<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;">I was thinking of how to build a moral system. What should be the basic assumptions? Start with the Bill of Rights? Certainly a good place.</div></div></blockquote><div class=""><br class=""></div>Practiced moral creeds tend to converge to evolutionarily stable strategies (ESS) due to evolutionary pressures. Regardless of what moral system is set down the participants will tend towards an ESS through the generations. Roughly, an ESS is a strategy of individuals in a population that promotes their self-interest (genes) while not being easily exploitable by a different strategy. Excessive pacifism is easily exploitable by aggressors and excessive aggression is exploitable by those who try to avoid conflict, see <i class="">The Selfish Gene</i> book for details.<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I think aligning oneself with the strategies that evolution champions is the only reliably stable moral system. The precise mathematical details, if one wants to codify it, are illustrated by game theory and evolution. If we stop evolution this may change, but will we ever curtail replication of the fittest?<br class=""><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On May 16, 2023, at 2:22 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" class="">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;">I was thinking of how to build a moral system. What should be the basic assumptions? Start with the Bill of Rights? Certainly a good place.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Another is this from Pope John xxiii: <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/john-xxiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_j-xxiii_enc_11041963_pacem.html" target="_blank" class="">https://www.vatican.va/content/john-xxiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_j-xxiii_enc_11041963_pacem.html</a></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;">I ran across this in Feynmann's book.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Certainly more detailed than the Bill of Rights.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Then I got to thinking: who are the authors I occasionally re-read because they are just so sane. Feynman, Robert Fulghum (Unitarian minister), Matthew Ridley, Stephen Pinker, Montaigne, Twain. Who are your sane people? bill w</div></div>
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