I’m confused by this. Sure, your body has involuntary mechanisms that truthfully signal your beliefs to others. But the only reason these mechanisms could exist is to help your genes! Yours specifically! That means you shouldn’t try to override them when your interests coincide with those of your genes. In particular, you shouldn’t force yourself to believe that you’re attractive. Am I missing something?
In particular, you shouldn’t force yourself to believe that you’re attractive.
And I never said this.
But there’s a thing that can happen when someone else gaslights you into believing that you’re unattractive, which makes it true, and you might be interested in undoing that damage, for example.
It seems pretty easy for such mechanisms to be adapted for maximizing reproduction in some ancestral excitement but maladapted for maximizing your preferences in the modern environment.
I think I agree that your point is generally under-considered, especially by the sort of people who compulsively tear down Chesterton’s fences.
What rossry said, but also, why do you expect to be “winning” all arms races here? Genes in other people may have led to development of meme-hacks that you don’t know are actually giving someone else an edge in a zero sum game.
In particular, they might call you fat or stupid or incompetent and you might end up believing it.
I’m confused by this. Sure, your body has involuntary mechanisms that truthfully signal your beliefs to others. But the only reason these mechanisms could exist is to help your genes! Yours specifically! That means you shouldn’t try to override them when your interests coincide with those of your genes. In particular, you shouldn’t force yourself to believe that you’re attractive. Am I missing something?
And I never said this.
But there’s a thing that can happen when someone else gaslights you into believing that you’re unattractive, which makes it true, and you might be interested in undoing that damage, for example.
It seems pretty easy for such mechanisms to be adapted for maximizing reproduction in some ancestral excitement but maladapted for maximizing your preferences in the modern environment.
I think I agree that your point is generally under-considered, especially by the sort of people who compulsively tear down Chesterton’s fences.
What rossry said, but also, why do you expect to be “winning” all arms races here? Genes in other people may have led to development of meme-hacks that you don’t know are actually giving someone else an edge in a zero sum game.
In particular, they might call you fat or stupid or incompetent and you might end up believing it.