Your answer seems to suggest that the modern environment is not like the ancestral one—due to the effects of human culture—and that causes people to malfunction and behave maladaptively.
That is certainly one hypothesis to explain this type of behaviour. However, I can’t help notice that some indivduals have become famous moral philosophers by advocating this type of behaviour.
Weakening the analogy rather, more charity still seems to be for signalling purposes than sex is for reproductive purposes—making a guide to sexual pleasure less surprising. Also, I think “most” sex is supposed to support human pair bonding and signalling purposes—rather than reproduction directly—even in the ancestral environment—i.e. humans are rather like bonobos.
I expect that many who profess to actually helping the world do so at the expense of their own fitness. However, I doubt this is a simple case of brains being hijacked by deleterious memes through an inadequate memetic immune system. For instance, I figure some individuals are benefitting by spreading such memes around. So, I am interested in the details, to better understand what is happening.
You claimed I was “pretending to be surprised”—while what I was actually doing was asking questions. Your interpretation seems to presume dubious motives :-|
You claimed I was “pretending to be surprised”—while what I was actually doing was asking questions. Your interpretation seems to presume dubious motives :-|
Not dubious at all. I assumed you purpose was rhetorical. By feigning incomprehension of something carrying a stench of irrationality, you signal that you are pure in your rationalism. Surely you don’t believe that there is something dubious about signaling.
The other thing to say about this is: I don’t think helping strangers, or explaining to others how to help strangers—without any thought to what it might signal—is at all irrational.
I understand perfectly well, that for people with certain kinds of utilitarian goal systems, this kind of thing all makes perfect sense—and is absolutely the rational thing to do.
It is pretty strange that any such utilitarian people exist in the first place—but if we accept that axiomatically, things like the discussion on this thread follow—without any need for invoking irrationality.
It is more that I don’t think I was pretending at all. I did ask questions—but that doesn’t mean I was surprised by existence of an audience for the presentation.
I have some hypotheses about that (some of which I listed) - but I am not so certain of their relative merit that I don’t welcome input from others on the topic. Some of those involved clearly have quite a different perspective from me, and I am curious about what they think is happening.
Your answer seems to suggest that the modern environment is not like the ancestral one—due to the effects of human culture—and that causes people to malfunction and behave maladaptively.
That is certainly one hypothesis to explain this type of behaviour. However, I can’t help notice that some indivduals have become famous moral philosophers by advocating this type of behaviour.
Weakening the analogy rather, more charity still seems to be for signalling purposes than sex is for reproductive purposes—making a guide to sexual pleasure less surprising. Also, I think “most” sex is supposed to support human pair bonding and signalling purposes—rather than reproduction directly—even in the ancestral environment—i.e. humans are rather like bonobos.
I expect that many who profess to actually helping the world do so at the expense of their own fitness. However, I doubt this is a simple case of brains being hijacked by deleterious memes through an inadequate memetic immune system. For instance, I figure some individuals are benefitting by spreading such memes around. So, I am interested in the details, to better understand what is happening.
You claimed I was “pretending to be surprised”—while what I was actually doing was asking questions. Your interpretation seems to presume dubious motives :-|
Not dubious at all. I assumed you purpose was rhetorical. By feigning incomprehension of something carrying a stench of irrationality, you signal that you are pure in your rationalism. Surely you don’t believe that there is something dubious about signaling.
The other thing to say about this is: I don’t think helping strangers, or explaining to others how to help strangers—without any thought to what it might signal—is at all irrational.
I understand perfectly well, that for people with certain kinds of utilitarian goal systems, this kind of thing all makes perfect sense—and is absolutely the rational thing to do.
It is pretty strange that any such utilitarian people exist in the first place—but if we accept that axiomatically, things like the discussion on this thread follow—without any need for invoking irrationality.
It is more that I don’t think I was pretending at all. I did ask questions—but that doesn’t mean I was surprised by existence of an audience for the presentation.
I have some hypotheses about that (some of which I listed) - but I am not so certain of their relative merit that I don’t welcome input from others on the topic. Some of those involved clearly have quite a different perspective from me, and I am curious about what they think is happening.