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Those are good counter examples, but they seem to happen in the context of a somewhat direct conflict between two cultures, thus entering a "survival of the fit

by phn 12y ago

Those are good counter examples, but they seem to happen in the context of a somewhat direct conflict between two cultures, thus entering a "survival of the fittest" kind of situation. Maybe we only get this protective spirit when we have already "won" :)

dalke 12y ago
Evolution, which is what I think you mean by "wired" behavior, has no idea that after 100,000s of years of human civilization if a given culture has "won". I don't understand what you mean by "direct conflict between two cultures". The Indian Removal Act was a US act on the one side against the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee-Creek, Seminole, and original Cherokee Nations. That's at least 6 cultures. And certainly the Indian schools affected a huge number of cultures. Unless you mean that all of the tribal nations are a single culture?
- phn 12y ago
  Well, perhaps they aren't two, but that is completely irrelevant to the argument (How do you "count" cultures anyway?). The important part in that sentence was that there were opposing sides in conflict, thus removing any form of will to preserve from the equation. And yes, evolution (particularly in the context of darwinism and derivatives) is what I am talking about, specifically, some kind of mechanism that seems to exist that prevents us getting stuck in a "local maximum". A mechanism that I mentioned because I find it interesting that you can find signs of it at so many different levels, and in many different contexts.
  - dalke 12y ago
    You were the one who wanted to count cultures in the first place. If you can't count cultures (or other measures of diversity?) then how does any evolutionary behavior manage to do so? I would like to know your historical examples of "signs of it at so many different levels". All I know of occur relatively recently in history, which is a strong indicator that it's a cultural change, and not a deep evolutionary imperative.
    - phn 12y ago
      I am going to skip the counting part since I think it is borderline pedantic and doesn't lead anywhere. Defining what a culture is, or how you differentiate them is not on the scope of my comment, and the argument was not about cultures specifically. I don't need an historical example, since I am not arguing that this has always been the case, nor that it isn't a cultural change. Going a bit further on my previous comment, and trying to clarify, I think this behavior emerges precisely because of a general stabilization/stagnation of a given population (of traits, languages, behaviors, animal species etc.) in order to avoid over-fitting (the "won" part, if I did not express myself clearly enough) and to preserve diversity. The original comment is just that, a comment. A thought that I think holds some value and is related to the article. I am not trying to convince anyone that this is a defined mechanism by which nature rules and defines itself.
      - dalke 12y ago
        It is a lot of fun to be rationalist and deep thinker. It lets one ponder great schemes of how ideas work together. Without empirical grounding, it can also lead one drastically astray. You have no examples that your thought is true, nor any mechanism by which it could work, while I have both counter-examples and the observation that any such mechanism is outside of known evolutionary theory. "I am not arguing that this has always been the case" stands in stark contrast to your proposition that "we are wired" to this behavior.

by phn 12y ago

dalke 12y ago

Evolution, which is what I think you mean by "wired" behavior, has no idea that after 100,000s of years of human civilization if a given culture has "won". I don't understand what you mean by "direct conflict between two cultures". The Indian Removal Act was a US act on the one side against the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee-Creek, Seminole, and original Cherokee Nations. That's at least 6 cultures. And certainly the Indian schools affected a huge number of cultures. Unless you mean that all of the tribal nations are a single culture?

phn 12y ago
Well, perhaps they aren't two, but that is completely irrelevant to the argument (How do you "count" cultures anyway?). The important part in that sentence was that there were opposing sides in conflict, thus removing any form of will to preserve from the equation. And yes, evolution (particularly in the context of darwinism and derivatives) is what I am talking about, specifically, some kind of mechanism that seems to exist that prevents us getting stuck in a "local maximum". A mechanism that I mentioned because I find it interesting that you can find signs of it at so many different levels, and in many different contexts.
- dalke 12y ago
  You were the one who wanted to count cultures in the first place. If you can't count cultures (or other measures of diversity?) then how does any evolutionary behavior manage to do so? I would like to know your historical examples of "signs of it at so many different levels". All I know of occur relatively recently in history, which is a strong indicator that it's a cultural change, and not a deep evolutionary imperative.
  - phn 12y ago
    I am going to skip the counting part since I think it is borderline pedantic and doesn't lead anywhere. Defining what a culture is, or how you differentiate them is not on the scope of my comment, and the argument was not about cultures specifically. I don't need an historical example, since I am not arguing that this has always been the case, nor that it isn't a cultural change. Going a bit further on my previous comment, and trying to clarify, I think this behavior emerges precisely because of a general stabilization/stagnation of a given population (of traits, languages, behaviors, animal species etc.) in order to avoid over-fitting (the "won" part, if I did not express myself clearly enough) and to preserve diversity. The original comment is just that, a comment. A thought that I think holds some value and is related to the article. I am not trying to convince anyone that this is a defined mechanism by which nature rules and defines itself.
    - dalke 12y ago
      It is a lot of fun to be rationalist and deep thinker. It lets one ponder great schemes of how ideas work together. Without empirical grounding, it can also lead one drastically astray. You have no examples that your thought is true, nor any mechanism by which it could work, while I have both counter-examples and the observation that any such mechanism is outside of known evolutionary theory. "I am not arguing that this has always been the case" stands in stark contrast to your proposition that "we are wired" to this behavior.