Just like the title says, of all the lies and bogosity out there, what do you believe is the biggest of all?
I said mine in my latest journal entry.
QuoteI always liked Andrew Ryan's character in Bioshock but there's one thing I disagree with him about. He believes altruism is the greatest lie ever told, I say it's original sin. Whether it stems from religion, social engineers or just plain cynics, the whole idea that human beings are inherrently tainted by evil is absolute nonsense of the foulest kind!
First of all, the people perpetuating it tend to be the types who are really in no position to lecture about morality when you look at their track records. Clergies dictating morality is especially hilarious when you read any history book. Politicians are no better and behind every social engineer who claims good intentions, you'll find an bastion of intolerance and bigotry.
I mean, look at the bible's version of it. We gain knowledge and free will and that's painted in a bad light and all of humanity have to pay for it? Billions and billions who had nothing to do with the original supposed crime? That's beyond ridiculous, it's downright asinine! Knowledge is what gave us all the wonders that religion only promises us and never lifts a finger to provide. That's really what religion is all about, teaching you to be ashamed to be human so they can offer you the one way out. By submitting to an infallible authority who really is nothing of the sort.
The politicians do it too. Laws that basically punish you before you've actually done anything wrong just to make sure they nab all the wrong doers. Sure, some innocents get trampled along the way but it's all for the greater good! Some call that keeping the peace, I have different term for it: Witch hunting. We all think of that time in history with disgust so how much spin does it take to make it okay in this day and age?
And just the regular people who say people are inherrently bad, you may very well be the worst because you spur it all on! If you like to point to all the bad news on TV as evidence for your view, let me direct you to the fact that IT'S ON THE NEWS BECAUSE IT"S UNUSUAL! Seriously! When the news is reporting nothing but good deeds, then you can start worrying.
I've had the argument made that human beings are naturally drawn to war and we need authorities to prevent that. Well, anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of history can tell you that if that's not a clear case of trusting the fox to guard the hen house, I don't know what is. Think about it! If that's true, why do drafts even need to exist? Yeah, same old story. If it's really what humans are drawn towards, why does it need to be backed up by force? Whether it's the threat of exile from the tribe, execution for treason, being lied to with that whole "50 virgins in the afterlife" nonsense or just the fact that while service in the military is optional in the US, if they decided to ship you off to Iraq once you're in, you get no say.
Think about this. There's no traffic cop at every single intersection and yet there's far more people heeding it than running red lights and this was the case even before they put the cameras up. You probably had 20 opportunities to steal and get away with it today and yet you didn't did you? Do you think you're different from anyone else in that respect?
"But people only obey traffic lights because they don't want to crash and they don't steal only because they'd be shunned at the very least if they were caught!"
EXACTLY!!
This is the big flaw, the belief that self interest and being a good person are mutually exclusive. They're not. In fact, they make an unstoppable team together. People who preach against self interest are really just preaching in favor of collective interest in themselves and that is what's truly a sin if anything.
If these people had any real morality, they'd let you make those calls yourself rather than treating you like children and arrogantly putting themselves above their own petty rules. They don't care about you, they don't know the first thing about morality and they quite frankly don't know the first thing about how the world works and despite their lengthy history of failures, still have the nerve insist they know best.
Some call me harsh on collectivists but I just give them the same level of respect that they give everyone else: none.
My name is Lord T Hawkeye and I'm proud to be human
*Applause*
I hear you, man. :)
Another person I've spoken to (and posted the stuff in this forum) kept going on about how "humans are scum! Anyone who opens a history book and looks at the atrocities committed can see that!"
I sense a heaping helping of cherry picking and confirmation bias in that point; about what percentage of people is he talking about?
Does he not understand the emergence of morals and how a stable society, by definition has them (Ironically explained by thunderf00t and recapped by FlowCell)?
Not only that, are these normal people, or is it done by people with religious power, in the government, or because of the associated dogmas?
If he can't control for those, he has nothing.
Also, I'd say the points you made about the traffic light, stealing and the news also blows yet another hole in the Swiss cheese and that this lame point of his.
Speaking of which, this was presented as proof of humanity's inherrently violent nature...
QuoteNow here's a question for you: when you want to enter a room, but the door is locked, what's the first thing you do? You've already tried turning the handle once to no avail. What is the very next thing you do? 99% of people will try turning the handle harder. If it didn't work the first time, it's not going to work the second, but most people will not think about that and immediately and likely subconsciously attempt to turn the handle with a bit more force or jiggle it around some. This is a bit of proof to a natural tendency to react to a failed push with a harder push and can be interpreted as telling of a primal reaction of violence. The first time this fact was pointed out to me, I spent the longest time catching myself continuing to pull on locked doorhandles for a moment without even thinking about it.
