I agree. Why would there be a switch in the brain “in case genetic tests prove/shaman says child isn’t yours go into depression!”? Other cues like smell or facial similarity are already factored into the fathers feelings before he consciously knows about the child’s genetics.
We know almost nothing about the effects of sex for children and teenagers.
I don’t think that’s true for teenagers, their sexuality is heavily studied. I don’t have very high confidence in academia but they must have produced something useful on the subject. Right? In any case I agree that children’s sexuality is a pretty strong mind-killer and that our knowledge about it is woefully inadequate or just plain wrong.
Nationalism is more destructive than religion, and almost as much of a collective hallucination.
Possible. But I don’t see why this would be controversial.
Black people are actually genetically superior in important ways—they’ve had such bad luck from geography and racism that their advantages don’t show up as superior results.
Come now. White people would be all ecstatic that they now have proof they are to blame for all the problems they’ve been blaming themselves this entire time (and even more since the opportunity cost of squandered superiority is greater than squandered equality). Who dosen’t like being proven right? This also fulfils their deeply ingrained pseudo-Christian guilt complex and desire for original sin. White people love feeling guilty and signalling moral superiority to other white people. I think that’s partially genetic btw. Most other people on the planet are not such annoying moral poseurs. I don’t have any real data to back me on this last claim but anecdotal evidence is pretty consistent on it.
East Asians and Arabs may react unfavourably though. Also the future would be very bright for mankind since Africa is likley to stay in population explosion mode for most of this century, while say Latin America and the Middle East are showing signs of incredibly rapid drops in birthrates (and the developed world is showing no real signs of recuperation).
Also its pretty obvious that black people are superior in certain aspects to most other races. Besides the obvious stuff like say West Africans being good sprinters and East Africans excelling at marathons, greater resistance to tropical diseases, greater diversity helping the evolve more rapidly to deal with new pathogens, lower rates of skin cancer, ect. humans in Sub-Saharan africa share some nearly continent wide adaptations to their environment that are very desirable. I’m pretty sure African males have an edge when it comes to attractiveness and no I’m not talking about the penis myth (which may not be a myth, it is hard to tell since measurements are ambiguous and conflicting). First off there is the purely physical advantage of darker skin since it is associated with masculinity, then there is the well documented “winning personality” when one controls for other factors. That last one is related to the fact that people of African descent generally have far fewer mental health problems (Europeans be they gentiles or Askenazi Jews and East Asians are really the neurotic freaks of the human race), better self-image, greater self-confidence and are much less prone to suicide than most.
Nationalism is more destructive than religion, and almost as much of a collective hallucination.
Possible. But I don’t see why this would be controversial.
It’s pre-controversial. I say it now and then, but people just ignore it.
There’s a contingent of atheists who are seriously pissed off at people having religions, but I haven’t seen anything comparable against nationalism, even though these days, wars are apt to be more about nationalism than religion.
It’s pre-controversial. I say it now and then, but people just ignore it.
Mostly because highly educated people on LessWrong don’t know many nationalists personally. They do know many religious people.
In any case classical pacifist movements where basically about this. Getting upset about nationalism seems a 19th or 20th century thing to do. Its not that the arguments against it are new and haven’t sunk in because of future shock level, its just that elite respectable opinion in the Western world has long ago shifted closer towards that position and most people living in the West suffer very little if any harm from the residual traces of nationalism. And the residual traces aren’t that notable, most people in say Western Europe are because of the well known traumas of wars in that time period not very nationalistic.
wars are apt to be more about nationalism than religion.
It is hard to say something like the Iraq war was caused by nationalism, though obviously “spreading democracy” is pretty much not only part of an ideology but is also a key part of America’s civic nationalism.
With most wars in the rest of the world that don’t directly involve Western states (obviously many of these are proxy wars). Ie. The ones that actually should matter to utilitarian since they consume far more lives, do indeed often seem to revolve around ethnic clashes. But this is where it gets tricky.
How do you classify the conflict in Sudan a few years back? One can claim that civil war was a religious one since Muslims where attacking animists and Christian villages and the latter where retaliating. How do you measure how much of it was because of nationalism. Is destructive Muslim or Irish Catholic nationalism a bigger blemish on religion or nationalism? What is the better approach to attacking it if you feel that the phenomena is not conductive to how you want to order the world?
Also nationalism evokes images of people being proud of the state or considering themselves a part of a people that numbers in the tens of millions and has supposedly some common past and a common destiny before it. Most of humanity has no idea of anything like that (outside of religion). It is basically a Western thing with very similar phenomena in East Asia and to a lesser extent the Indian subcontinent and Latin America. Most of humanity is much more tribal than it is nationalistic in the classic sense. And the types of bloody civil wars and revolutions one sees in Africa and the Middle East are I think evidence in favour of this.
