It’s not that it offers no advantage, is that it offers no immediate disadvantage.
A discriminating culture that happens to have more material advantage at the start could just wipe other more egalitarian cultures without much concerns.
It’s only very recently that physical strength has lost its importance as a driving force in cultures clashes.
It is possible that in a future where intellect matters much more, but life is still cheap, a more egalitarian society will employ women more efficiently and thus prevail against discriminating ones. But it seems that the more material wealth we have, the more relaxed we are about the whole killing other people stuff.
Lack of real-life societies which enslaved all their women should be a big hint.
Think about it for a bit. Half the population is slaves. Somebody has to watch them, guard them, suppress their attempts at rebellion, etc. Your hypothetical society will have to spend a LOT of resources on just keeping things under control while having significantly lower economic productivity. And in the case of war they can’t field a large army because a lot of men are prison wardens and can’t leave women slaves unattended.
The idea is just very obviously bad and unworkable.
I think this idea of slavery does not match with what historically has been the reality of enslavement. It’s not that you need one slavemaster for every slave, or that slaves are kept perpetually in prison.
To have slaves you ‘just’ need less education, the prevalent idea that they need a master, hard labor and some form of punishment for transgressing. I think this set better describes what has been the reality of (say) women in ancient China or Middle-East, black people under the colonial empires, etc.
But let’s just taboo “slave”, the main issue is another: a meme that asserts “women are inferior beings and they should be treated as such” does not pose an immediate threat to the surivival of a tribe, and for this reason can be latched into a culture for a very long period of time, in the millennia range. To say that memetic evolution selects for truth is just silly.
I’m not sure if you disagree with my last paragraph and precisely on what.
I’m not clear where you place the controversy. Do you think that the striking difference is between the degree of bad treatment (enslaving vs treating as inferior) or the survivability of the meme (survive indefinitely vs not an immediate threat)? In the second case, that’s not my motte, because I clearly state that I think “not an immediate threat” yelds “indefinite survivability”. In the first case, I can just notice that you think there’s a sharp divide where I see just a continuum between the cost of the two memes. But that’s not a problem, I’ll be happy to stay in the bailey and taboo “slavery”, as the article you link suggested, to see if there’s a real disagreement here.
It’s not that it offers no advantage, is that it offers no immediate disadvantage.
A discriminating culture that happens to have more material advantage at the start could just wipe other more egalitarian cultures without much concerns. It’s only very recently that physical strength has lost its importance as a driving force in cultures clashes.
It is possible that in a future where intellect matters much more, but life is still cheap, a more egalitarian society will employ women more efficiently and thus prevail against discriminating ones. But it seems that the more material wealth we have, the more relaxed we are about the whole killing other people stuff.
Really, you think so?
Really, I think so.
You don’t? Care enough to point to a counterexample?
Lack of real-life societies which enslaved all their women should be a big hint.
Think about it for a bit. Half the population is slaves. Somebody has to watch them, guard them, suppress their attempts at rebellion, etc. Your hypothetical society will have to spend a LOT of resources on just keeping things under control while having significantly lower economic productivity. And in the case of war they can’t field a large army because a lot of men are prison wardens and can’t leave women slaves unattended.
The idea is just very obviously bad and unworkable.
I think this idea of slavery does not match with what historically has been the reality of enslavement. It’s not that you need one slavemaster for every slave, or that slaves are kept perpetually in prison.
To have slaves you ‘just’ need less education, the prevalent idea that they need a master, hard labor and some form of punishment for transgressing. I think this set better describes what has been the reality of (say) women in ancient China or Middle-East, black people under the colonial empires, etc.
But let’s just taboo “slave”, the main issue is another: a meme that asserts “women are inferior beings and they should be treated as such” does not pose an immediate threat to the surivival of a tribe, and for this reason can be latched into a culture for a very long period of time, in the millennia range. To say that memetic evolution selects for truth is just silly.
I’m not sure if you disagree with my last paragraph and precisely on what.
Heh. Such a nice example of motte and bailey.
Behold, here is your bailey:
and here is your motte:
You do notice the difference, right? :-)
I’m not clear where you place the controversy.
Do you think that the striking difference is between the degree of bad treatment (enslaving vs treating as inferior) or the survivability of the meme (survive indefinitely vs not an immediate threat)?
In the second case, that’s not my motte, because I clearly state that I think “not an immediate threat” yelds “indefinite survivability”.
In the first case, I can just notice that you think there’s a sharp divide where I see just a continuum between the cost of the two memes. But that’s not a problem, I’ll be happy to stay in the bailey and taboo “slavery”, as the article you link suggested, to see if there’s a real disagreement here.
Both places.
That doesn’t look like a reasonable position, at least if you use words in their normal meaning.
Ah, so there are two memes here? So which one are we talking about and which one corresponds to what you want to claim?