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Well, you misrepresented a lot of what I said, but I will focus on this: > You're trying to argue that politics is based on biological kinship and you're simpl

Well, you misrepresented a lot of what I said, but I will focus on this: > You're trying to argue that politics is based on biological kinship and you're simply not supporting that claim in anything you say. No. What I am arguing is that in ANY group of people, politics emerges naturally. And as a second argument, "close kinship" is the most natural way that people have grouped historically and up to this very day. And throughout history there is no closer kinship than biological relationships to one another. That is it. I am not arguing that race is important for politics to emerge or that people can't group in any way they feel like (Brown fans, eg), or that biology begets politics or anything like that.

s1artibartfast 5y ago
Are the points related in any way? Is there a conclusion drawn from the synthesis of the two? If close kinship means immediate and extended family, then I would agree.
hnbad 5y ago
Okay, so if we just assume everything you state is factual, what's your point in stating it? Politics is an emergent property of social bonds at scale, sure. Families are the smallest social group, sure. Strength of social bonds within a grouping tends to be inversely proportional to the size of the grouping, sure. Blood ties are the strongest, sure. So what? Except you're not even right about biological relationships being all that special. You think you don't have to provide evidence for this because it is "common knowledge" but it's based on ideas like the nuclear family, which are fairly recent inventions. Families used to span multiple generations and include unrelated household members (think maids, farm hands, etc) and prior to that tribes encompassed what we might as well refer to as villages, where biological relation is more incidental than the basis for social bonds. Even as a naturalistic argument appealing to other animals it fails: in many species packs will allow stragglers to join the group and treat them no different than blood relatives. There's some truth to parent-child bonds being special but you're attempting to extrapolate from that to entire social groups and to argue for some kind of historical progression based on it which is nothing more than a just-so narrative.

s1artibartfast 5y ago

Are the points related in any way? Is there a conclusion drawn from the synthesis of the two? If close kinship means immediate and extended family, then I would agree.

hnbad 5y ago

Okay, so if we just assume everything you state is factual, what's your point in stating it? Politics is an emergent property of social bonds at scale, sure. Families are the smallest social group, sure. Strength of social bonds within a grouping tends to be inversely proportional to the size of the grouping, sure. Blood ties are the strongest, sure. So what? Except you're not even right about biological relationships being all that special. You think you don't have to provide evidence for this because it is "common knowledge" but it's based on ideas like the nuclear family, which are fairly recent inventions. Families used to span multiple generations and include unrelated household members (think maids, farm hands, etc) and prior to that tribes encompassed what we might as well refer to as villages, where biological relation is more incidental than the basis for social bonds. Even as a naturalistic argument appealing to other animals it fails: in many species packs will allow stragglers to join the group and treat them no different than blood relatives. There's some truth to parent-child bonds being special but you're attempting to extrapolate from that to entire social groups and to argue for some kind of historical progression based on it which is nothing more than a just-so narrative.