more selfish, nepotistic, and groupish rivals. By definition. You’re asking me to imagine a square circle, something that cannot exist.
Fabulous! A big fan of points #6- more on highfalutin bullshitting please- it’s fun to see people competing for status points in one of the lowest-paying, highest-credentialing professions, ie college professors
Alliance theory: all through history, income and education had a correlation. So how comes there is a pro-poor block that nevertheless supports the educated opinion on a bunch of things and we call it left, and a pro-rich party that supports the non-educated, traditional opinion of a bunch of things and we call it right. Is this supposed to make sense?
Also, an economically leftist, socially conservative (so pro-poor, anti-educated opinion) block would get incredibly popular, we are just sort of lucky that no one really comes up with this idea.
Yea good points. I think the key is understanding that elites are not homogenous and there is rivalry between different elite groups. Also the lower class is not homogenous and there is rivalry between lower class groups, particularly along ethnic lines (in the US) and along religious lines (in other countries). There’s also an axis relating to religiosity/sexual morality that complicates the whole picture. But short answer: as urbanization, globalization, and educational credentialism increased, intra-elite rivalry grew more intense (business elites amassed more wealth and power relative to intellectual elites), and intra-lower-class rivalry grew more intense as immigration from Latin American countries increased and manufacturing work declined (leading the white working class to blame their low status on collusion between elites and immigrants/minorities). This weakened the relationship between party and class, and even started to reverse it a bit with trump (with higher class predicting democratic vote in some cases). Anyways, there are many axes of conflict and the alliances are dynamic. If there were any low-hanging fruit coalition, politicians would have figured out how to pluck it, and every change in coalition leads to counter-changes from the other side to avoid losing power. Many bundles of views (eg social conservatism) are not monolithic but reflect strange bedfellows. Many views are not held strongly but merely to show allegiance to one side or the other and can be abandoned as coalitions change. Anyways yea that wasn’t a short answer but shit’s complicated.
It seems like this presumes a "I'll know it when I see it" flavor where we pretend to know what is worth removing and what is worth keeping, and a flavor that what is good is that which is left when you remove the bad.
I’ve got one that hits me pretty close to home, but needs a good name. Have you heard of the Vesuvius Challenge, the effort to read a trove of carbonized scrolls from the ancient world? Who knows what treasures we might find! Then again, how much of the surviving literature have I bothered to read? I’m smelling something and it’s coming from inside the house.
Or imagine that a lost work of Shakespeare were to come to light. That would be a best seller! Then again, I can literally reach out and touch a couple of his plays that I’ve never found the time for…
Or how about the idle thrill of imagining we might meet an alien civilization when we can’t be bothered to explore what we have here on planet Earth? And if travel is too heavy a lift, how about a visit to the local library were endless shelves grown under the weight of history and anthropology? And dust.
Most "Darwinian" labels are antithetical to Darwin's actual opinions if not also his work, or at least to my understanding of it. Darwinian cynicism, as described, takes Darwin's insights on the sufficient conditions, and treats them like necessary conditions for any and all types of selection.
Which is weird, cuz the "else extinct" clause makes for really poor explanatory and predictive power for specifics. Peacock feathers didn't evolve because "otherwise they would go extinct." We just know that, so far, they have them, they are not yet extinct, and we can reasonably infer selection mechanisms (sexual) that operate less directly. Some phenotypes and genotypes can simple be afforded.
Agents whose desires are absolute and not relative to others are conceivable, but not evolvable, because biological fitness is always relative to others in a population. Maybe AIs could solve the desire problem, but probably not any biological organism. Probably social animals have a bigger desire problem than asocial animals.
Yea, good questions. Genetic engineering questions are beyond my expertise, but I am skeptical that an entire motivational architecture can be genetically eliminated or modified without other undesirable side effects, and I doubt anyone would want to try. I'm also skeptical that suffering can or should be eliminated. I wrote in "You Actually Want to Suffer" that suffering has a function and it's not just bad vibes for no reason. Most people want their suffering to exist because it helps them achieve their goals and steer them in the right direction. Also, yea, the entire project of trying to promote happiness and reduce suffering is bullshit imo, because we don't want stuff in our heads; we want stuff in the world.
This is going into my saved pile, will be re-read often, and will never be deleted!
Nice. This is giving "On Bullshit" vibes.
When I read this post I did not expect extreme levels of cynicism and was not prepared. I think David should gave included some sort of warning at the top.
12, Darwinian cynicism is wrong as presented. Evolution does not guarantee that basic desires must be for the benefit of self, family or tribe. Your statement confuses the goal of the desire with its evolutionary explanation. For example, we could very well have a basic desire that every human being flourishes and is happy, with the evolutionary explanation that in the past, that desire was correlated with higher fitness.
Desires with an altruistic object are a bit less intuitive to explain in an evolutionary context, since it’s easy to see why selfish desires will be fitness enhancing. But they are perfectly possible.
