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I read a book awhile ago called Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?, which basically argues that cultures which strongly promote traditional values, having c

I read a book awhile ago called Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?, which basically argues that cultures which strongly promote traditional values, having children, etc. will evolutionarily outcompete groups that don’t. It made me think that there must be a kind of cycle in human societies, where certain social values (like the ones mentioned in the article) are able to become popular for a short period of time (which can be over a century long) but ultimately have no ability to sustain themselves and then are outcompeted. The amount of “defectors” isn’t enough to sustain the population. Given how difficult it seems for any genuinely universal cultural movement to take off in the dating space, it seems to me like a similar thing will happen over the course of the 21st and 22nd centuries.

paulddraper 3y ago
> Given how difficult it seems for any genuinely universal cultural movement to take off in the dating space ????? Dating culture is substantially different than a decade ago.
- keiferski 3y ago
  I meant to take off deliberately with the aim of correcting the problem mentioned in the article. Western society seems too self-absorbed to me to ever move past selfish motives at this point. In other words, some kind of cultural movement that tells people to put their preferences aside “for the good of society” seems like it won’t work anytime soon.
  - paulddraper 3y ago
    Oh okay I don't see that happening any sooner than the heat death of the universe.
- zilti 3y ago
  Indeed, it, has become substantially worse, even though that seemed almost impossible.
  - medvezhenok 3y ago
    *Worse for the average person, better for the elite. Just another symptom of growing inequality. As I said in another post, better to be the 10th wife of a prince rather than the 1st wife of a commoner (in a highly unequal society).
analog31 3y ago
This only makes sense if quantity of population matters more than quality.
- dahwolf 3y ago
  No, it doesn't. That's exactly the problem. It seems the more "quality", whatever that means, the less people reproduce, thus society falls apart.
dnissley 3y ago
I'm starting to view the relationship between the religious part of our society and the secular as being symbiotic in a sense. What makes people defect from religious communities on the border to secular centers? Some combination of money, freedom, and power (to participate in shaping the wider society at scale). The cost of that defection is an uprooting and disconnection from "traditional values". I'm not as certain about this part, but part of it seems to be that it's easier to do the work of having and raising children on the border. What makes people defect from the secular centers back to religious communities on the border? Just the opposite trade off -- less money, freedom, power. But you'll be more grounded and connected to a community, which can be immensely satisfying. And it's easier to raise kids. Also I should note here that the borders and centers I'm talking about aren't necessarily physical -- in fact increasingly they are very much not, especially with the rise of remote work. People in the secular center are doing a tremendous amount of very valuable and high leverage technical work to make a scaled civilization like ours function on a day-to-day basis. That's super important stuff. People in religious (or cultural) communities at the border are doing a tremendous amount of cultural work to sustain a reserve of human values that can fuel those at the center when hard times come. Also super important stuff. A balance in the tradeoffs between these places and a continuous cycling of people between them seems healthy to me.
- ryanwaggoner 3y ago
  I love this, but there's one thing I'd point out. With few exceptions, there's little defection from secular society into fundamentalist religious communities. Almost everyone in those communities was born there.
  - azemetre 3y ago
    Reminds me of the period of people coming to America during colonial times. That there were stories and tales of people joining Native American tribes, completely leaving their old lives behind and becoming happier but you never heard accounts of the reverse. Native Americans willing joining the colonist, this rarely, if ever, happened.
hayst4ck 3y ago
[flagged]
- ativzzz 3y ago
  Luckily we as humans can choose to agree with certain aspects of an ideology while disagreeing with other aspects of it
  - hayst4ck 3y ago
    Indeed, that's why it's important to know where ideologies come from, who is using them, and to what ends they are using them for so we can be reflective of the greater implications of our beliefs. If you find your ideology in the mouths of authoritarians, fascists, or those with genocidal intent, it's probably worth reflecting on why. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/what-is-the-great-replacement-what-are-its-origins-2022-05-16/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/what-is-the-great-replaceme... > WHAT ARE THE ORIGINS OF 'THE GREAT REPLACEMENT'? > It is thought to have its roots in early 20th century French nationalism. It was popularized in recent years by French writer Renaud Camus who believes immigration from Africa and the Middle East will eventually lead to the extinction of the native white European race, according to non-profit organization ADL (Anti-Defamation League.) Because many white nationalists in the United States and abroad believe Jewish people are actively encouraging non-white immigration, the false narrative is considered anti-Semitic, the ADL said. White "replacement theory" and the idea of a "white genocide" were a pillar of Nazi Germany's ideology, which pointed to Jews as the single most dangerous threat to white civilization. The Nazis killed six million Jews in World War Two.
