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There's no reason every child has to have equal opportunity. A child to a successful couple must have a better hand at life, otherwise why even be trying. Ever

There's no reason every child has to have equal opportunity. A child to a successful couple must have a better hand at life, otherwise why even be trying. Every parent with half a brain wants their child to have the best opportunity. Every group with half a brain joins forces to give their group's children the best opportunity. Also, modern world-city diversity mostly perpetuates the native group vs the uber driver groups, with some exceptions that are to the detriment of the native group. The most revered/successful societies on earth are the complete opposite of diverse.

p-e-w 3y ago
> The most revered/successful societies on earth are the complete opposite of diverse. And "primitive" societies, which through evolution shaped how our social capacities operate, also have essentially zero diversity in the modern sense. They are almost by definition culturally uniform, and their members are often closely interrelated.
- orbisvicis 3y ago
  Hmm sounds like you think a two step process is ideal: evolve independent societies towards uniform, mix the societies and have them compete, reward successful traits with survival. Then rinse/repeat. Though I think the point of evolution is to avoid uniformity. So perhaps a uniform culture is evolutionarily unfit.
  - jojobas 3y ago
    So far in pure evolutionary terms Sub-Saharan Africa is way ahead of everyone else (also made up of quite uniform groups). What traits thereof do you reckon the rest of the world could pinch?
    - orbisvicis 3y ago
      I've only ever visited Sub-Saharan Africa through the fiction of various countries, though admittedly that's self-selected by whatever imports are financially successful here. The only common themes I can identify are diversity, vivacity, gregariousness and corruption, and those are hardly what I would deem evolutionary traits. But there's always so much diversity - so many disparate languages and ethnic groups - it seems like urban Africa is quite the melting pot. From this brief list of recently evolved traits [1] (which I can't narrow by geographic region), I honestly can't say that any characterize the zeitgeist of a modern improved homo sapiens. What modern biological traits do you think were evolved in Africa? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_human_evolution https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_human_evolution
orbisvicis 3y ago
> There's no reason every child has to have equal opportunity. No evolutionary reason, that is. On the other hand, if your descendents are born into such deep disadvantage without hope of redemption, that's another evolutionary black hole. The best hope would be to band together with others of similar circumstances and burn it all down. It's in everyone's best interest for this not to happen. Which leads me to wonder if there is some optimal equilibrium between advantage and disadvantage. And interesting corollary is that society has basically trumped evolution. There are so many competing contradictory forces that only the most basic changes have a hope of surviving. Edit: In hindsight I somewhat disagree with this. Nearly all post-scarcity fictions depict societies in which all are given equal opportunity to realize their personal ambitions. Status and additional allocation of societal-level resources then depends on the outcomes. So for some definition of opportunity I think it is theoretically possible to afford everyone equal opportunity.
- jojobas 3y ago
  >No evolutionary reason, that is. So, no reason that would stick a couple of generations down. >The best hope would be to band together with others of similar circumstances and burn it all down. They are trying, last seen on 7 Oct 2023. I'd say long odds. >It's in everyone's best interest for this not to happen. Which leads me to wonder if there is some optimal equilibrium between advantage and disadvantage. It's indeed undesirable that the evolutionary black hole is in your own group, therefore various safety nets. That's still just the lower bound, removing the higher bound is Harrison-Bergeron-style societal suicide. >And interesting corollary is that society has basically trumped evolution. There are so many competing contradictory forces that only the most basic changes have a hope of surviving. It's just the first time that we know of when the fittest don't want to breed. There's plenty of arguments out there to the effect that it sucks. >In hindsight I somewhat disagree with this. Nearly all post-scarcity fictions depict societies in which all are given equal opportunity to realize their personal ambitions. Status and additional allocation of societal-level resources then depends on the outcomes. So for some definition of opportunity I think it is theoretically possible to afford everyone equal opportunity. If the parents' success have no bearing on the children the best strategy is to push out as many kids as you can. Something of commons, can't put my finger on it.
jrmg 3y ago
There's no reason every child has to have equal opportunity. Wow, that’s bleak. Perhaps it’s true if you’re operating in an amoral framework. The society I was raised in has aphorisms such as “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” and “love thy neighbor” as pretty basic tenets (not that they’re often completely lived up to). Pretty much every human society has similar basic rules. I like to think they’re meaningful.
- jojobas 3y ago
  They are meaningful within a group where you can expect reciprocity. There is no expectation of that in a diverse society. Evolution doesn't know morality, unwarrantedly nice guys finish last.
  - drewdevault 3y ago
    > There is no expectation of [reciprocity] in a diverse society. [citation needed] > Evolution doesn't know morality, unwarrantedly nice guys finish last. Incorrect. Citation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperation_(evolution) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperation_(evolution)
    - jojobas 3y ago
      This is about the few cases where it's not unwarranted, i.e. kin selection and related matters.
      - drewdevault 3y ago
        It's not, a cursory review of the literature would tell you otherwise. If you want narratives: the introduction of agriculture to human society is a cooperative effort which generalizes labor such that some can provide for the food supply and others can pursue other forms of labor, e.g. intellectual labor. The strictly competitive approach would not favor the establishment of agriculture. Human progress is measured in cooperation; in fact our cooperative nature it is one of the distinguishing traits of humanity and is largely responsible for the establishment of complex society, which was the greatest evolutionary achievement of humanity over the rest of the animal world. Would the device you wrote your comment on have been possible without a nigh-incomprehensible level of human cooperation? If you wish to build a society without cooperation, you are welcome to start your potato farm on a free plot of land out west. The potatoes you grow, by the way, were a product engineered by millennia of cooperative bioengineering on the part of indigenous farmers, but feel free to disregard that in your daydreaming.
drewdevault 3y ago
> The most revered/successful societies on earth are the complete opposite of diverse. [citation needed] Which societies? Revered by whom? Successful by what metric?

