Once we evolved sentience we required a fanciful positive incentive in order to deal with the fact that the universe is hostile to us, does not care about us, and will exterminate us in a heartbeat if we cease the struggle. And that our collective consciousnesses in each tribe constitute the god we speak to so that together we maintain the illusion that there is some ‘hope’ for us. So some cultures look to the past(china, japan), some to the future(the west), and some to fantasy (Islam, Christianity, but most certainly Hinduism), and some to the rejection of reality altogether (Buddhism). That describes all possible extremes of present-avoidance available to man. I did not say that spirituality provided what is good for man. In fact, other than Stoicism, I think all cults in history are as destructive in some sense while constructive in another (But why does Christianity create prosperity?) But they all provide the same escape from stresses in the present through membership in a virtual ‘pack’ or ‘herd’ that we can appeal to through direct subjective introspection of the patterns in that system of thought. All of which is largely an external consequence of sentience without the ‘internet’ equivalent of constant communication from mind to mind that seems to occur between pack and herd animals. Individual thought comes at a high price. As an aside: stress is created by what psychologists call ‘neuroticism’. So some personalities feel this need greatly, and some personalities feel it very little. If we combine this with intelligence, we see some people have a trust issue because of dunning Kruger effects (they cannot tell whether someone lies or not). So if we combine intelligence vs neuroticism we get a pretty obvious way of graphing different populations and societies.Westerners have higher creativity, and this seems to be correlated with the fact that we have higher neuroticism. It may be that either higher demand for individualism produces higher neuroticism or the inverse.
Category: Human Behavior and Cognitive Science
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The Source of Bliss
As far as I know feelings of intellectual bliss are caused by the pack response combined with obviating the labor of reason. Comfort food, comfort of home, comfort of surrendering to the will of the pack. Now, there are many kinds of feelings of bliss, as well as pleasure and joy. Some of them are clearly good – church, festival, feast, sporting event, and play. Some of them are less good because they do not require a commons to produce them and therefore require more methods of escape by the individual(communes and cults). Some of them are less good because they cause disconnection from reality(mental states). And some of them are less good because they cause physical and commons damage by consequence when escaping reality (drug use). GOOD Festivals, sporting events, theatres, Arts, literature, church, prayer/contemplation …. these are all excellent methods of non-destructive experience of the pack response. While metaphorical they are not false. They are safe means of exploring other worlds, and they obtain the consent of the commons. HARMFUL THROUGH LOSS OF OPPORTUNITY There are those things that are no longer metaphorical but false. Those things neither obtain the consent of the commons but reject it and reality. DESTRUCTIVE And there are those things that are no longer false but forced – sense-damaging, and body-damaging, and crime-producing drugs. CLOSING So, i would flip the question around and ask “What failure exists in any commons that other than outlier-individuals would seek refuge from the commons in physical, emotional, and mental escape, at the cost of socializatino, consumption, physical and mental help? How should we fix such a commons?
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The Source of Bliss
As far as I know feelings of intellectual bliss are caused by the pack response combined with obviating the labor of reason. Comfort food, comfort of home, comfort of surrendering to the will of the pack. Now, there are many kinds of feelings of bliss, as well as pleasure and joy. Some of them are clearly good – church, festival, feast, sporting event, and play. Some of them are less good because they do not require a commons to produce them and therefore require more methods of escape by the individual(communes and cults). Some of them are less good because they cause disconnection from reality(mental states). And some of them are less good because they cause physical and commons damage by consequence when escaping reality (drug use). GOOD Festivals, sporting events, theatres, Arts, literature, church, prayer/contemplation …. these are all excellent methods of non-destructive experience of the pack response. While metaphorical they are not false. They are safe means of exploring other worlds, and they obtain the consent of the commons. HARMFUL THROUGH LOSS OF OPPORTUNITY There are those things that are no longer metaphorical but false. Those things neither obtain the consent of the commons but reject it and reality. DESTRUCTIVE And there are those things that are no longer false but forced – sense-damaging, and body-damaging, and crime-producing drugs. CLOSING So, i would flip the question around and ask “What failure exists in any commons that other than outlier-individuals would seek refuge from the commons in physical, emotional, and mental escape, at the cost of socializatino, consumption, physical and mental help? How should we fix such a commons?
