So what you are saying is, the Conservatives have a bunch of ‘settings’ for every aspect of our lives. They ‘worked in the past’ and ‘worked well enough to make it’. Even when a particular setting doesn’t make any rational sense, we should just ‘have faith our ancestors knew what they were doing’.
Also conservatives in many cases want the government to force us through coercion and outright violence to obey laws written from Conservative social ‘values’. For example, the obvious being a marriage, where this is a legal contract that is ‘one size fits all’, you either agree to the terms or you are not married. There is no room for modernization or amendments, just “the arbitrary way inherited from our ancestors is the way or the highway”. (even a pre-nup doesn’t amend the marriage, just exempts pre-marital assets)
Your argument that “it worked well enough to get us here” is moderately compelling. I can point out that other cultures, especially Asia, sometimes do things differently. Therefore the “different settings” are also valid. In fact in terms of success, due to higher population numbers, the Asian way appears to be ‘more correct’. If you really wanted to ‘do what is best for future children’, it seems we need to adopt some mixture of Chinese and Indian cultures, because apparently in objective terms they work the best. Guess you better invite your parents to live with you. Hope they can find you a wife.
My other thought is I have had arguments sometimes with my father, who doesn’t understand why I am not interested in car tinkering or car culture. To me, a car is a machine to reach a destination, and I should buy the one with the lowest total operating costs.
He sees car culture as a conservative value. Except, uh, it isn’t one that has stood the test of time, it was “made up” somewhere in the 1920s by auto manufacturers.
Similarly, conservatives trumpet things like celibacy before marriage as a value that has “stood the test of time”, ignoring the fact that people used to marry far, far younger...
Anyways, back to the main subject. If catgirl porn is your thing, well, you can watch Fox News or Storage Wars or Cops or catgirl porn in the evenings. I’m not seeing a compelling argument how the first 3 are “better” for your life and well being if you really really like catgirls.
Sure, you might now feel unsatisfied with any sexual partners who are not catgirls. But then again, Fox News is designed to make you feel dissatisfied with anything a Democrat is trying to do, feeling a sense of imminent doom, where the President is about to just cut loose with executive orders and let the entire population of Latin America through the border all at once in one day. And defund the police in every city. (this is what conservatives seem to really believe).
Storage Wars makes you feel dissatisfied that you are not running your own business scavenging millions in value. Cops makes you feel unsafe and a Conservative might check that their firearm is loaded and aimed at the door after an episode.
I can point out that other cultures, especially Asia, sometimes do things differently. Therefore the “different settings” are also valid.
I think it is not unusual among conservatives to accept that different cultures have different rules. “The traditions must be followed” can coexist with “we follow our traditions, and they follow their traditions”. There are multiple valid options, but everyone should stick with the one they grew up with. We believe that our option is the best one, but we respect that others may believe otherwise.
Interaction between cultures requires finding out the intersection, the behavior that is acceptable to both sides. Cultures used to deal with strangers can have a distinction between “this is forbidden to us, but okay for the other side if their culture permits it”, such as eating taboo foods, and “this is forbidden and must be punished, no exception”, such as blasphemy against our god(s). Sometimes things are “forbidden in our territory, and that also applies to visitors; but when I am a visitor at your territory, your rules apply”.
Now that I think about it, I am probably much closer to the progressive end of the spectrum than to the conservative one. Yet, when I interact with conservatives, I usually find it easy to follow the above-mentioned rules, and the protocol works, despite the object-level differences. The interactions with progressives are more difficult, because despite many object-level similarities, we do not have a good protocol to deal with the few differences. That is, the protocol itself seems to be conservative, while the progressive protocol is… how to put it politely… “if you are not 100% with us, you are against us”?
Sure. My point is the OP is not just saying these traditions are traditional but that we should follow them because they are proven to work by the fact of our existence.
And I am just saying this is suboptimal. Even if I can’t make up a new tradition—say a new holiday for my bi roommate and me and our children together and her girlfriend to all celebrate—I should at least steal working ideas from the best.
