[ExI] AI article

[William Flynn Wallace]

spike - Genetics can account for only part of human behavior.

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In Sapolsky's book Behave, he makes the point over and over:  it makes no
sense to say that anything short of our physical structure is mostly
controlled by genes.  It's always interaction, and often the environment
changes what the genes do (epigenetics).  He says that it is wrong to say
things like 'genes cause this'.  'Influence' is the word he uses.  (this is
a very great book, taking you from millions of years ago to the future, and
from tiny genetic details to social psych - I was so impressed that I
bought all of his other books - he is laugh out loud funny)


Here are two of his TED talks:
https://www.ted.com/talks?sort=newest&q=sapolsky


The German example shows clearly that the political environment is crucial
to production.  Why don't any of the communist countries see that it just
doesn't work?  Venezuela the latest example.


bill w

On Thu, Jun 29, 2017 at 4:56 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

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> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On
> Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace
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> >>…"bill k - Where's the Protestant work ethic of hard work, discipline
> and frugality gone?"
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> ​>…I'd like to see the evidence that it has gone away.  Challenge every
> assumption, I say.  Since the genes have not disappeared, all that is
> needed is to figure out the environment needed to activate the set
> producing the effect (perhaps inactivated by epigenetics in ancestors - and
> perhaps not inactivated at all)  bill w​
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> Genetics can account for only part of human behavior.
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> Consider the great experiment of Berlin, latter half of the 20th
> century.  There we start out a with a group of people genetically similar,
> build a wall dividing them, teach your control group to work for the good
> of self, the other group to work for the good of all commie-kind.
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> Wait 50 yrs, tear down this wall, compare the productivity of the
> workers.  Pretty clear message there, ja?  Communism destroys motivation
> and personal accountability.  Capitalism leads to competition, and
> competition breeds excellence.
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> That wall come down and we saw what was on the other side of it.  I have
> been a hot-blooded capitalist ever since.
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> spike
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