...that has to be the hokiest proof I've ever seen in my life. I don't even know where to begin to say what's wrong with this. -_-
How about, for starters, you don't even know if the door is locked or just stuck until you jiggle the handle harder?
I settled for "Just because I might deem it neccessary to break down a door, that doesn't mean I approve or like it. Same thing with violence."
Quote from: Lord T Hawkeye on October 30, 2009, 04:51:54 PM
Speaking of which, this was presented as proof of humanity's inherrently violent nature...
...that has to be the hokiest proof I've ever seen in my life. I don't even know where to begin to say what's wrong with this. -_-
Because getting annoyed at an inanimate object is the same as a will to kill, rape abuse other people, amirite?
It goes on and on, a response to when I stated that evolution favors those who don't kill their own kind because that hurts the survival of the species.
Quote
This was thought for a while, but in the last half century has been shown to be untrue, mostly thanks to mr. Dawkins, actually. There is no evolutionary trait for not attacking/killing one's own species, but there IS one for not killing close kin. So the aversion to killing individuals regarded as kin is possibly biological in nature, but survival of the species is not. In fact, killing off members of your own species is likely to make your species MORE competitive by culling weak genetic material. As is so often put in literature, in a dog eat dog environment, the best rise to the top quicker and stay there longer. Unfortunately, social machinations and humans ability to go from 'killing one's competitors' to 'wiping them, their entire country and their pet cat off the face of the earth' has kind of made that equation problematic for us. Nevertheless, bung statement.
I don't know where he gets his information--and I CERTAINLY don't know where he got the idea that Dawkins thinks this--but it's just flat-out WRONG. Again, turn to the example of piranha killing other animals but not each other.
Culling members of your own species is DETRIMENTAL to evolution. For evidence, you need look no further than genetic algorithms. Whenever programmers try to give the algorithm a leg up by culling the weakest options, it makes the algorithm less efficient by increasing the probability that it'll converge on a less optimal design. I go into this in a fair amount of detail in my upcoming book.
Quote from: MrBogosity on November 01, 2009, 08:46:09 AM
I don't know where he gets his information--and I CERTAINLY don't know where he got the idea that Dawkins thinks this--but it's just flat-out WRONG. Again, turn to the example of piranha killing other animals but not each other.
Culling members of your own species is DETRIMENTAL to evolution. For evidence, you need look no further than genetic algorithms. Whenever programmers try to give the algorithm a leg up by culling the weakest options, it makes the algorithm less efficient by increasing the probability that it'll converge on a less optimal design. I go into this in a fair amount of detail in my upcoming book.
And I'll bet that is the reason why eugenics won't work.
Quote from: surhotchaperchlorome on November 01, 2009, 10:07:11 AM
And I'll bet that is the reason why eugenics won't work.
Of course. Eugenics is based on Lamarckian, not Darwinian, evolution.
When pressed for where he got that idea about Dawkins, this is the answer I got.
QuoteTo answer your question and explain the above, this is all explained, at considerable length, in The Selfish Gene. I cannot give you a page reference, partly because it's spread through the whole book and partly because I don't think I should have to as you have yet to ever provide me with an objective source for any of your more questionable assertions. Fair's fair.
Oh tut tut!
Ask him why it completely contradicts the whole of Chapter 10, then.
QuoteOk, chapter 10. The selfish basis for altruism. Broadly speaking, it says that an individual can evolve altruistic traits so long as those altruistic traits benefit its genes as opposed to the individual itself as was previously believed. It does nothing, at all, to counter the suggestion that an individual can evolve murderous traits if these would benefit its genes as well, he covers this in chapters 5 and 12, noting that overaggressive tendencies are punished genetically, but lacking aggression, particularly to external groups, is equally punished if any of those external groups are aggressive. Chapter 12 suggests that an individual which cooperates with other individuals that do not threaten it, but retaliates against any that do until (and only until) just desserts are balanced is perhaps the most successful model, using the iterated prisoner's dilemma.
The simplified version of this is that the idea that we are somehow inherently violent is false, but the idea we are inherently peaceful or disinclined to be violent is equally false. If it pays, as a species we will be violent. As individuals we will be violent. If the cost benefit works out, we do it. This, of course, presumes a state of nature, wherein cultural constraints are not acting, but given our argument is about inherent qualities, this seems fair. Further, there is no argument in the Selfish Gene that suggests that we are not inherently violent and forceful to anything which doesn't have our genes on a more obvious level- that is to say, anything not human.
There, what I took from the relevant sections explained. Would you care to provide your own thoughts on the same section that we might compare?
Now it looks more like he's straddling. This sounds suspiciously like backpeddling to me.
He's completely backpedalling! He specifically said, "There is no evolutionary trait for not attacking/killing one's own species," direct quote. And now he just admitted that there are.
It crosses species barriers, too. Think of bees and flowers. Or think of humans and intestinal flora.