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Obvious problem: Genghis Khan is dead. The fact that a full third of Asia and consequently a sixth of the whole world has some genetic similarity to Genghis Kha

by scythe 15y ago

Obvious problem: Genghis Khan is dead. The fact that a full third of Asia and consequently a sixth of the whole world has some genetic similarity to Genghis Khan does not make him any less dead. Evolution is not teleological and genes do not "want". Genes just happen; they're chemicals. Working to ensure the continuation of your genes is not mandated or valuable -- it is likely. Your parents probably did, because you exist, and most people are like their parents; modus ponens you probably will. It's not a command or an idea or a system of value, it's a description. The other obvious problem is that societies which played into the competitive heirarchy were only successful for some weird definitions of successful. If the Mongol empire is your idea of success, you have some crazy ideas about success, because the empire flared up and disappeared within 100 years, leaving Asia in ruins. On the other hand, the British and their methodical boringness not only conquered the world but lived to tell of it, and they did so largely by exploiting the willingness of less organized and "fair" societies to turn on each other -- how, precisely, did the tiny island of Britain conquer all of India (which had 20 times as many people)? Mostly because the Indians of the 19th century were backstabbing assholes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_and_Rule http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_and_Rule And how were the British kicked out of India? Well, by none other than some pacifist self-sacrificing guy named Mohandas Gandhi.

lionhearted 15y ago
Some good points, but the parts about the British Empire are off. I'd strongly recommend "Heaven's Command: An Imperial Progress" by Jan Morris for a piece that looks at all the good and bad that the British Empire did under Victoria. To make a long story really short, the British did ridiculous amounts of good in their colonies. For instance, eliminating the Thugee strangling cult: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuggee#The_practice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuggee#The_practice They also ended a lot of cannibalism, human sacrifices, completely ended the worldwide slave trade, eliminated piracy, brought rule of law, built infrastructure, brought science and the scientific method, eliminated cults, ended rituals of widows burning themselves on their husband's funeral pyre, eliminated kidnap/rape/murder cycles in many of their possessions, brought sanitation and education, and... just tons of good. Overwhelming amounts of good. The Empire was lost largely out of a sense of guilt and an unwillingness to take the actions that would have preserved it - pretty much any individual uprising could have been crushed if they'd decided to (including the American Revolution - see Ron Chernow's "Washington - A Life" for just how easy it would been for the British to end the whole thing at Boston, New York, or Valley Forge at various times).
- scythe 15y ago
  >To make a long story really short, the British did ridiculous amounts of good in their colonies. Uh, okay, so... I'm bad at explaining things, because that is the point of what I wrote about the British. The British were successful not by being cutthroat but by being fair. The author characterizes such 'cooperative' strategies as ineffective, and says that they don't tend to succeed: >The essence of how culture uses men depends on a basic social insecurity. This insecurity is in fact social, existential, and biological. Built into the male role is the danger of not being good enough to be accepted and respected and even the danger of not being able to do well enough to create offspring. >The basic social insecurity of manhood is stressful for the men, and it is hardly surprising that so many men crack up or do evil or heroic things or die younger than women. But that insecurity is useful and productive for the culture, the system. >Again, I’m not saying it’s right, or fair, or proper. But it has worked. The cultures that have succeeded have used this formula, and that is one reason that they have succeeded instead of their rivals. The Empire had lots of 'morality' and 'fairness' provisions that the societies it conquered did not. It could be said that this sense of fairness led to the loss of the Empire -- but Britain is arguably better off now than 80 years ago, whereas Mongolia is... not rich.