ryanwaggoner 3y ago
I think fundamentalism is too brittle to persist like that over the long term. Yes, the most conservative religions usually have a lot of kids, but over the generations, many of those kids will leave the religion, or at least join a less fundamentalist strain and have fewer kids. Unless the culture is kept strictly separate (increasingly impossible), the quality of life that the surrounding secular culture offers is too alluring. So standards are relaxed, women get educated and start working, have fewer kids. And it ripples down the generations. It hasn't happened yet in some of the less developed parts of the world, but as they get richer, it will. It always does.
- disgruntledphd2 3y ago
  The growth of the ultra Orthodox in Israel is an interesting counter example to your point.
Animats 3y ago
> I read a book awhile ago called Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?, which basically argues that cultures which strongly promote traditional values, having children, etc. will evolutionarily out-compete groups that don’t. That's happening in Israel, as the haredi out-breed the reform Jews and the seculars.[1] Religious societies that oppress women, breed lots of kids, and are dominated by old men in black with beards are a thing. That exists in Jewish, Islamic, and Christian forms, so it's independent of the brand of religion. [1] https://www.jta.org/2021/03/10/israel/how-the-haredi-orthodox-are-changing-israel https://www.jta.org/2021/03/10/israel/how-the-haredi-orthodo...
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
  Those models can only exist as minority feeding on a majority. Without reform Jews and seculars, their country will be overrun by neighbors in a few hours.
akomtu 3y ago
Hinduist "four ugas" capture this idea very well: the golden age when strong and good create values, the silver age when weak and good uphold the values, the bronze age when weak with sloppy morals let the values decline, the iron age when strong and evil destroy the values. I doubt that the current situation with marriage institute is seen as a problem by those in power. As we're progressing towards the iron age, the culture of indiscriminate hookups will prevail and will be celebrated by governments, the only motive of short connections will be greed and lust, and the kids, occasionally born from such encounters will be raised in the gov kindergartens. And people will worship AI that, among other things, will match pairs on the dating market.
- shrimp_emoji 3y ago
  Woah. The Ancient Greeks did the metal thing too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_Man Maybe it was an even earlier Proto-Indo-European meme that radiated out to everyone.
  - akomtu 3y ago
    Speaking of Greeks, they believed that such universal ideas come from the world of ideas, or the world of archetypes; great thinkers merely perceive this world, and that's why different cultures seemingly by accident end up with the same ideas in their "books of wisdom". In this worldview, the achievement of greek or indian philosophers isn't creating the idea of the four ages, but expressing it in the limited thoughts framework they had to deal with. It's a lot like how painters try to express what they see on a small flat rectangle of paper.
    - shrimp_emoji 3y ago
      They were wrong; it's all from the Proto-Indo-Europeans.
- PoignardAzur 3y ago
  Deveraux's blog makes a good argument that this meme is ahistorical: https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-part-i-war-at-the-dawn-of-civilization/ https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-... Tldr: we glorify the men of harsh societies shaped by scarcity, but soft liberal societies actually outcompete them militarily and economically.
fineIllregister 3y ago
This doesn't pass the eye test. If it's true that religious people will outbreed non-religious people, why is religiosity declining? The simple answer is that religion is not hereditary. Children of religious parents do not necessarily follow their parents' beliefs. My family is an example. Several children taught that evolution is fake, and none of us agree with our parents. Only one of us have any religious beliefs at all.
- keiferski 3y ago
  Religiosity isn’t declining (globally) and the book addresses the “defection” idea, noting that most people still have similar beliefs as their parents, and that birth rates still outcompete defections.
  - fineIllregister 3y ago
    Every source I can find says that secularism/atheism is growing worldwide. Not sure what you're talking about. Even if "most" people don't "defect", you have to make up the remainder by people going the other way, for which there doesn't seem to be any evidence.
    - keiferski 3y ago
      The nonreligious are growing in raw numbers but decreasing in percentage terms. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/10/how-religious-will-the-world-be-in-2050/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/10/how-religious-will-th... You don’t need to make up the remainder by going the other way, as I mentioned above: religious population growth comes from birth rates, not conversions.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

paulddraper 3y ago

> Given how difficult it seems for any genuinely universal cultural movement to take off in the dating space ????? Dating culture is substantially different than a decade ago.

