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> Not many are interested in dying for their country. If you refuse an order to advance on an enemy stronghold, you'll get shot. Actually, what that shows more

> Not many are interested in dying for their country. If you refuse an order to advance on an enemy stronghold, you'll get shot. Actually, what that shows more than anything is that not many people are willing to kill for their country. Killing other humans, even in self-interest, is often very hard to do - this is actually further evidence that people are quite collaborative and non-confrontational by nature.

WalterBright 6y ago
Talk to a combat veteran. One who has really been in combat and under fire. You won't find many who are eager to advance under fire. The 8th AF was suffering 80% casualties when my father was in the air war. He would talk sometimes about the terrible, gut-melting fear, and how it would crush some of the men, and how some of the men dealt with it (like heavy drinking). They weren't reluctant to kill the enemy - I asked him about it. He said the enemy was doing their damnedest to kill him, and he was trying to survive, not die. If you refused to go on a mission, the threat of execution was there, although they didn't do it. There was surely prison and utter disgrace, though, which many would consider worse than dying. My father dealt with it by looking at the numbers and resigning himself to death. He figured that while he lasted he'd do his duty and his best. When he signed up, I think he thought of it more as an adventure than a death sentence, like most young men do. Young men imagine themselves to be immortal.
- leto_ii 6y ago
  > Talk to a combat veteran. One who has really been in combat and under fire. > You won't find many who are eager to advance under fire. I have actually, my grandfather fought in WW2. His stories were usually short, grim, brutal. He, however, emphasized the importance of fighting for the country, of reclaiming occupied land, of putting the greater interest ahead of your own personal fears. Incidentally, while I fully admire his behavior, I don't think 'fighting for the country' is a particularly natural thing for humans to do. > They weren't reluctant to kill the enemy - I asked him about it. As far as I know lots of evidence points to the contrary. People often go so far as to deliberately miss shots in order not to kill somebody. > My father dealt with it by looking at the numbers and resigning himself to death. He figured that while he lasted he'd do his duty and his best. This sounds quite selfless to me. It may have been done through social pressure, but what this shows is that the fear of opprobrium is greater than the fear of dying - moving against the group is more unpleasant for humans than death.
WalterBright 6y ago
> this is actually further evidence that people are quite collaborative and non-confrontational by nature. Once again, I must emphasize that being motivated by self-interest usually means collaborating. That's how free markets work - collaboration among self-interested people. Collectivism is about self-sacrifice. Sure, you can find people willing to do that. But not enough to structure society around it.
- leto_ii 6y ago
  I really don't understand what free markets have to do with anything in this context. > being motivated by self-interest usually means collaborating If you're willing to define self-interest broadly enough then everything can fall under it. Altruism? it's just self-interest because some people simply derive utility from helping others. Self-sacrifice? just self interest because some people like the idea of glory and having streets named after them etc. > Collectivism is about self-sacrifice I think wittingly or unwittingly you're playing around with different interpretations of the terms you're using. Altruism and collectivism are not the same thing, just like selfishness and individualism are not the same. If by collectivism you mean the top-down, oppressive treatment of humans as replaceable cogs in a machine, then we're in agreement - that's inhuman, unnatural. If on the other hand you call basic altruism unnatural, then we're in sharp disagreement.
  - nickpp 6y ago
    There is no such thing as altruism, at the species level. It's all selfishness (of the genes) all the way down. Read Richard Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene" to better understand human behaviour as shaped by millions of years of evolutionary forces.
    - leto_ii 6y ago
      > Read Richard Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene" I have, I don't fully agree with Dawkins. I'm not a biologist, merely a dilettante, but I can point to source [1] for some counter-arguments. First, there's a difference between the biological and the common use of the term 'altruism': > This biological notion of altruism is not identical to the everyday concept. In everyday parlance, an action would only be called ‘altruistic’ if it was done with the conscious intention of helping another. But in the biological sense there is no such requirement. Indeed, some of the most interesting examples of biological altruism are found among creatures that are (presumably) not capable of conscious thought at all, e.g. insects. For the biologist, it is the consequences of an action for reproductive fitness that determine whether the action counts as altruistic, not the intentions, if any, with which the action is performed. When I used the term I used it in the common sense, not in the biological one. Then there's the concept of kin selection: > The basic idea of kin selection is simple. Imagine a gene which causes its bearer to behave altruistically towards other organisms, e.g. by sharing food with them. Organisms without the gene are selfish—they keep all their food for themselves, and sometimes get handouts from the altruists. Clearly the altruists will be at a fitness disadvantage, so we should expect the altruistic gene to be eliminated from the population. However, suppose that altruists are discriminating in who they share food with. They do not share with just anybody, but only with their relatives. This immediately changes things. [...] > Contrary to what is sometimes thought, kin selection does not require that animals must have the ability to discriminate relatives from non-relatives, less still to calculate coefficients of relationship. Many animals can in fact recognize their kin, often by smell, but kin selection can operate in the absence of such an ability. Hamilton's inequality can be satisfied so long as an animal behaves altruistically towards other animals that are in fact its relatives. The animal might achieve this by having the ability to tell relatives from non-relatives, but this is not the only possibility. An alternative is to use some proximal indicator of kinship. For example, if an animal behaves altruistically towards those in its immediate vicinity, then the recipients of the altruism are likely to be relatives, given that relatives tend to live near each other. No ability to recognize kin is presupposed. Separately, I have found interesting points of view different from those of Dawkins in the works of ethologists (I read de Waal and Lorenz myself) and in 'What Darwin Got Wrong' by Fodor and Piattelli. Just because Dawkins is the more popular author it doesn't mean he's right by necessity. There are a host of theories about how evolution works, the role of altruism etc. Things don't begin and end with the selfish gene. Robert Sapolsky's work [2] also touches on selfishness, aggression, altruism etc. He discussed the baboon troupe in detail on the Joe Rogan Experience as well. [1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/altruism-biological/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/altruism-biological/ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4UMyTnlaMY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4UMyTnlaMY