Yea I think this “hide behind the proximate level of analysis” is a cope designed to avoid fessing up to Darwinian cynicism. I plan to write about this cope at some point in the future, but in the meantime, I deny your premise. If an ancestral human *truly* desired that every human be happy and flourish, and acted so as to fulfill that desire, while neglecting his family and betraying his allies and lowering his status in service of that goal, then such a human would obviously have lower fitness than his more selfish, nepotistic, and groupish rivals. By definition. You’re asking me to imagine a square circle, something that cannot exist.
Fabulous! A big fan of points #6- more on highfalutin bullshitting please- it’s fun to see people competing for status points in one of the lowest-paying, highest-credentialing professions, ie college professors
Alliance theory: all through history, income and education had a correlation. So how comes there is a pro-poor block that nevertheless supports the educated opinion on a bunch of things and we call it left, and a pro-rich party that supports the non-educated, traditional opinion of a bunch of things and we call it right. Is this supposed to make sense?
Also, an economically leftist, socially conservative (so pro-poor, anti-educated opinion) block would get incredibly popular, we are just sort of lucky that no one really comes up with this idea.
Yea good points. I think the key is understanding that elites are not homogenous and there is rivalry between different elite groups. Also the lower class is not homogenous and there is rivalry between lower class groups, particularly along ethnic lines (in the US) and along religious lines (in other countries). There’s also an axis relating to religiosity/sexual morality that complicates the whole picture. But short answer: as urbanization, globalization, and educational credentialism increased, intra-elite rivalry grew more intense (business elites amassed more wealth and power relative to intellectual elites), and intra-lower-class rivalry grew more intense as immigration from Latin American countries increased and manufacturing work declined (leading the white working class to blame their low status on collusion between elites and immigrants/minorities). This weakened the relationship between party and class, and even started to reverse it a bit with trump (with higher class predicting democratic vote in some cases). Anyways, there are many axes of conflict and the alliances are dynamic. If there were any low-hanging fruit coalition, politicians would have figured out how to pluck it, and every change in coalition leads to counter-changes from the other side to avoid losing power. Many bundles of views (eg social conservatism) are not monolithic but reflect strange bedfellows. Many views are not held strongly but merely to show allegiance to one side or the other and can be abandoned as coalitions change. Anyways yea that wasn’t a short answer but shit’s complicated.
What is the answer to bull shit.
I'll let you know when I figure it out.
Michaelangelo - "the sculpture is already there..just have to chisel away the superfluous material" ..
I guess no easy way other than to cut the sh#t out in/by oneself
It seems like this presumes a "I'll know it when I see it" flavor where we pretend to know what is worth removing and what is worth keeping, and a flavor that what is good is that which is left when you remove the bad.
I have a no bullshit post about Science for High School reading ability readers:
https://federicosotodelalba.substack.com/p/sci-and-math-are-having-a-conversation?r=4up0lp
14 sounds very Schmittian: https://tempo.substack.com/p/with-friends-like-these
I’ve got one that hits me pretty close to home, but needs a good name. Have you heard of the Vesuvius Challenge, the effort to read a trove of carbonized scrolls from the ancient world? Who knows what treasures we might find! Then again, how much of the surviving literature have I bothered to read? I’m smelling something and it’s coming from inside the house.
Or imagine that a lost work of Shakespeare were to come to light. That would be a best seller! Then again, I can literally reach out and touch a couple of his plays that I’ve never found the time for…
Or how about the idle thrill of imagining we might meet an alien civilization when we can’t be bothered to explore what we have here on planet Earth? And if travel is too heavy a lift, how about a visit to the local library were endless shelves grown under the weight of history and anthropology? And dust.
Most "Darwinian" labels are antithetical to Darwin's actual opinions if not also his work, or at least to my understanding of it. Darwinian cynicism, as described, takes Darwin's insights on the sufficient conditions, and treats them like necessary conditions for any and all types of selection.
Which is weird, cuz the "else extinct" clause makes for really poor explanatory and predictive power for specifics. Peacock feathers didn't evolve because "otherwise they would go extinct." We just know that, so far, they have them, they are not yet extinct, and we can reasonably infer selection mechanisms (sexual) that operate less directly. Some phenotypes and genotypes can simple be afforded.
His version of Darwinian cynicism is just wrong. Evolutionary theory does not say that.
Also- #13- I do suck at economics- but love a good deep dive into behavioral economics
This is good. Meditative/Reflective list and that is no bs.
Agents whose desires are absolute and not relative to others are conceivable, but not evolvable, because biological fitness is always relative to others in a population. Maybe AIs could solve the desire problem, but probably not any biological organism. Probably social animals have a bigger desire problem than asocial animals.
Yea, good questions. Genetic engineering questions are beyond my expertise, but I am skeptical that an entire motivational architecture can be genetically eliminated or modified without other undesirable side effects, and I doubt anyone would want to try. I'm also skeptical that suffering can or should be eliminated. I wrote in "You Actually Want to Suffer" that suffering has a function and it's not just bad vibes for no reason. Most people want their suffering to exist because it helps them achieve their goals and steer them in the right direction. Also, yea, the entire project of trying to promote happiness and reduce suffering is bullshit imo, because we don't want stuff in our heads; we want stuff in the world.