  - ohashi 15y ago
    But may be soon with all those natural resources!
    - bergie 15y ago
      Generally it seems natural resources only stunt the state of a country and benefit very few. Norway appears to be one of the only places with rich natural resources and a working society.
      - ohashi 15y ago
        Australia? USA? Canada? There are many different resources besides simply oil (I am making an assumption that's what is in your mind because of the Norway example). Mongolia doesn't simply have oil (and they rank #92 in the world for oil production - so they don't even have much of it), they have richer mineral deposits.
aidenn0 15y ago
I'm not sure where you disagree with the posted article: "Evolution is not teleological and genes do not "want". Genes just happen; they're chemicals. Working to ensure the continuation of your genes is not mandated or valuable -- it is likely. This doesn't conflict with the article at all. The article never claims that humans have an ethical mandate to ensure the continuation of your genes. Furthermore your statement that this behavior is _likely_ actually agrees with the article. "The other obvious problem is that societies which played into the competitive heirarchy were only successful for some weird definitions of successful. I don't see where the article claims competitive heirarchies are more successful. About the closest I could find is that cultures who disproportionately use their men for high-risk roles are more successful than those who do not; but I don't see how this differentiated the British from the Mongols.
- scythe 15y ago
  >About the closest I could find is that cultures who disproportionately use their men for high-risk roles are more successful than those who do not; but I don't see how this differentiated the British from the Mongols. Oh, they both did -- no question about that -- but the Mongols did it a whole damn lot more, i.e. warrior society as opposed to civil society, and were arguably less successful, long term.
sliverstorm 15y ago
So what if the Mongol empire lasted only 100 years and left Asia in ruins? It was pretty good for Genghis Khan's genes if a sixth of the world is related to him. You're fundamentally not thinking about genes and evolution the right way. It's not an individual thing. Genghis Khan probably didn't care how many children he had. But in an evolutionary sense, his genes were extremely successful. Genes "wanting" things is simply a figure of speech to make the whole thing more understandable in colloquial language. They of course do not have desires, but because of the way the system works it makes things clearer to think of them as if they did have an agenda.
- scythe 15y ago
  >It was pretty good for Genghis Khan's genes if a sixth of the world is related to him. Genghis Khan's genes don't care. They're genes. They just exist. > it makes things clearer to think of [genes] as if they did have an agenda. Not really. The Price equation doesn't really bring agenda into the issue. >It's [genetics] not an individual thing. Of course not! Life is an individual thing. Where you trail off into the aether is when you say Genghis Khan benefits from something happening today. Genghis Khan cannot possibly benefit from anything happening today, because he died a long damn time ago.
  - sliverstorm 15y ago
    You did not read what I wrote, did you. I never once asserted that the man, Genghis Khan, benefited in any way whatsoever from having such a large progeny.
run4yourlives 15y ago
Gandhi was a pacifist, but what he did wasn't exactly peaceful. I think you're missing the larger point by focusing on specifics and minutiae.
roel_v 15y ago
"And how were the British kicked out of India? Well, by none other than some pacifist self-sacrificing guy named Mohandas Gandhi." Eh, no - Gandhi had little to do with the actual 'end game' of Indian independence. The main drivers were unrest within the Indian army and a lack of focus and drive of the British empire to spend money and effort on keeping control of India after the very taxing second World War. It's unclear what real effects, if any, Gandhi's action in the decades before the 1940's really had.

