[extropy-chat] is spreading ones own genes relevant, or just an anachronism ?

[Dirk Bruere]

On 8/23/05, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky <sentience at pobox.com> wrote:
> user wrote:
> > I am informed by both my own (very powerful) instinctual urges and
> > tendencies, and by works of authors (such as Jared Diamond in The 3rd
> > Chimpanzee) that it is my goal to spread my genetic material, or progeny,
> > as far and as wide and as varied as possible.
> 
> No, this is your genes' goal.  *Your* goals are to love, to live, to have fun,
> to have sex, to eat good food rich and sugar in fat, to increase your status,
> to find a good long-term mate, to raise children together, etc. etc.  Natural
> selection has no mind, you do.  Natural selection constructs a mind that wants
> things that would have helped you reproduce in the ancestral environment,
> whether or not that helps you reproduce now.  Individual organisms are best
> thought of as adaptation-executers, not fitness-maximizers (Cosmides and Tooby
> 1992).
> 
> I recommend that you read "The Moral Animal" by Robert Wright.  You appear to
> be confused on some basic points about evolutionary psychology, and Wright is
> an excellent introduction.
> 
> Please ignore Dirk Bruere, he doesn't speak for the list.
 
Wow! Revelation!
Everyone - Listen Carefully...

I DO NOT SPEAK FOR THE LIST.

Thanks for correcting the errorneous impression people have of me on
the list. I concur that I do not speak for the list. I have never
spoken for the list. I will not in future speak for the list.

You may return to your normal business now...

Dirk