keiferski 3y ago
I meant to take off deliberately with the aim of correcting the problem mentioned in the article. Western society seems too self-absorbed to me to ever move past selfish motives at this point. In other words, some kind of cultural movement that tells people to put their preferences aside “for the good of society” seems like it won’t work anytime soon.
- paulddraper 3y ago
  Oh okay I don't see that happening any sooner than the heat death of the universe.
zilti 3y ago
Indeed, it, has become substantially worse, even though that seemed almost impossible.
- medvezhenok 3y ago
  *Worse for the average person, better for the elite. Just another symptom of growing inequality. As I said in another post, better to be the 10th wife of a prince rather than the 1st wife of a commoner (in a highly unequal society).

analog31 3y ago

This only makes sense if quantity of population matters more than quality.

dahwolf 3y ago
No, it doesn't. That's exactly the problem. It seems the more "quality", whatever that means, the less people reproduce, thus society falls apart.

dnissley 3y ago

I'm starting to view the relationship between the religious part of our society and the secular as being symbiotic in a sense. What makes people defect from religious communities on the border to secular centers? Some combination of money, freedom, and power (to participate in shaping the wider society at scale). The cost of that defection is an uprooting and disconnection from "traditional values". I'm not as certain about this part, but part of it seems to be that it's easier to do the work of having and raising children on the border. What makes people defect from the secular centers back to religious communities on the border? Just the opposite trade off -- less money, freedom, power. But you'll be more grounded and connected to a community, which can be immensely satisfying. And it's easier to raise kids. Also I should note here that the borders and centers I'm talking about aren't necessarily physical -- in fact increasingly they are very much not, especially with the rise of remote work. People in the secular center are doing a tremendous amount of very valuable and high leverage technical work to make a scaled civilization like ours function on a day-to-day basis. That's super important stuff. People in religious (or cultural) communities at the border are doing a tremendous amount of cultural work to sustain a reserve of human values that can fuel those at the center when hard times come. Also super important stuff. A balance in the tradeoffs between these places and a continuous cycling of people between them seems healthy to me.

ryanwaggoner 3y ago
I love this, but there's one thing I'd point out. With few exceptions, there's little defection from secular society into fundamentalist religious communities. Almost everyone in those communities was born there.
- azemetre 3y ago
  Reminds me of the period of people coming to America during colonial times. That there were stories and tales of people joining Native American tribes, completely leaving their old lives behind and becoming happier but you never heard accounts of the reverse. Native Americans willing joining the colonist, this rarely, if ever, happened.

hayst4ck 3y ago

[flagged]

ativzzz 3y ago
Luckily we as humans can choose to agree with certain aspects of an ideology while disagreeing with other aspects of it
- hayst4ck 3y ago
  Indeed, that's why it's important to know where ideologies come from, who is using them, and to what ends they are using them for so we can be reflective of the greater implications of our beliefs. If you find your ideology in the mouths of authoritarians, fascists, or those with genocidal intent, it's probably worth reflecting on why. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/what-is-the-great-replacement-what-are-its-origins-2022-05-16/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/what-is-the-great-replaceme... > WHAT ARE THE ORIGINS OF 'THE GREAT REPLACEMENT'? > It is thought to have its roots in early 20th century French nationalism. It was popularized in recent years by French writer Renaud Camus who believes immigration from Africa and the Middle East will eventually lead to the extinction of the native white European race, according to non-profit organization ADL (Anti-Defamation League.) Because many white nationalists in the United States and abroad believe Jewish people are actively encouraging non-white immigration, the false narrative is considered anti-Semitic, the ADL said. White "replacement theory" and the idea of a "white genocide" were a pillar of Nazi Germany's ideology, which pointed to Jews as the single most dangerous threat to white civilization. The Nazis killed six million Jews in World War Two.

