[extropy-chat] Death Toll

[Dirk Bruere]

Jeff Davis wrote:

>--- Dirk Bruere <dirk at neopax.com> wrote:
>
>  
>
>>Jeff Davis wrote:
>>    
>>
>...
>  
>
>>>Training oneself to escape the instinct-mediated
>>>"trap" of tribal loyalty is arguably Transhuman
>>>Enhancement One.
>>>      
>>>
>
>  
>
>>IMO less to do with 'instinct' and more to do with
>>defending those who share common values.
>>    
>>
>
>In a tribal context values are arbitrary except
>insofar as they are identifiers of tribal membership. 
>If their values compel tribal members go over the
>cliff, then over the cliff they go.  Instinct--tribal
>instinct adhered to--all the way to the sudden stop. 
>
>  
>
>>Transhumanists, and indeed PostHumans will not
>>'escape' this tribalism and survive.
>>    
>>
>
>No.  If survival is the goal, then you get there by
>rational behavior.  If multiple individuals with
>similar values act in concert, their survival ***as a
>group*** may be enhanced, but the similarity to
>tribalism is merely coincidental.   
>
>An occasional correlation in the outcomes of rational
>and instinctive behavior cannot make instinctive
>behavior more than "seemingly" rational.  A case might
>be made that instinctive behaviors dispassionately
>evolved in the wild, on the basis of gene "selection",
>are "rational" by virtue of the correlation of
>survival and environmental conditions.  However,
>virtually by definition, human, transhuman, and
>post-human "environments" are/will be "engineered", in
>contrast to the "wild" environments of proto- and
>early humans.
>
>  
>
I would say that the critical environment variable that cannot be 
engineered is competition.
Me and my gang will always beat the lone idealist, unless he has his 
gang back him up.

-- 
Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millenium
http://www.theconsensus.org



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