[extropy-chat] 300 and the Gates of Fire

[Lee Corbin]

Agreeing to Damien's good points already made, let me comment on Keith's

> nation, race] may survive. To the considerable extent our mental biases
> are shaped by our genes, this gene based rule determines what we find
> "moral," and thus provides an objective basis for "moral."

That is correct.  That is how it arose.

> Was the suicidal defense by the Greeks at Thermopylae against the Persians
> in 480 BCE a moral act? Yes from the viewpoint of their genes.

And *ALSO* moral from the point of view of their culture and their civilization
(pace BillK's comments).  Perhaps like Damien, I am annoyed at the
failure here to mention that it isn't *just* from the point of view of the genes.
(It's even moral from my own well-integrated individualist ethos.)

Any society or group or nation or band or tribe that wants to keep on
existing  had better be able to affirm LOUDLY and without qualification
that acting in behalf of said group is moral.  Evolution makes short work
of any group that doesn't affirm this.  Sadly, this applies to almost every
single group of which I am a member :-(        :-(       :-( 

But leave it to the maniac individualists of modern western civilization to
drive every last nail into the coffin of the group proclivities that bred and
nurtured us.  As the groups that are replacing us in almost every domain
well intuit, our documented behavior is little more than a manual for
collective suicide.

Lee