ryanwaggoner 3y ago

I think fundamentalism is too brittle to persist like that over the long term. Yes, the most conservative religions usually have a lot of kids, but over the generations, many of those kids will leave the religion, or at least join a less fundamentalist strain and have fewer kids. Unless the culture is kept strictly separate (increasingly impossible), the quality of life that the surrounding secular culture offers is too alluring. So standards are relaxed, women get educated and start working, have fewer kids. And it ripples down the generations. It hasn't happened yet in some of the less developed parts of the world, but as they get richer, it will. It always does.

disgruntledphd2 3y ago
The growth of the ultra Orthodox in Israel is an interesting counter example to your point.

Animats 3y ago

> I read a book awhile ago called Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?, which basically argues that cultures which strongly promote traditional values, having children, etc. will evolutionarily out-compete groups that don’t. That's happening in Israel, as the haredi out-breed the reform Jews and the seculars.[1] Religious societies that oppress women, breed lots of kids, and are dominated by old men in black with beards are a thing. That exists in Jewish, Islamic, and Christian forms, so it's independent of the brand of religion. [1] https://www.jta.org/2021/03/10/israel/how-the-haredi-orthodox-are-changing-israel https://www.jta.org/2021/03/10/israel/how-the-haredi-orthodo...

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
Those models can only exist as minority feeding on a majority. Without reform Jews and seculars, their country will be overrun by neighbors in a few hours.

akomtu 3y ago

Hinduist "four ugas" capture this idea very well: the golden age when strong and good create values, the silver age when weak and good uphold the values, the bronze age when weak with sloppy morals let the values decline, the iron age when strong and evil destroy the values. I doubt that the current situation with marriage institute is seen as a problem by those in power. As we're progressing towards the iron age, the culture of indiscriminate hookups will prevail and will be celebrated by governments, the only motive of short connections will be greed and lust, and the kids, occasionally born from such encounters will be raised in the gov kindergartens. And people will worship AI that, among other things, will match pairs on the dating market.

shrimp_emoji 3y ago
Woah. The Ancient Greeks did the metal thing too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_Man Maybe it was an even earlier Proto-Indo-European meme that radiated out to everyone.
- akomtu 3y ago
  Speaking of Greeks, they believed that such universal ideas come from the world of ideas, or the world of archetypes; great thinkers merely perceive this world, and that's why different cultures seemingly by accident end up with the same ideas in their "books of wisdom". In this worldview, the achievement of greek or indian philosophers isn't creating the idea of the four ages, but expressing it in the limited thoughts framework they had to deal with. It's a lot like how painters try to express what they see on a small flat rectangle of paper.
  - shrimp_emoji 3y ago
    They were wrong; it's all from the Proto-Indo-Europeans.
PoignardAzur 3y ago
Deveraux's blog makes a good argument that this meme is ahistorical: https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-part-i-war-at-the-dawn-of-civilization/ https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-... Tldr: we glorify the men of harsh societies shaped by scarcity, but soft liberal societies actually outcompete them militarily and economically.

fineIllregister 3y ago

This doesn't pass the eye test. If it's true that religious people will outbreed non-religious people, why is religiosity declining? The simple answer is that religion is not hereditary. Children of religious parents do not necessarily follow their parents' beliefs. My family is an example. Several children taught that evolution is fake, and none of us agree with our parents. Only one of us have any religious beliefs at all.

keiferski 3y ago
Religiosity isn’t declining (globally) and the book addresses the “defection” idea, noting that most people still have similar beliefs as their parents, and that birth rates still outcompete defections.
- fineIllregister 3y ago
  Every source I can find says that secularism/atheism is growing worldwide. Not sure what you're talking about. Even if "most" people don't "defect", you have to make up the remainder by people going the other way, for which there doesn't seem to be any evidence.
  - keiferski 3y ago
    The nonreligious are growing in raw numbers but decreasing in percentage terms. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/10/how-religious-will-the-world-be-in-2050/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/10/how-religious-will-th... You don’t need to make up the remainder by going the other way, as I mentioned above: religious population growth comes from birth rates, not conversions.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]