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On 30/12/2024 00:38, Keith Henson wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:mailman.32.1735519121.650.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">
<pre>My experiences with the scientology cult and at the same time running
into evolutionary psychology gives me an odd view of why humans are
susceptible to religions at all. In the view of EP, human behaviors
are either directly selected or are a side effect of something that
was selected.
Capture-bonding <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Capture-bonding"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Capture-bonding</a> was
directly selected. As I put it, women who bonded to their captors
became our ancestors, those that did not become breakfasts (or did not
reproduce).
The model of war which includes taking the young women of the defeated
tribe is a case where genes for war behaviour survive better than the
people with such genes (when the alternative to war is starvation).
It is a strange business where a person can be in conflict with their
genes.
Anyway, genes for irrational thinking/behavior were selected in the
past. The behavior/irrational thinking are still expressed when
people think they have a bleak future.
The psychological mechanisms that give us capture-bonding give rise to
a number of otherwise hard to understand behaviours, "Partial
activation of the capture-bonding psychological trait may lie behind
Battered-wife syndrome, military basic training, fraternity hazing,
and sex practices such as sadism/masochism or bondage/discipline.
[11]"
Selection for war has provided humans with irrational thinking modes.
Religions are certainly irrational. They propagate in human culture
because we have been selected for irrational thinking as well as
rational thinking.
(Unless the tribe is facing starvation, rational thinking is
evolutionary favored.)
Keith
(This is a preliminary draft and may be expanded.)</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
I'm not so sure that rational thinking is favoured unless times are
hard.<br>
<br>
There's an argument to be made that hard times actually favour
rational thinking. We know that wars tend to accelerate
technological development. That's only possible with rational
thinking. There's plenty of evidence that religion doesn't work (in
terms of achieving technological progress), but science does. And
even more evidence that it's the more technologically advanced
groups that win wars.<br>
<br>
What incentive do people have to do the hard type of thinking, if
they are comfortable?<br>
<br>
This doesn't clash with the idea that hard times lead to more
aggression. It does suggest that the more hard-up - and therefore
more aggressive - groups might be more inclined to rational
thinking. Which seems wrong to me (and I hope it is, because it
leads down a very dark path), so maybe there are flaws in my
thinking. Please expose the flaws in my thinking!<br>
<br>
I was recently reading this:<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://falkvinge.net/2024/06/29/contemporary-politics-is-much-better-understood-using-maslow-pyramid-than-the-economic-left-to-right-scale/">https://falkvinge.net/2024/06/29/contemporary-politics-is-much-better-understood-using-maslow-pyramid-than-the-economic-left-to-right-scale/</a><br>
<br>
And it made a lot of sense to me.<br>
<br>
I'm pretty sure that most people aren't really wedded to one
political tendency, that's far too cerebral for the majority of
people who mostly just want to be able to get on with their lives.
Maslow's heirarchy of needs applies to all humans, whatever politics
they claim to subscribe to. And it's inevitably a result of our
evolution. So I think that our Evolutionary Psychology leading to
Maslow's pyramid is much more relevant than capture bonding, at
least for contemporary politics. You can probably predict which
types of political party will be most popular by looking at where
most of a population are on the heirarchy, as Rick Falkvinge's
article explains.<br>
<br>
All of which aligns nicely with what Keith has been saying for ages
now: Improve people's day-to-day lives and prospects for the future
(which usually means education, among other things), and you reduce
the likelihood of wars and other bad outcomes.<br>
<br>
One of the most significant bad outcomes is the likelihood of them
voting for (or otherwise allowing to come to power) authoritarian
governments. Consciously or not, the various authoritarian states
seem to realise that they need to keep the population in a state of
anxiety, relative poverty, ignorance and fear (iow, low down on
Maslow's heirarchy). I don't know of a single authoritarian state
that looks after their population well, keeps them materially
comfortable, well-educated, healthy, feeling good about their
future, and allows them free and open communication between
themselves and with the wider world.<br>
<br>
Obviously, otherwise we wouldn't call them 'authoritarian'!<br>
The higher tiers of the pyramid just aren't compatible with
authoritarianism.<br>
<br>
So, one of the most important questions we should be asking in
today's world is: How can we give people (all people, everywhere)
the means to improve their lives, regardless of the regime they live
under?<br>
<br>
How can people, wherever they are, climb the pyramid, improve their
physical and economic well-being, their education, and their
communication with the rest of the world?<br>
<br>
That, it seems to me, is the most important problem we need to
solve, if we want to avoid a Bleak Future for all of us. And
Governments aren't going to solve it. We can expect just about all
governments to actually oppose it. As well as many businesses, too
(when was the last time you tried to read a scientific paper on
Sci-Hub?).<br>
<br>
If we can crack that one, global warming will be a doddle!<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Ben</pre>
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