[extropy-chat] Protect ourselves Laws/rational

[Keith Henson]

At 06:06 PM 2/12/2006 +1100, you wrote:
>Keith Henson wrote:
>
> > At 10:51 AM 2/12/2006 +1100, Brett Paatsch wrote:
> >
> >>In my considered opinion, the absolute highest extropian
> >>principle must be open society underpinned by the rule
> >>of law - and that means global law. That means developing
> >>the law. Refining the law and upholding the law. Law with
> >>checks and balances and with no one excluded from its
> >>protection or excluded from the obligation to uphold the
> >>law whilst residing on planet earth.
> >
> > While I agree with the sentiments, let me point out two problems.
> >
> > Law requires rationality.
>
>Yes, it does in that unreasonable creatures could not produce
>law. But it does not require that everyone be rational all the time,
>rather good law (which should always be as few as practicable
>and open for consideration of being removed) requires only
>that (in democracies say) most of the people can be rational
>on some very important things some very small amount of the
>time. Then, and only then, can a few more than average rational
>types keep the whole global system working as a system for
>maximum potential freedom.  A good legal superstructure
>which guaranteed a right not to be murdered anywhere
>without the murderer being punished would be a law that
>would make sense to almost everyone almost everywhere
>almost all of the time. The problem is getting such a law into
>place in the first place. Civilization arises in some places
>first.

While I agree with your thoughts here, it just does not work that 
way.  Unfortunately.

>  > In the memetic ecosystem on the run up to war, rationality
> > is darn near  shut off.  [*] This has to do with the way populations
> > were controlled by wars  in the stone age.  I mean going out
> > to try to kill all the males in the next tribe with rocks is about
> >  a 50/50 risk of getting killed yourself.
>
>[*] Begs the question "shut off" how?  Or what is it that is shut
>off?

Until recently I would have waved my hands and said "evolved psychological 
traits" akin to capture-bonding and other known psychological traits such 
as mother-infant bonding.  But as of about ten days ago I can point you to 
Dr. Drew Westen's fMRI study of political partisans.

We now have *pictures* of rational thinking part of the brain going 
inactive when presented with a class of problems that requires rational 
thought and emotional/reward areas "lighting up."

>Surely not reasoning by eveyone entirely all of the relevant
>time. Some are inciting the war and they may be doing so for
>rational short term purposes.

Like any other evolved trait we can measure, I expect the depression of 
rational thinking to fall on a bell curve.  So, yes there may be a few 
people who stay entirely rational under conditions where most of the 
population is inciting themselves up to a war or reacting to being attacked 
by rapidly going into war mode thinking.

I will have to think about such a trait even being desirable.  It lead to 
rational people profiting from the miserly of the majority.  It might be an 
advantage today, but in a hunter-gatherer band the genes of people who 
rationally ran off to save their skins didn't do as well in the long run as 
those who stayed and at great risk saved copies of their genes in relatives.

> > That's *not* rational from you own view even if you genes
> > have built you to find it is a good idea (because your death
> > may allow others with your genes to live on instead of dying).
>
>Genes, no single gene, could find war to be a good idea. Single
>genes can't produce phenomena so complex as ideas about
>'war'.

I have never said that single genes could produce anything.  Single genes 
can't produce phenomena so complicates as ducks flying south in the fall or 
bears hibernating.  I can't even guess how many genes are involved.

>To go to 'war' in groups, intentionally one must have a
>word for 'war' which requires language.

Chimps wage wars of extermination against neighboring groups without 
language.  Ants engage in something similar enough we call it war.

>Once one has language
>one is into memes not genes. One is into social creatures with
>social cultures.

This is *the* critical part of an evolutionary psychology model for war 
between human groups.  Under low stress (low population compared with the 
ecosystem's ability to feed them) xenophobic or dehumanizing memes that 
incite the warriors to go kill the short (or long) ears don't build up.

Stress a population--especially if the members *anticipate* the economic 
situation (originally food) getting worse--and a human behavior switch gets 
flipped.  The higher gain setting cause memes leading to war build up in 
the population.

Originally (hunter-gatherer days) this synchronized a band's warriors to a 
mass attack, which was *much* more likely to result in the genes leading to 
this behavior surviving.

snip

>It is also reasonable for the likes of Henry Thoreau I think from
>memory to advocate civil disobedience which sometimes can
>involve breaking minor laws as part of a campaign to bring attention
>to problems with major laws.
>
>i.e. Its permissible (perhaps ?) to jay walk across a city street in
>a crowd of protesters that are protesting an imminent decision to
>execute someone that the courts have ordered erroneously be
>killed.

The first time I got nailed by the Federal courts, the ruling said that 
copyright laws were more important than exposing criminal acts.  The Wall 
Street Journal commented on the foolishness of case though that did me no good.

>The *hierarchy* of law has to be gotten right. No one can ever
>*rationally* been expected to uphold law or feel duty bound to
>respect law that places them in an outlaw category through no
>fault of their own.

The second time was for trying to draw attention to two "depraved 
indifference" murders by the scientology cult.  A county official told me 
that the conviction was the result of political  influence as was his 
recommendation for what he figured would result in me being killed in the 
Riverside jail.

All I can say is that if you want to act on your convictions, you should 
have a better model of the real world than I did.  The law provides very 
little protection for those who buck the system--something a middle class 
education does not teach.

So far though I am better off than a guy who exposed the soft treatment (a 
few months) a Palo Alto cop got for molesting several women under color of 
law.  He is doing 25 to life on trumped up charges.

Keith Henson