In slightly clearer terms:
what should I do in my life?
rational answer: Output = max( utility_heuristic( alternative actions) ). Output = watch more catgirl porn.
Conservative Answer: Output = (Query(“What did my parents do”)) Output= “watch more Fox News”
Optimized answer: Output = (“Query(“what did the most successful parents do?”)) Output = “invite parents to live in house to provide child raising help and find me a wife”
I’m not too sure the conservative idea as you put it, is to simply “have faith” but rather know the why before you assume it’s arbitrary (see the chesterton fence parable). Your concerns on whether a particular setting must make rational sense to work id argue is irrelevant. Evolution doesn’t care about literal truth, just passing genes. See how the religious produce more children. Religion might be literally untrue and make no rational sense to you, but it’s working pretty well from an evolutionary perspective so who cares if it makes sense to you.
You pointed out that Conservatives want the law to enforce conservative social values, but what’s your point? Isn’t all law whether it’s a conservative value or a progressive “value” ultimately enforced by violence?
You pointed out other successful groups and argued this as a reason to adopt their behaviors, but from an evolutionary point of view behavioral variance is a good thing for overall human survival. But what’s your point here anyways? Your only examples provided of other successful groups happen to be very traditional/conservative socially. Doesn’t this go against the argument you’re trying to make?
You said ”...conservatives trumpet things like celibacy before marriage as a value that has ‘stood the test of time’”Are you sure thats really why conservatives believe in the value of celibacy? Usually when I hear the argument for celibacy it’s either in a religious context or a family values context (celibacy promotes sex within a marriage framework where there’s a two parent household. Which btw the data shows kids thrive more so under two parent households).
Focusing on the main point. I am saying that if evolution has found sets of ideas that work, and you genuinely want your life to use the ideas that work the best (so you have many children), it appears you should adopt the ideas that work the best.
Which are not USA conservative values, they are Chinese and Asian values. Everything else you are saying is simply that ‘the way that work in the past is best’. Which it is—for the purpose of having as much reproductive success as possible. That is the only ‘constraint’ applied to it.
So what you are saying is, the Conservatives have a bunch of ‘settings’ for every aspect of our lives. They ‘worked in the past’ and ‘worked well enough to make it’. Even when a particular setting doesn’t make any rational sense, we should just ‘have faith our ancestors knew what they were doing’.
Also conservatives in many cases want the government to force us through coercion and outright violence to obey laws written from Conservative social ‘values’. For example, the obvious being a marriage, where this is a legal contract that is ‘one size fits all’, you either agree to the terms or you are not married. There is no room for modernization or amendments, just “the arbitrary way inherited from our ancestors is the way or the highway”. (even a pre-nup doesn’t amend the marriage, just exempts pre-marital assets)
Your argument that “it worked well enough to get us here” is moderately compelling. I can point out that other cultures, especially Asia, sometimes do things differently. Therefore the “different settings” are also valid. In fact in terms of success, due to higher population numbers, the Asian way appears to be ‘more correct’. If you really wanted to ‘do what is best for future children’, it seems we need to adopt some mixture of Chinese and Indian cultures, because apparently in objective terms they work the best. Guess you better invite your parents to live with you. Hope they can find you a wife.
My other thought is I have had arguments sometimes with my father, who doesn’t understand why I am not interested in car tinkering or car culture. To me, a car is a machine to reach a destination, and I should buy the one with the lowest total operating costs.
He sees car culture as a conservative value. Except, uh, it isn’t one that has stood the test of time, it was “made up” somewhere in the 1920s by auto manufacturers.
Similarly, conservatives trumpet things like celibacy before marriage as a value that has “stood the test of time”, ignoring the fact that people used to marry far, far younger...
Anyways, back to the main subject. If catgirl porn is your thing, well, you can watch Fox News or Storage Wars or Cops or catgirl porn in the evenings. I’m not seeing a compelling argument how the first 3 are “better” for your life and well being if you really really like catgirls.
