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From the evolutionary point of view, if some people are susceptible to believing in harmful ideologies that lead them to die off, maybe it's better to let them
by chr1 6y ago
From the evolutionary point of view, if some people are susceptible to believing in harmful ideologies that lead them to die off, maybe it's better to let them to die off instead of spreading their mind-virus further. There are many smart people who have many children like Elon Musk, Antony Davies or Kirk Sorenson.
Edit: some people interpret this as saying that not wanting children is a genetic trait, but what i was trying to say was that it's a counterproductive idea which will eventually burn itself out, and there are many smart people who are not suffering from it. So we won't run out of smart people.
- ojnabieoot 6y agoThe idea that susceptibility to dumb ideologies is a genetic weakness that “smarter” people are not susceptible to is completely at odds with current anthropological and sociological knowledge - ideology is part of the human condition, and being unable to determine whether or not your ideology is dangerous bullshit is part of the nature of ideology. Teichmuller, Nazi Germany’s greatest mathematician, was also an anti-Semitic loon. Your comment about “smart people will have lots of kids who will save us” [paraphrasing] is ironically invalidated by Elon Musk himself, whose COVID tweeting and commentary is pure fact-free ideology (most infamously here: https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1240754657263144960 https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/12407546572631449... but he’s still going: https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-and-kids-wont-get-coronavirus-vaccine-2020-9 https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-and-kids-wont-get-...) It is worth emphasizing that these comments are just straight-up indefensibly dumb.
- chr1 6y agoI was not saying that the idea of not having children is genetically determined. (There might be some genetical component related to being susceptible to depressions, but that's not the point). I was trying to say, that the idea itself is often passed to children, via non-genetic means, and it will burn out the part of population bearing it. But that's not fatal for humanity because there are many smart people who have multiple children, so independently of exact percentage of heritability of intellect we are not doomed. And regarding to the snide comment about Elon, independently of his opinions on any issues, he have done enough to prove that he is smarter and vastly more useful to humanity than average people.
- ojnabieoot 6y agoMy point was that smart people like Elon are fully capable of believing suicidally stupid things.