by scythe 15y ago

lionhearted 15y ago

Some good points, but the parts about the British Empire are off. I'd strongly recommend "Heaven's Command: An Imperial Progress" by Jan Morris for a piece that looks at all the good and bad that the British Empire did under Victoria. To make a long story really short, the British did ridiculous amounts of good in their colonies. For instance, eliminating the Thugee strangling cult: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuggee#The_practice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuggee#The_practice They also ended a lot of cannibalism, human sacrifices, completely ended the worldwide slave trade, eliminated piracy, brought rule of law, built infrastructure, brought science and the scientific method, eliminated cults, ended rituals of widows burning themselves on their husband's funeral pyre, eliminated kidnap/rape/murder cycles in many of their possessions, brought sanitation and education, and... just tons of good. Overwhelming amounts of good. The Empire was lost largely out of a sense of guilt and an unwillingness to take the actions that would have preserved it - pretty much any individual uprising could have been crushed if they'd decided to (including the American Revolution - see Ron Chernow's "Washington - A Life" for just how easy it would been for the British to end the whole thing at Boston, New York, or Valley Forge at various times).

scythe 15y ago
>To make a long story really short, the British did ridiculous amounts of good in their colonies. Uh, okay, so... I'm bad at explaining things, because that is the point of what I wrote about the British. The British were successful not by being cutthroat but by being fair. The author characterizes such 'cooperative' strategies as ineffective, and says that they don't tend to succeed: >The essence of how culture uses men depends on a basic social insecurity. This insecurity is in fact social, existential, and biological. Built into the male role is the danger of not being good enough to be accepted and respected and even the danger of not being able to do well enough to create offspring. >The basic social insecurity of manhood is stressful for the men, and it is hardly surprising that so many men crack up or do evil or heroic things or die younger than women. But that insecurity is useful and productive for the culture, the system. >Again, I’m not saying it’s right, or fair, or proper. But it has worked. The cultures that have succeeded have used this formula, and that is one reason that they have succeeded instead of their rivals. The Empire had lots of 'morality' and 'fairness' provisions that the societies it conquered did not. It could be said that this sense of fairness led to the loss of the Empire -- but Britain is arguably better off now than 80 years ago, whereas Mongolia is... not rich.
- ohashi 15y ago
  But may be soon with all those natural resources!
  - bergie 15y ago
    Generally it seems natural resources only stunt the state of a country and benefit very few. Norway appears to be one of the only places with rich natural resources and a working society.
    - ohashi 15y ago
      Australia? USA? Canada? There are many different resources besides simply oil (I am making an assumption that's what is in your mind because of the Norway example). Mongolia doesn't simply have oil (and they rank #92 in the world for oil production - so they don't even have much of it), they have richer mineral deposits.

aidenn0 15y ago

I'm not sure where you disagree with the posted article: "Evolution is not teleological and genes do not "want". Genes just happen; they're chemicals. Working to ensure the continuation of your genes is not mandated or valuable -- it is likely. This doesn't conflict with the article at all. The article never claims that humans have an ethical mandate to ensure the continuation of your genes. Furthermore your statement that this behavior is _likely_ actually agrees with the article. "The other obvious problem is that societies which played into the competitive heirarchy were only successful for some weird definitions of successful. I don't see where the article claims competitive heirarchies are more successful. About the closest I could find is that cultures who disproportionately use their men for high-risk roles are more successful than those who do not; but I don't see how this differentiated the British from the Mongols.

scythe 15y ago
>About the closest I could find is that cultures who disproportionately use their men for high-risk roles are more successful than those who do not; but I don't see how this differentiated the British from the Mongols. Oh, they both did -- no question about that -- but the Mongols did it a whole damn lot more, i.e. warrior society as opposed to civil society, and were arguably less successful, long term.

sliverstorm 15y ago

So what if the Mongol empire lasted only 100 years and left Asia in ruins? It was pretty good for Genghis Khan's genes if a sixth of the world is related to him. You're fundamentally not thinking about genes and evolution the right way. It's not an individual thing. Genghis Khan probably didn't care how many children he had. But in an evolutionary sense, his genes were extremely successful. Genes "wanting" things is simply a figure of speech to make the whole thing more understandable in colloquial language. They of course do not have desires, but because of the way the system works it makes things clearer to think of them as if they did have an agenda.

scythe 15y ago
>It was pretty good for Genghis Khan's genes if a sixth of the world is related to him. Genghis Khan's genes don't care. They're genes. They just exist. > it makes things clearer to think of [genes] as if they did have an agenda. Not really. The Price equation doesn't really bring agenda into the issue. >It's [genetics] not an individual thing. Of course not! Life is an individual thing. Where you trail off into the aether is when you say Genghis Khan benefits from something happening today. Genghis Khan cannot possibly benefit from anything happening today, because he died a long damn time ago.
- sliverstorm 15y ago
  You did not read what I wrote, did you. I never once asserted that the man, Genghis Khan, benefited in any way whatsoever from having such a large progeny.

run4yourlives 15y ago

Gandhi was a pacifist, but what he did wasn't exactly peaceful. I think you're missing the larger point by focusing on specifics and minutiae.

roel_v 15y ago

"And how were the British kicked out of India? Well, by none other than some pacifist self-sacrificing guy named Mohandas Gandhi." Eh, no - Gandhi had little to do with the actual 'end game' of Indian independence. The main drivers were unrest within the Indian army and a lack of focus and drive of the British empire to spend money and effort on keeping control of India after the very taxing second World War. It's unclear what real effects, if any, Gandhi's action in the decades before the 1940's really had.