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The Purpose of Emotions. Consequence Not Cause.
We seek emotions because we evolved those emotions for very obvious reasons: rewards. What is it that we are seeking a reward for? What change in state or preservation of state do we seek to achieve and for what reason? Emotions are only rewards and punishments. What are we rewarded and punished for by monopoly orders? Originally, and still in some parts of the world, competition was considered immoral. Why isn’t the monopoly of orders, like competition, just lagging indicator of our need to create institutions that allow us to act morally in the new order, rather than cling to what is no longer moral out of habit and intuition? BTW: I usually say it this way: we value status signals higher than every other good. Why are status signals valued higher than any other good? Why do we need confidence in our status? Why do we want status signals from others? Why would we evolve such a thing? for the same reasons every other species has means of demonstrating fitness. Except that we cooperate, so it is not just reproduction but survival that depends upon our status.
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The Purpose of Emotions. Consequence Not Cause.
We seek emotions because we evolved those emotions for very obvious reasons: rewards. What is it that we are seeking a reward for? What change in state or preservation of state do we seek to achieve and for what reason? Emotions are only rewards and punishments. What are we rewarded and punished for by monopoly orders? Originally, and still in some parts of the world, competition was considered immoral. Why isn’t the monopoly of orders, like competition, just lagging indicator of our need to create institutions that allow us to act morally in the new order, rather than cling to what is no longer moral out of habit and intuition? BTW: I usually say it this way: we value status signals higher than every other good. Why are status signals valued higher than any other good? Why do we need confidence in our status? Why do we want status signals from others? Why would we evolve such a thing? for the same reasons every other species has means of demonstrating fitness. Except that we cooperate, so it is not just reproduction but survival that depends upon our status.
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Demarcation between Aristocratic Egalitarianism (Male Insurance) and Pathological Altruism (Female Insurance)
Curt Doolittle I tend to view western aristocratic egalitarianism as demanding respect for property in exchange for the franchise of Liberty. David Mondrus “aristocratic egalitarianism” vs “pathological altruism”. The demand of respect for property in exchange for liberty is the difference. Curt Doolittle Let me think about that because it is insightful. Hmmm. Is that the origin? Yes? Damn. Yes. David Mondrus The altruism demands nothing in return. It supplicates to the needy saying in essence “love us, we’ll give you whatever you want”. The ultimate female strategy. Curt Doolittle Yes. And now you’ve synthesized the female by free-riding upon the male. Nice. David Mondrus But that is in essence female. Free riding males is their survival strategy. After all, rape is better than death, esp if it’s couched in socially acceptable terms like “stealing the bride” (the “-stans” now), or dowry (selling the bride) India.
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Demarcation between Aristocratic Egalitarianism (Male Insurance) and Pathological Altruism (Female Insurance)
Curt Doolittle I tend to view western aristocratic egalitarianism as demanding respect for property in exchange for the franchise of Liberty. David Mondrus “aristocratic egalitarianism” vs “pathological altruism”. The demand of respect for property in exchange for liberty is the difference. Curt Doolittle Let me think about that because it is insightful. Hmmm. Is that the origin? Yes? Damn. Yes. David Mondrus The altruism demands nothing in return. It supplicates to the needy saying in essence “love us, we’ll give you whatever you want”. The ultimate female strategy. Curt Doolittle Yes. And now you’ve synthesized the female by free-riding upon the male. Nice. David Mondrus But that is in essence female. Free riding males is their survival strategy. After all, rape is better than death, esp if it’s couched in socially acceptable terms like “stealing the bride” (the “-stans” now), or dowry (selling the bride) India.
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Yes. We Domesticated Ourselves. We’re Just Another Animal.
