Consider a separate possibility: competition and opportunity abounds in urban areas, placing additional value on intelligence and skill acquisition. Since there is nothing which can be done about intelligence, really, focusing on skill acquisition is a better strategy. Parents who believe very thoroughly in the nurture argument may be much more willing to invest heavily in their child’s education, expecting far greater benefits than are actually possible. Because the perceived value of success is higher it succeeds more often in the face of discounting.
In this case, the false belief is highly adaptive socially, with people adhering to it acquiring better positions in society. While this does not really lend itself to much genetic replication, meme spread should accelerate. I think that, prima facie, we should prefer this explanation; because it does not rely on stories LessWrongians may find aggrandizing, it is less likely that we will be accepting this narrative through bias.
While this does not really lend itself to much genetic replication
I agree.
meme spread should accelerate
The problem is that this is one out of uncountable equally plausible stories that, if true, explains a tiny effect on a meme’s spread that varies in direction depending on the story. The effect of offspring’s eventual financial success on this sort of child-raising meme’s spread is negligible. Isolating it and finding the direction doesn’t tell me about the important factors behind such memes.
Consider a separate possibility...we should prefer this explanation; because it does not rely on stories LessWrongians may find aggrandizing...it is less likely that we will be accepting this narrative through bias.
I’m not sure what it is that is (or is not) being explained. Phlogiston had fire, for example. There needs to be an unexplained phenomenon, or one has a fake fake explanation.
Phlogiston was a substance hypothesized to explain fire, my comment supposes an architecture of pre-existing mechanisms which appear just as plausible as what the OP proposes.
You’ve aggressively chopped from my comment relevant details, for example, the qualifier “prima facie”, which negates your objections.
You’re overly presumptive about memes, presuming that we need to personally observe a complete trajectory from baby to success. This is not so; it is sufficient that we observe highly skilled people which are financial successes and ask about their trajectory.
my comment supposes an architecture of pre-existing mechanisms which appear just as plausible as what the OP proposes.
I agree.
I’m going to make an aggressive assertion beyond what is relevant in this context to increase the chances for me to be wrong.
“Prima facie” isn’t a statement that ever saves a person from privileging the hypothesis, rather, recognized stupidity avoided plus “prima facie” is a hallmark of privileging the hypothesis, and one has only literally, technically saved one’s argument from succumbing to reversed stupidity if one is physically writing about a random thing with the justification it is better than the stupid thing, but one has not saved ones self from it because the time spent on it remains spent..
You’re overly presumptive about memes
The most well-established case in the world showing one car, chosen at random, is going north on the freeway at time t does not enable one to say anything important about the average direction of traffic on all freeways at time t.
Group selection is real, mathematically real, and present in all selection among sexually reproducing creatures. Its effect is not observable because that effect is swamped by the countless other paradigms that humans aren’t programmed to (over) attribute. That’s what is meant by “group selection is not real”, that it is never a predominant explanation of any phenomenon.
The blog post is a random story crafted to appeal to humans and not be logically false. It can be defended by saying that all that is meant is logical truth of its stories being factors, but by Gricean implication, if one writes a blog post about an effect being real, one is claiming that this could be used to make a prediction and has more of an effect than the influence of Pluto’s gravity on mating patterns of the Buffy-Tufted Marmoset.
Consider a separate possibility: competition and opportunity abounds in urban areas, placing additional value on intelligence and skill acquisition. Since there is nothing which can be done about intelligence, really, focusing on skill acquisition is a better strategy. Parents who believe very thoroughly in the nurture argument may be much more willing to invest heavily in their child’s education, expecting far greater benefits than are actually possible. Because the perceived value of success is higher it succeeds more often in the face of discounting.
In this case, the false belief is highly adaptive socially, with people adhering to it acquiring better positions in society. While this does not really lend itself to much genetic replication, meme spread should accelerate. I think that, prima facie, we should prefer this explanation; because it does not rely on stories LessWrongians may find aggrandizing, it is less likely that we will be accepting this narrative through bias.
I agree.
The problem is that this is one out of uncountable equally plausible stories that, if true, explains a tiny effect on a meme’s spread that varies in direction depending on the story. The effect of offspring’s eventual financial success on this sort of child-raising meme’s spread is negligible. Isolating it and finding the direction doesn’t tell me about the important factors behind such memes.
I’m going to say there are four general problems with that, giving me one chance to be right and many to be wrong. Privileging the hypothesis, reversed stupidity is not intelligence, cultish countercultishness, the tragedy of group selectionism.
I’m not sure what it is that is (or is not) being explained. Phlogiston had fire, for example. There needs to be an unexplained phenomenon, or one has a fake fake explanation.
Phlogiston was a substance hypothesized to explain fire, my comment supposes an architecture of pre-existing mechanisms which appear just as plausible as what the OP proposes.
You’ve aggressively chopped from my comment relevant details, for example, the qualifier “prima facie”, which negates your objections.
You’re overly presumptive about memes, presuming that we need to personally observe a complete trajectory from baby to success. This is not so; it is sufficient that we observe highly skilled people which are financial successes and ask about their trajectory.
I agree.
I’m going to make an aggressive assertion beyond what is relevant in this context to increase the chances for me to be wrong.
“Prima facie” isn’t a statement that ever saves a person from privileging the hypothesis, rather, recognized stupidity avoided plus “prima facie” is a hallmark of privileging the hypothesis, and one has only literally, technically saved one’s argument from succumbing to reversed stupidity if one is physically writing about a random thing with the justification it is better than the stupid thing, but one has not saved ones self from it because the time spent on it remains spent..
The most well-established case in the world showing one car, chosen at random, is going north on the freeway at time t does not enable one to say anything important about the average direction of traffic on all freeways at time t.
Group selection is real, mathematically real, and present in all selection among sexually reproducing creatures. Its effect is not observable because that effect is swamped by the countless other paradigms that humans aren’t programmed to (over) attribute. That’s what is meant by “group selection is not real”, that it is never a predominant explanation of any phenomenon.
The blog post is a random story crafted to appeal to humans and not be logically false. It can be defended by saying that all that is meant is logical truth of its stories being factors, but by Gricean implication, if one writes a blog post about an effect being real, one is claiming that this could be used to make a prediction and has more of an effect than the influence of Pluto’s gravity on mating patterns of the Buffy-Tufted Marmoset.