Sure, you might now feel unsatisfied with any sexual partners who are not catgirls. But then again, Fox News is designed to make you feel dissatisfied with anything a Democrat is trying to do, feeling a sense of imminent doom, where the President is about to just cut loose with executive orders and let the entire population of Latin America through the border all at once in one day. And defund the police in every city. (this is what conservatives seem to really believe).
Storage Wars makes you feel dissatisfied that you are not running your own business scavenging millions in value. Cops makes you feel unsafe and a Conservative might check that their firearm is loaded and aimed at the door after an episode.
Just not seeing a difference.
I think it is not unusual among conservatives to accept that different cultures have different rules. “The traditions must be followed” can coexist with “we follow our traditions, and they follow their traditions”. There are multiple valid options, but everyone should stick with the one they grew up with. We believe that our option is the best one, but we respect that others may believe otherwise.
Interaction between cultures requires finding out the intersection, the behavior that is acceptable to both sides. Cultures used to deal with strangers can have a distinction between “this is forbidden to us, but okay for the other side if their culture permits it”, such as eating taboo foods, and “this is forbidden and must be punished, no exception”, such as blasphemy against our god(s). Sometimes things are “forbidden in our territory, and that also applies to visitors; but when I am a visitor at your territory, your rules apply”.
Now that I think about it, I am probably much closer to the progressive end of the spectrum than to the conservative one. Yet, when I interact with conservatives, I usually find it easy to follow the above-mentioned rules, and the protocol works, despite the object-level differences. The interactions with progressives are more difficult, because despite many object-level similarities, we do not have a good protocol to deal with the few differences. That is, the protocol itself seems to be conservative, while the progressive protocol is… how to put it politely… “if you are not 100% with us, you are against us”?
Sure. My point is the OP is not just saying these traditions are traditional but that we should follow them because they are proven to work by the fact of our existence.
And I am just saying this is suboptimal. Even if I can’t make up a new tradition—say a new holiday for my bi roommate and me and our children together and her girlfriend to all celebrate—I should at least steal working ideas from the best.
In slightly clearer terms:
what should I do in my life?
rational answer: Output = max( utility_heuristic( alternative actions) ). Output = watch more catgirl porn. Conservative Answer: Output = (Query(“What did my parents do”)) Output= “watch more Fox News” Optimized answer: Output = (“Query(“what did the most successful parents do?”)) Output = “invite parents to live in house to provide child raising help and find me a wife”
I’m not too sure the conservative idea as you put it, is to simply “have faith” but rather know the why before you assume it’s arbitrary (see the chesterton fence parable). Your concerns on whether a particular setting must make rational sense to work id argue is irrelevant. Evolution doesn’t care about literal truth, just passing genes. See how the religious produce more children. Religion might be literally untrue and make no rational sense to you, but it’s working pretty well from an evolutionary perspective so who cares if it makes sense to you.
You pointed out that Conservatives want the law to enforce conservative social values, but what’s your point? Isn’t all law whether it’s a conservative value or a progressive “value” ultimately enforced by violence?
You pointed out other successful groups and argued this as a reason to adopt their behaviors, but from an evolutionary point of view behavioral variance is a good thing for overall human survival. But what’s your point here anyways? Your only examples provided of other successful groups happen to be very traditional/conservative socially. Doesn’t this go against the argument you’re trying to make?
You said ”...conservatives trumpet things like celibacy before marriage as a value that has ‘stood the test of time’”Are you sure thats really why conservatives believe in the value of celibacy? Usually when I hear the argument for celibacy it’s either in a religious context or a family values context (celibacy promotes sex within a marriage framework where there’s a two parent household. Which btw the data shows kids thrive more so under two parent households).
Focusing on the main point. I am saying that if evolution has found sets of ideas that work, and you genuinely want your life to use the ideas that work the best (so you have many children), it appears you should adopt the ideas that work the best.
Which are not USA conservative values, they are Chinese and Asian values. Everything else you are saying is simply that ‘the way that work in the past is best’. Which it is—for the purpose of having as much reproductive success as possible. That is the only ‘constraint’ applied to it.