4 ms·

I know there are many studies to do with genes, I've read a variety of them. If you believe you know of one which answers my challenge, then feel free to cite i

by curi 19y ago

I know there are many studies to do with genes, I've read a variety of them. If you believe you know of one which answers my challenge, then feel free to cite it. Am I a creationist? Umm, lol. No. If I was, why would i talk about evolution of both memes and genes? Since you keep bringing up personal issues, maybe we can put them to rest: I am a very (classically) liberal person, a scientifically-oriented atheist, generally a small-l libertarian. Not a science-hating, lunatic, religious conservative. body height might control temper? how? a correlation between height and income doesn't imply height causes income, especially not directly.

Tichy 19y ago
Of course not, but your challenges are a bit off: we are discussing complex systems, that nobody really has a hold of yet. And that includes you and me. I don't know if body height affects temper, I am just giving examples that could e plausible. For example, body height could affect the blood pressure, which would surely affect temper. What is your challenge again, that genes can affect temper? I don't even feel the need to read any papers, really. Body height doesn't convince you, take something else, say some ugly deformation of the body. Might cause depression? Maybe those examples sound ridiculous, but so does the notion that a butterfly on the other end of the world could affect the weather on the other side of the world. Actually I think the butterfly really is an exaggeration, but nevertheless, small changes can have big effects on the outcome in a complex system. So I don't think we even have to argue. Oh yes, and being a woman or a man obviously has a different outcome in temper. You claim that is only cultural, but that doesn't matter: in our current environment (a ka culture), your temper is affected by being a woman or a man. Point proven.
- curi 19y ago
  Being ugly doesn't cause depression. Though in some cultures ugly people are treated badly, and in some cultures many people have personalities that get depressed when others (wrongly) treat them badly. Now, if you take a culture like that as a given, you can say that ugliness causes depression, and call it a fact. And say you've proven your point. I don't dispute the possibility of making very misleading simplifications of this sort which are true in a sense. But if we want to explain what's going on in our world, it isn't reasonable to take culture as a fixed point. It would be much more fruitful to take our genes as a fixed point, and look at what our culture causes in the context of our genes, and how a different culture would, in that context, cause something else. Doing that, we could come up with some ways our culture should be changed. One way to see what is the true cause, A or B, is to consider what would happen if you changed only one (at the time of its creation). So if we change genes, thousands of years ago, our culture could very well have developed to have the same results, despite the genes being quite different. But if you change imagine our culture developing differently, then having the same genes we have today won't stop it from creating different gender stereotypes.
  - Tichy 19y ago
    I think you don't want to get my point. Yes, there are ugly people who are happy. Are you saying that nothing causes depression? Some things apparently do cause depression. I was just giving an example - maybe it is not uglyness, then it is something else. I don't care, but it is something. And no, uglyness does not cause depression - not getting a mate because of ugliness causes depression. But that again is at least in part biological. I know you will deny that, though, because you did so in another threat some time ago. Anyway, if we deny the biology, we could culturally train ourselves to only be attracted to apes, and humanity would die out. I never took culture as a fixed point, in fact I pointed out several alternative cultures, both existent and hypothetical. Now I am waiting for you to describe a hypothetical culture in which things are like you want them to be, so that we can verify that it could really work that way - or perhaps biology would get in the way. Edit: and I don't get why you deny that being ugly causes depression - on average.
    - deleted 19y ago
      [deleted]
    - curi 19y ago
      We have a culture that (sort of) causes ugly people to get depressed. There is nothing innately depressing about being ugly, the whole idea of being depressed about it, and indeed of what is ugly or pretty, is in our culture. So, our culture has code to have people detect certain traits caused by genes, and act differently in their presence. Just like it detects mountains, and has people act differently in their presence. But no one goes on and on about how mountains control human personalities and determine gender differences (or mountain-raised-near differences).
      - Tichy 19y ago
        For lack of statistics on the amount of people doing startups in mountain regions compared to seaside regions, no doubt... I live nearby the mountains and I can tell you that people in the mountains have a very different culture from the people in the flatlands, or at least used to have. I am talking about the farmers - they have different problems to face in the mountains than in the flatlands. So I am sorry but yes, mountains control human personalities and culture.