WalterBright 6y ago

Talk to a combat veteran. One who has really been in combat and under fire. You won't find many who are eager to advance under fire. The 8th AF was suffering 80% casualties when my father was in the air war. He would talk sometimes about the terrible, gut-melting fear, and how it would crush some of the men, and how some of the men dealt with it (like heavy drinking). They weren't reluctant to kill the enemy - I asked him about it. He said the enemy was doing their damnedest to kill him, and he was trying to survive, not die. If you refused to go on a mission, the threat of execution was there, although they didn't do it. There was surely prison and utter disgrace, though, which many would consider worse than dying. My father dealt with it by looking at the numbers and resigning himself to death. He figured that while he lasted he'd do his duty and his best. When he signed up, I think he thought of it more as an adventure than a death sentence, like most young men do. Young men imagine themselves to be immortal.

leto_ii 6y ago
> Talk to a combat veteran. One who has really been in combat and under fire. > You won't find many who are eager to advance under fire. I have actually, my grandfather fought in WW2. His stories were usually short, grim, brutal. He, however, emphasized the importance of fighting for the country, of reclaiming occupied land, of putting the greater interest ahead of your own personal fears. Incidentally, while I fully admire his behavior, I don't think 'fighting for the country' is a particularly natural thing for humans to do. > They weren't reluctant to kill the enemy - I asked him about it. As far as I know lots of evidence points to the contrary. People often go so far as to deliberately miss shots in order not to kill somebody. > My father dealt with it by looking at the numbers and resigning himself to death. He figured that while he lasted he'd do his duty and his best. This sounds quite selfless to me. It may have been done through social pressure, but what this shows is that the fear of opprobrium is greater than the fear of dying - moving against the group is more unpleasant for humans than death.