p-e-w 3y ago

> The most revered/successful societies on earth are the complete opposite of diverse. And "primitive" societies, which through evolution shaped how our social capacities operate, also have essentially zero diversity in the modern sense. They are almost by definition culturally uniform, and their members are often closely interrelated.

orbisvicis 3y ago
Hmm sounds like you think a two step process is ideal: evolve independent societies towards uniform, mix the societies and have them compete, reward successful traits with survival. Then rinse/repeat. Though I think the point of evolution is to avoid uniformity. So perhaps a uniform culture is evolutionarily unfit.
- jojobas 3y ago
  So far in pure evolutionary terms Sub-Saharan Africa is way ahead of everyone else (also made up of quite uniform groups). What traits thereof do you reckon the rest of the world could pinch?
  - orbisvicis 3y ago
    I've only ever visited Sub-Saharan Africa through the fiction of various countries, though admittedly that's self-selected by whatever imports are financially successful here. The only common themes I can identify are diversity, vivacity, gregariousness and corruption, and those are hardly what I would deem evolutionary traits. But there's always so much diversity - so many disparate languages and ethnic groups - it seems like urban Africa is quite the melting pot. From this brief list of recently evolved traits [1] (which I can't narrow by geographic region), I honestly can't say that any characterize the zeitgeist of a modern improved homo sapiens. What modern biological traits do you think were evolved in Africa? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_human_evolution https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_human_evolution

orbisvicis 3y ago

> There's no reason every child has to have equal opportunity. No evolutionary reason, that is. On the other hand, if your descendents are born into such deep disadvantage without hope of redemption, that's another evolutionary black hole. The best hope would be to band together with others of similar circumstances and burn it all down. It's in everyone's best interest for this not to happen. Which leads me to wonder if there is some optimal equilibrium between advantage and disadvantage. And interesting corollary is that society has basically trumped evolution. There are so many competing contradictory forces that only the most basic changes have a hope of surviving. Edit: In hindsight I somewhat disagree with this. Nearly all post-scarcity fictions depict societies in which all are given equal opportunity to realize their personal ambitions. Status and additional allocation of societal-level resources then depends on the outcomes. So for some definition of opportunity I think it is theoretically possible to afford everyone equal opportunity.

jojobas 3y ago
>No evolutionary reason, that is. So, no reason that would stick a couple of generations down. >The best hope would be to band together with others of similar circumstances and burn it all down. They are trying, last seen on 7 Oct 2023. I'd say long odds. >It's in everyone's best interest for this not to happen. Which leads me to wonder if there is some optimal equilibrium between advantage and disadvantage. It's indeed undesirable that the evolutionary black hole is in your own group, therefore various safety nets. That's still just the lower bound, removing the higher bound is Harrison-Bergeron-style societal suicide. >And interesting corollary is that society has basically trumped evolution. There are so many competing contradictory forces that only the most basic changes have a hope of surviving. It's just the first time that we know of when the fittest don't want to breed. There's plenty of arguments out there to the effect that it sucks. >In hindsight I somewhat disagree with this. Nearly all post-scarcity fictions depict societies in which all are given equal opportunity to realize their personal ambitions. Status and additional allocation of societal-level resources then depends on the outcomes. So for some definition of opportunity I think it is theoretically possible to afford everyone equal opportunity. If the parents' success have no bearing on the children the best strategy is to push out as many kids as you can. Something of commons, can't put my finger on it.

jrmg 3y ago

There's no reason every child has to have equal opportunity. Wow, that’s bleak. Perhaps it’s true if you’re operating in an amoral framework. The society I was raised in has aphorisms such as “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” and “love thy neighbor” as pretty basic tenets (not that they’re often completely lived up to). Pretty much every human society has similar basic rules. I like to think they’re meaningful.

jojobas 3y ago
They are meaningful within a group where you can expect reciprocity. There is no expectation of that in a diverse society. Evolution doesn't know morality, unwarrantedly nice guys finish last.
- drewdevault 3y ago
  > There is no expectation of [reciprocity] in a diverse society. [citation needed] > Evolution doesn't know morality, unwarrantedly nice guys finish last. Incorrect. Citation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperation_(evolution) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperation_(evolution)
  - jojobas 3y ago
    This is about the few cases where it's not unwarranted, i.e. kin selection and related matters.
    - drewdevault 3y ago
      It's not, a cursory review of the literature would tell you otherwise. If you want narratives: the introduction of agriculture to human society is a cooperative effort which generalizes labor such that some can provide for the food supply and others can pursue other forms of labor, e.g. intellectual labor. The strictly competitive approach would not favor the establishment of agriculture. Human progress is measured in cooperation; in fact our cooperative nature it is one of the distinguishing traits of humanity and is largely responsible for the establishment of complex society, which was the greatest evolutionary achievement of humanity over the rest of the animal world. Would the device you wrote your comment on have been possible without a nigh-incomprehensible level of human cooperation? If you wish to build a society without cooperation, you are welcome to start your potato farm on a free plot of land out west. The potatoes you grow, by the way, were a product engineered by millennia of cooperative bioengineering on the part of indigenous farmers, but feel free to disregard that in your daydreaming.

drewdevault 3y ago

> The most revered/successful societies on earth are the complete opposite of diverse. [citation needed] Which societies? Revered by whom? Successful by what metric?