IT”S NOT LIKE I”M GONNA WIN A POPULARITY CONTEST FOR THIS LITTLE BIT OF TRUTH. You know, it’s not like if I walk around telling people ‘Well, we learned how to herd females, and domesticate one another so that we could cooperate more effectively, and that there isn’t any difference between now and then other than the complexity of the methods we use because rather than just genders and alphas we have entire classes and generations. We didn’t have to invent domestication of other animals. We’re the first animals we domesticated.
So (a) that all our cognitive differences are just a division of perception (b) our differences in perception and value are just reflections of reproductive strategy (c) we herded women and had to, and domesticated ourselves then the rest of the world (d) the only question is whether we continue domestication (eugenics) or we revert to animals (dysgenics). The west invented the most profitable and fastest way of domesticating human beings: markets in everything (empirical civilization – meaning meritocracy), and cull the herd with winters, starvation, pestilence, war, and aggressive hanging of malcontents. Yeah. Well, you know the optimum is a market society where we just limit the unproductive to one child. Eventually, this takes care of itself. And I think that’s the compromise that’s just as … necessary… as the institution of monogamous marriage, and rule of law. No one wants to be forced into marriage no one wants to be forced to limit herself to a single child, no one wants to be forced to contribute to the maintenance of defense, and no one wants to be prosecuted by the law for the imposition of costs upon others. It’s not a matter of want. Sigh. -
Yes. We Domesticated Ourselves. We’re Just Another Animal.
IT”S NOT LIKE I”M GONNA WIN A POPULARITY CONTEST FOR THIS LITTLE BIT OF TRUTH. You know, it’s not like if I walk around telling people ‘Well, we learned how to herd females, and domesticate one another so that we could cooperate more effectively, and that there isn’t any difference between now and then other than the complexity of the methods we use because rather than just genders and alphas we have entire classes and generations. We didn’t have to invent domestication of other animals. We’re the first animals we domesticated.
So (a) that all our cognitive differences are just a division of perception (b) our differences in perception and value are just reflections of reproductive strategy (c) we herded women and had to, and domesticated ourselves then the rest of the world (d) the only question is whether we continue domestication (eugenics) or we revert to animals (dysgenics). The west invented the most profitable and fastest way of domesticating human beings: markets in everything (empirical civilization – meaning meritocracy), and cull the herd with winters, starvation, pestilence, war, and aggressive hanging of malcontents. Yeah. Well, you know the optimum is a market society where we just limit the unproductive to one child. Eventually, this takes care of itself. And I think that’s the compromise that’s just as … necessary… as the institution of monogamous marriage, and rule of law. No one wants to be forced into marriage no one wants to be forced to limit herself to a single child, no one wants to be forced to contribute to the maintenance of defense, and no one wants to be prosecuted by the law for the imposition of costs upon others. It’s not a matter of want. Sigh. -
We Didn’t Domesticate the R’s (Enough). But We Can.
WE DIDN’T DOMESTICATE THE R-SELECTORS. BUT WE CAN. Well, I’m not anti-genetics, I’m anti-falsehood, anti-deception, and anti-dysgenia. But when I tell people that “all Jews are female” J mean to suggest that just as we western men are the intellectual advocates of scientific k-selection, jews are the intellectual advocates of the pseudoscientific r-selection. And that is the role Jews play in intellectual history – before we domesticate them as we had begun to prior to the second world war and the invasion of eastern European and Russian jews. Our lesson is that we insufficiently domesticated both our women and our jews, by extending the license for free speech we gave to other warriors (enfranchised males) to women and jews, without maintaining the THREAT that we maintained with enfranchised: violence.
Had we put jews and women to the duel, maintained the punishment for deception in the commons, maintained libel, maintained slander, and never adopted tolerance for their ridiculousness, we would not have lost our civilization. I’d prefer to live in a world with women and jews. I’d just prefer that we don’t let them destroy the civilization that makes possible the liberty of women and jews to think, speak, and act ridiculous and against our interests. (That’s probably quotable)