by curi 19y ago

Tichy 19y ago

Of course not, but your challenges are a bit off: we are discussing complex systems, that nobody really has a hold of yet. And that includes you and me. I don't know if body height affects temper, I am just giving examples that could e plausible. For example, body height could affect the blood pressure, which would surely affect temper. What is your challenge again, that genes can affect temper? I don't even feel the need to read any papers, really. Body height doesn't convince you, take something else, say some ugly deformation of the body. Might cause depression? Maybe those examples sound ridiculous, but so does the notion that a butterfly on the other end of the world could affect the weather on the other side of the world. Actually I think the butterfly really is an exaggeration, but nevertheless, small changes can have big effects on the outcome in a complex system. So I don't think we even have to argue. Oh yes, and being a woman or a man obviously has a different outcome in temper. You claim that is only cultural, but that doesn't matter: in our current environment (a ka culture), your temper is affected by being a woman or a man. Point proven.

curi 19y ago
Being ugly doesn't cause depression. Though in some cultures ugly people are treated badly, and in some cultures many people have personalities that get depressed when others (wrongly) treat them badly. Now, if you take a culture like that as a given, you can say that ugliness causes depression, and call it a fact. And say you've proven your point. I don't dispute the possibility of making very misleading simplifications of this sort which are true in a sense. But if we want to explain what's going on in our world, it isn't reasonable to take culture as a fixed point. It would be much more fruitful to take our genes as a fixed point, and look at what our culture causes in the context of our genes, and how a different culture would, in that context, cause something else. Doing that, we could come up with some ways our culture should be changed. One way to see what is the true cause, A or B, is to consider what would happen if you changed only one (at the time of its creation). So if we change genes, thousands of years ago, our culture could very well have developed to have the same results, despite the genes being quite different. But if you change imagine our culture developing differently, then having the same genes we have today won't stop it from creating different gender stereotypes.
- Tichy 19y ago
  I think you don't want to get my point. Yes, there are ugly people who are happy. Are you saying that nothing causes depression? Some things apparently do cause depression. I was just giving an example - maybe it is not uglyness, then it is something else. I don't care, but it is something. And no, uglyness does not cause depression - not getting a mate because of ugliness causes depression. But that again is at least in part biological. I know you will deny that, though, because you did so in another threat some time ago. Anyway, if we deny the biology, we could culturally train ourselves to only be attracted to apes, and humanity would die out. I never took culture as a fixed point, in fact I pointed out several alternative cultures, both existent and hypothetical. Now I am waiting for you to describe a hypothetical culture in which things are like you want them to be, so that we can verify that it could really work that way - or perhaps biology would get in the way. Edit: and I don't get why you deny that being ugly causes depression - on average.
  - deleted 19y ago
    [deleted]
  - curi 19y ago
    We have a culture that (sort of) causes ugly people to get depressed. There is nothing innately depressing about being ugly, the whole idea of being depressed about it, and indeed of what is ugly or pretty, is in our culture. So, our culture has code to have people detect certain traits caused by genes, and act differently in their presence. Just like it detects mountains, and has people act differently in their presence. But no one goes on and on about how mountains control human personalities and determine gender differences (or mountain-raised-near differences).
    - Tichy 19y ago
      For lack of statistics on the amount of people doing startups in mountain regions compared to seaside regions, no doubt... I live nearby the mountains and I can tell you that people in the mountains have a very different culture from the people in the flatlands, or at least used to have. I am talking about the farmers - they have different problems to face in the mountains than in the flatlands. So I am sorry but yes, mountains control human personalities and culture.