[extropy-chat] Usefulness of Anger and Hate

[Keith Henson]

At 11:07 PM 12/13/2006 -0800, you wrote:
>Jef writes
>
> > Hate certainly acts to promote solidarity within a specified group, but
> > at the same time drawing a sharper line between in-group and out-group.
>
>I understand.
>
> > The hate dynamic tends toward immoral actions because hate motivates
> > narrower context decision-making, evaluating consequences over narrower
> > scope of possible agents and possible interactions.
>
>Sorry Jef, but this is typical of passages that really aren't clear to
>me, and, maybe, to many people. I'm not recommending
>anything---just reporting that the clarity doesn't seem to be
>what it should be or could be.

Perhaps I could rephrase this in EP terms.

> > Hate certainly acts to promote solidarity within a specified group, but
> > at the same time drawing a sharper line between in-group and out-group.

That's the evolved function of hate, particularly xenophobic hate.

 > The hate dynamic tends toward immoral actions

What we feel is "immoral" has been shaped by evolution in the stone 
age.  It is, for example, considered immoral to kill close relatives while 
it is considered entirely moral to kill attackers who are trying to kill 
those close relatives.  Exactly what you would expect from genes that are 
rationally "trying" to get into the next generation.

In times of low stress, that is the food supply looks to be ok into the 
foreseeable future, and your tribe is not under attack, what we consider 
immoral widens.

 >because hate motivates
 > narrower context decision-making, evaluating consequences over narrower
 > scope of possible agents and possible interactions.

That's a better technical wording to the way I usually put it.  I just say 
that xenophobic memes and the mental state they induce (hate) interferes 
with the parts of the mind that do rational thought.  A really short 
approach is hate makes you stupid.

snip

Of course the *reason* these mechanisms evolved is that (pre birth control) 
humans lacked other ways to keep the population inside the ability of the 
ecosystem to feed them.

Keith Henson