[ExI] ai is the easy road

[Keith Henson]

On Sat, Oct 17, 2026 at 1:41 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On 17/10/2026 19:08, spike wrote:
> >
> > Keith you pointed out that humans are able to create larger stable
> groups than our cousins the chimps and bonobos.  Think of religion not so
> much as a mind parasite but as a technique or basis for stabilizing large
> groups of humans, enabling them to work in parallel.
> >
>
As I pointed out and Spike acknowledged, I did not say that.

> >
> > This view has its consequences: we argue that diversity is our
> strength.  If religion creates a common basis for society, then diversity
> is our weakness.  That view predicts the existence of multiple religions
> results a reduction in cohesiveness of a society.
> >
> >
>
> Ok, but I don't see how.
> Why should irrational beliefs in impossible things act as a basis for
> stabilising large groups, rather than something more concrete and
> demonstrable?
>
> Possibly because a common belief in nonsense splits off your group from
other groups. Consider MAGA's belief in the divinity of Trump or the
scientologists belief in in the Xenu story.

Religions, at least organised ones, seem to have arisen after humans
> started organising into large groups, and served to form a kind of opposing
> power structure within the earlier structure of tribal leaders - chieftains
> - kings, etc. I think you could argue that religions were a consequence,
> rather than a cause, of large groups of  humans.
>
> I don;t agree with the first part, but the second may have merit.

There's also some evidence that reproduction, not religion, was the driving
> force behind a lot of the large ancient monuments that we usually assume
> were religious in nature.


Possible, Though the largest branch of Christianity has a mostly non
reproductive priesthood.

Some people think that they were gathering places for people to party and
> find mates from different tribes. So sites like stonehenge, etc., might not
> be evidence of pre-civilisational religion at all.
>
> Again, possible. However, there are places where genetic studies of graves
indicates that people imported brides from far away, They may have
understood the problems of inbreeding.

Keith

Ben
> "The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who
> watch them without doing anything." - Pablo Casals, via Albert Einstein
>
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