WalterBright 6y ago

> this is actually further evidence that people are quite collaborative and non-confrontational by nature. Once again, I must emphasize that being motivated by self-interest usually means collaborating. That's how free markets work - collaboration among self-interested people. Collectivism is about self-sacrifice. Sure, you can find people willing to do that. But not enough to structure society around it.

leto_ii 6y ago
I really don't understand what free markets have to do with anything in this context. > being motivated by self-interest usually means collaborating If you're willing to define self-interest broadly enough then everything can fall under it. Altruism? it's just self-interest because some people simply derive utility from helping others. Self-sacrifice? just self interest because some people like the idea of glory and having streets named after them etc. > Collectivism is about self-sacrifice I think wittingly or unwittingly you're playing around with different interpretations of the terms you're using. Altruism and collectivism are not the same thing, just like selfishness and individualism are not the same. If by collectivism you mean the top-down, oppressive treatment of humans as replaceable cogs in a machine, then we're in agreement - that's inhuman, unnatural. If on the other hand you call basic altruism unnatural, then we're in sharp disagreement.
- nickpp 6y ago
  There is no such thing as altruism, at the species level. It's all selfishness (of the genes) all the way down. Read Richard Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene" to better understand human behaviour as shaped by millions of years of evolutionary forces.
  - leto_ii 6y ago
    > Read Richard Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene" I have, I don't fully agree with Dawkins. I'm not a biologist, merely a dilettante, but I can point to source [1] for some counter-arguments. First, there's a difference between the biological and the common use of the term 'altruism': > This biological notion of altruism is not identical to the everyday concept. In everyday parlance, an action would only be called ‘altruistic’ if it was done with the conscious intention of helping another. But in the biological sense there is no such requirement. Indeed, some of the most interesting examples of biological altruism are found among creatures that are (presumably) not capable of conscious thought at all, e.g. insects. For the biologist, it is the consequences of an action for reproductive fitness that determine whether the action counts as altruistic, not the intentions, if any, with which the action is performed. When I used the term I used it in the common sense, not in the biological one. Then there's the concept of kin selection: > The basic idea of kin selection is simple. Imagine a gene which causes its bearer to behave altruistically towards other organisms, e.g. by sharing food with them. Organisms without the gene are selfish—they keep all their food for themselves, and sometimes get handouts from the altruists. Clearly the altruists will be at a fitness disadvantage, so we should expect the altruistic gene to be eliminated from the population. However, suppose that altruists are discriminating in who they share food with. They do not share with just anybody, but only with their relatives. This immediately changes things. [...] > Contrary to what is sometimes thought, kin selection does not require that animals must have the ability to discriminate relatives from non-relatives, less still to calculate coefficients of relationship. Many animals can in fact recognize their kin, often by smell, but kin selection can operate in the absence of such an ability. Hamilton's inequality can be satisfied so long as an animal behaves altruistically towards other animals that are in fact its relatives. The animal might achieve this by having the ability to tell relatives from non-relatives, but this is not the only possibility. An alternative is to use some proximal indicator of kinship. For example, if an animal behaves altruistically towards those in its immediate vicinity, then the recipients of the altruism are likely to be relatives, given that relatives tend to live near each other. No ability to recognize kin is presupposed. Separately, I have found interesting points of view different from those of Dawkins in the works of ethologists (I read de Waal and Lorenz myself) and in 'What Darwin Got Wrong' by Fodor and Piattelli. Just because Dawkins is the more popular author it doesn't mean he's right by necessity. There are a host of theories about how evolution works, the role of altruism etc. Things don't begin and end with the selfish gene. Robert Sapolsky's work [2] also touches on selfishness, aggression, altruism etc. He discussed the baboon troupe in detail on the Joe Rogan Experience as well. [1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/altruism-biological/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/altruism-biological/ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4UMyTnlaMY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4UMyTnlaMY