Koki on 14/4/2008 at 19:46
Quote Posted by catbarf
Social Darwinism is explicitly the concept of minimal interference so that the strong survive and the weak die off. It's natural selection among humans. Charity is one of many things that goes against the idea.
But that's the thing, those people who donate money effectively lose money which in turn makes them "weaker".
It will all work itself out in the end(not).
catbarf on 14/4/2008 at 22:12
Quote Posted by Koki
But that's the thing, those people who donate money effectively lose money which in turn makes them "weaker".
Which is the point of social Darwinism, also known as justified greed and callousness.
jay pettitt on 14/4/2008 at 23:01
I've always thought of Social Darwinism as dodgy schmuck trying to associate itself with a highly respected theory and I can't say I give it any credence at all. I suspect Social Darwinism is broken in more ways than I can imagine.
However if you're going to make comparisons, then those such as Koki described would demonstrate a basic and quite fundamental misunderstanding of evolution proper. Human's aren't aggressive top predators; our phisiology - we're weak, fragile and virtually deaf, blind and what ever you call it when you can't smell - and our sociology - we live at high densities - preclude us from being highly competitive on an individual level. Most evolutionary successes rely on marriages of convenience and interdependencies. Humans have much more in common with ants than Lions and Tigers in that respect.
If comparisons with the rest of the natural world don't give us reason to presume that generous social acts should incur an evolutionary penalty then unless you can show specifically that giving to charity reduces your life span or makes you unattractive to potential mates or otherwise or lessens the chances that you can successfully pass on you genes then Koki's example is probably just silly.
catbarf on 14/4/2008 at 23:21
Quote Posted by jay pettitt
If comparisons with the rest of the natural world don't give us reason to presume that generous social acts should incur an evolutionary penalty then unless you can show specifically that giving to charity reduces your life span or makes you unattractive to potential mates or otherwise or lessens the chances that you can successfully pass on you genes then Koki's example is probably just silly.
His example is valid- in giving away money, you lessen your supply of money, increasing the likelihood of you not surviving to pass on your genes.
jay pettitt on 14/4/2008 at 23:28
I disagree. Strongly (I know actual people who have given money to charity without dying as a consequence). Can you explain how, in the real world, giving to charity reduces your chances of passing on your genetic goodness? My guess is that it would enhance your viability - when pairing up would you look to singular selfishness as an attractive quality for a potential mate?
BEAR on 14/4/2008 at 23:47
I think I mentioned this in a previous post, but you guys are approaching social darwinism all wrong. In terms of compassion you cant use specifics like above with charity reducing the chances of passing on your genes. I dont think natural selection is that specific.
The idea is that somehow being a greedy fuck actually benifits a whole group or species over time. It might work well enough for someone here and there but over all, creatures will make out better by being kind and compassionate (especially within their group) than they do otherwise. Humans have always been very social, we're not lone tigers out for ourselves, we've got to be able to rely on our group to help us and they can rely on us to help them, THATS why compassion altruism and kindness exist. I dont think there is a real scientific basis for social darwinism to show that it is actually natural selection at all. Unless someone can cite an example where over time groups of human beings who acted that way benefited because of it. You cant because its never happened and compassion and kindness exist in all humans everywhere (groups of humans, not individuals necessarily).
It gets fuzzy when you start looking at ever larger and larger groups of people. You can see in various conflicts around the world that we dont see people outside our own group the same as those in it; slavery, genocide, these things show that we dont always see those outside our own groups as even being human. As our communities become larger and larger, we associate more with the rest of the world and begin to see all of us as group, not just black people/white people/asians etc. Thats I think where we're headed, the more interaction we have between peoples the less separate we are and the more we can help eachother out.
Social Darwinism sucks and doesnt work unless someone proves me wrong.
Muzman on 15/4/2008 at 00:58
No, Social Darwinism has been fairly thoroughly discredited over the years (even though some of it is kinda reappearing in the more outlandish variations on Evolutionary Psychology, but they're losing favour too). It is usually terrible logic and misapplication of evolutionary concepts, as you point out, and gives Darwin a bad name. Evolutionary scientists generally disapprove of it too.
Incidentally I think that free will is pretty much dead as an absolute concept, thanks to most of the science of the brain lately. It's better to say we have will, but it's not in any sense of the word free and is sort of in arrears to the rest of our behaviour (so far as I understand it anyway). Some folks are rightly concerned that this has interesting legal and philosophical implications, but I'm pretty sure we'll work something out. It's more a case of the closer we look at things we find things are not only more complex, but our intuition/logic can't predict the nature of that complexity.
(hmm, that's kinda babbly. I've got something sensible to say here somewhere about progress. I'll try and write it up)
catbarf on 15/4/2008 at 01:00
Quote Posted by jay pettitt
Can you explain how, in the real world, giving to charity reduces your chances of passing on your genetic goodness?
Less money, really. With a little less money, you're slightly more likely to die off at an earlier age.
BEAR on 15/4/2008 at 04:37
Dear god man, are you daft? Are you also completly ignoring me? Overall you're doing OK by me in this thread, but keep it together.
A) Thats not true to a spectacular degree and
B) Even if it were it wouldnt matter. Passing on genetic material that is favorable to survival is the only aspect of natural selection (I know there is more but its not relevant to this discussion). You could give tons of money to charity, go to tons of left-wing conventions, knock up 15 hippy chicks and call it a day. Even if you died by 60 you still did just fine by natural selection. But it doesnt matter because thats not how it works.
You should read the posts besides the one that comes right after your own. But in this case also read that one.
Epos Nix on 15/4/2008 at 05:21
Quote:
Incidentally I think that free will is pretty much dead as an absolute concept, thanks to most of the science of the brain lately.
Sorry for waxing Buddhism supreme lately, but the Buddha said essentially as much 2500 years ago. As a matter of fact, the (
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/abhi/index.html) Abhidharma Pitaka collection of works from the (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripitaka) Tipitaka (the Buddhist equivelent to the Bible), is about as thorough a dissemination of the mind as I have read (which, granted, is not much).