White people love feeling guilty and signalling moral superiority to other white people. I think that’s partially genetic btw. Most other people on the planet are not such annoying moral poseurs. I don’t have any real data to back me on this claim but anecdotal evidence is pretty consistent on this
This almost reads like you are trying to hint at something but for the life of me I can’t figure out what. Nope. No idea.
I agree. Why would there be a switch in the brain “in case genetic tests prove/shaman says child isn’t yours go into depression!”? Other cues like smell or facial similarity are already factored into the fathers feelings before he consciously knows about the child’s genetics.
I don’t think that’s true for teenagers, their sexuality is heavily studied. I don’t have very high confidence in academia but they must have produced something useful on the subject. Right? In any case I agree that children’s sexuality is a pretty strong mind-killer and that our knowledge about it is woefully inadequate or just plain wrong.
Possible. But I don’t see why this would be controversial.
Come now. White people would be all ecstatic that they now have proof they are to blame for all the problems they’ve been blaming themselves this entire time (and even more since the opportunity cost of squandered superiority is greater than squandered equality). Who dosen’t like being proven right? This also fulfils their deeply ingrained pseudo-Christian guilt complex and desire for original sin. White people love feeling guilty and signalling moral superiority to other white people. I think that’s partially genetic btw. Most other people on the planet are not such annoying moral poseurs. I don’t have any real data to back me on this last claim but anecdotal evidence is pretty consistent on it.
East Asians and Arabs may react unfavourably though. Also the future would be very bright for mankind since Africa is likley to stay in population explosion mode for most of this century, while say Latin America and the Middle East are showing signs of incredibly rapid drops in birthrates (and the developed world is showing no real signs of recuperation).
Also its pretty obvious that black people are superior in certain aspects to most other races. Besides the obvious stuff like say West Africans being good sprinters and East Africans excelling at marathons, greater resistance to tropical diseases, greater diversity helping the evolve more rapidly to deal with new pathogens, lower rates of skin cancer, ect. humans in Sub-Saharan africa share some nearly continent wide adaptations to their environment that are very desirable. I’m pretty sure African males have an edge when it comes to attractiveness and no I’m not talking about the penis myth (which may not be a myth, it is hard to tell since measurements are ambiguous and conflicting). First off there is the purely physical advantage of darker skin since it is associated with masculinity, then there is the well documented “winning personality” when one controls for other factors. That last one is related to the fact that people of African descent generally have far fewer mental health problems (Europeans be they gentiles or Askenazi Jews and East Asians are really the neurotic freaks of the human race), better self-image, greater self-confidence and are much less prone to suicide than most.
It’s pre-controversial. I say it now and then, but people just ignore it.
There’s a contingent of atheists who are seriously pissed off at people having religions, but I haven’t seen anything comparable against nationalism, even though these days, wars are apt to be more about nationalism than religion.
Mostly because highly educated people on LessWrong don’t know many nationalists personally. They do know many religious people.
In any case classical pacifist movements where basically about this. Getting upset about nationalism seems a 19th or 20th century thing to do. Its not that the arguments against it are new and haven’t sunk in because of future shock level, its just that elite respectable opinion in the Western world has long ago shifted closer towards that position and most people living in the West suffer very little if any harm from the residual traces of nationalism. And the residual traces aren’t that notable, most people in say Western Europe are because of the well known traumas of wars in that time period not very nationalistic.
It is hard to say something like the Iraq war was caused by nationalism, though obviously “spreading democracy” is pretty much not only part of an ideology but is also a key part of America’s civic nationalism.
With most wars in the rest of the world that don’t directly involve Western states (obviously many of these are proxy wars). Ie. The ones that actually should matter to utilitarian since they consume far more lives, do indeed often seem to revolve around ethnic clashes. But this is where it gets tricky.
How do you classify the conflict in Sudan a few years back? One can claim that civil war was a religious one since Muslims where attacking animists and Christian villages and the latter where retaliating. How do you measure how much of it was because of nationalism. Is destructive Muslim or Irish Catholic nationalism a bigger blemish on religion or nationalism? What is the better approach to attacking it if you feel that the phenomena is not conductive to how you want to order the world?
Also nationalism evokes images of people being proud of the state or considering themselves a part of a people that numbers in the tens of millions and has supposedly some common past and a common destiny before it. Most of humanity has no idea of anything like that (outside of religion). It is basically a Western thing with very similar phenomena in East Asia and to a lesser extent the Indian subcontinent and Latin America. Most of humanity is much more tribal than it is nationalistic in the classic sense. And the types of bloody civil wars and revolutions one sees in Africa and the Middle East are I think evidence in favour of this.
This almost reads like you are trying to hint at something but for the life of me I can’t figure out what. Nope. No idea.
Could someone make explicit what is being hinted at? I fear that I am missing the signal.
Didn’t catch that implication before.
Edit: Just wanted to make clear that I’m not endorsing it.