OT: Earth is a finite space

[Christopher M]

By eugenics I just meant selective population/reproductive control; sorry for the confusion.

I didn't mean to suggest that anyone was for or against eugenics, or that anyone was or wasn't practicing it, so much as just to lay down the strong argument for it.

I agree, as you noted, that there are both ways in which eugenics is part-and-parcel of our society, and ways in which we do the exact opposite.

It's certainly, at least, a complicated issue.

call me elitest but I'm all for improving the human genome

On the other side of the issue, the powerful argument is: by what standards is "improving the human genome" an imperative which trumps people's own reproductive freedom. And, moreover, who is it that decides what "improvement" is?

Here we get beyond biological theory and into political theory; as politics would be required for any implementation (one way or the other) of the biological/sociological theory.

And we also get directly at what is, imho, perhaps the primary problem of politics, and the lynchpin of various political models: the tradeoff between individual freedom and models of collective improvement (again, where determining the definition of "improvement" is a crucial problem).

Does individual freedom get curtailed in the goal for collective improvement? Or does collective improvement get curtailed for the goal of individual freedom? In either case, how is it decided what constitutes improvement?

[fa_jing]

On a similar note, but different topic: how about trying to skip alot of biological evolution by projecting what it would lead towards, i.e. eventually the pro-creation, love-society impulses as traits winning out over the destructive, propogate-through-violence traits. Both have lead to reproduction in the past, but it seems that for humans, the former is more powerful and more effective and leads to more reproduction and self-propagation. Besides being a way to live that is overall more appealing to the vast majority of us. So now that we have less of the factors that weeded out traits through conflict or disease in the past, it makes sense to try to duplicate what biological evolution would have brought us through societal evolution. In other words, though we may no longer breed out undesireable traits as before, we should try to transcend our biological constraints mentally through the influence of society, in order to reach a state of evolution that is otherwise only attainable through generations of brutal conflict.

ya with me?

[yenhoi]

yes.

crush the weak. take food.

[Christopher M]

Right; there's biological evolution... and then there's cultural evolution. The latter is a different beast, and surely has effected us quite a bit.

But social intervention based on goal-oriented cultural evolution has the same problems as that based on biological evolution: determining what the goal is, and justifying the violation of personal freedoms in it's pursuit.

I think people certainly do pursue this idea in a voluntary manner; I think this has been the stated goal of philosophy and religion for at least a couple thousand years.

eventually the pro-creation, love-society impulses as traits winning out over the destructive, propogate-through-violence traits.

Are you assuming the existance of "destructive, propogate-through-violence" traits/drives?

http://www.google.ca/search?q=cache:...hl=en&ie=UTF-8

http://www.books-reborn.org/white/ar...2002_Eros.html

http://www.pdc.co.il/dthinst.htm

[fa_jing]

Actually your links, while interesting, are off-base to my statement. These links describe the death impulse as in a natural state of flux with the live/sex impulse, and contrary to it. But I was pointing out that if you take the theory of evolution at face value, all of our traits exist due to them being beneficial to propogation of the genes. The destructive impulse may exist as a natural and necessary opposite to the creative impluse, as Freud suggested. However, my point was that "propogation through destruction of others" is additionally an evolutionary concern, and can be best observed through the behavior of Lions - roving bands of male lions, upon encountering a pride of lions, kill both their male rivals who were already there, and the cubs that were produced as a result of the union between the previous male lions and the lionesses. In the case of humans, those who killed and subdued neighboring tribes/groups were able to propogate their own offspring to a greater degree then SOME peace-loving groups, especially those which they conquered. And we cannot forget the role (albeit small) that violation of women has played in mankind's evolutionary history, especially during war and violent conflict. Like I said before, the peace-love thing is actually more effective for propogation for humans in the long run, but our evolutionary history contains both elements and both have lead to increased reproduction in the past, though it seems paradoxical. That in my opinion is why someone that you would never expect it of, an otherwise reasonable person will at times commit an act of violence or rape. In me personally, the love-propogation current runs strongest, but less so than in a couple friends and ex-friends I know, who like to play out domination, violence and other fantasies with their lovers. I think that this is pretty much what you would expect from the scenario I described - the various impulses existing to different degrees in different people, but with the love-society impulse dominating in the human race as a whole. Of course it is easier to say "the demon made him do it," which places responsibility on a source external to the person being considered, and may not be a bad abbreviation, depending on your world-view, how you define internal/external, etc.

Here I would like to differentiate between the "propogate through self-defense of a community against aggressors" - violent impulse, which runs in pretty much everybody, and is very much compatible with the love-society, vs. the "propogate through aggression against others" - violent impulse, which has no place in the love-society.

JMO

[KFord]

You guys are making my head hurt. LOL, I didn't think anyone responded to my remarks. Now I come back and see all of this. All very interesting.... I have now decided that we will see the end when we can no longer support the amount of IT support it takes to maintain all of the arguments online at once. J/K

Honestly, what do you guys do that you have the time to debate like this?

[fa_jing]

Hey, last night I couldn't sleep, that was my first post. This one took me about 15-20 minutes. IT work, stuff is running and I have the computer in front of me all day long - big temptation to surf.

PS makes my head hurt too,I'm not debating, just speculating-- so glad that I don't run the Universe --would muck up everything.

[Christopher M]

Sorry, I meant to call into question these categories with those links, not establish them.

As nomenclature, let's establish a catalytic drive vs an analytic drive; where catalysis drives towards unity and analysis drives towards individuality.

Then let's establish a success drive vs a failure drive; where success drives towards individual and species health and propagation, and failure drives against it.

You mentioned the example of animal predatory and violent mating selection habits. This accords to the analytic drive (contra unity; derivation of self vs other relations; entropy), but also to the success drive.

You also mentioned the example of individual human aggression and violent dominant behavior. Again this accords to the analytic drive; but this time to the failure drive.

If this is the case, then we must dismiss the association of catalysis with success and analysis with failure.

Freud's Thanatos, then, is the analytic drive; not the failure drive. He meant it as a description of the human social and biological animal.

Given the realities of evolution, of which he was aware from Darwin, it's clear that the fundamental drives for animals must be productive, or else the animals wouldn't exist.

Given this, what is the source of the human failure-based behavior?

Is it reasonable to associate it, as you did, with the success-based analytic behavior of animal predation and mate selection?

Or are these two very different things?

[Oso]

ok, dude, now you're just being a smarty pants

I think it's time to divulge exactly what it is you do for a living.

I know when I'm outgunned.

so, what, you teach?

[fa_jing]

hey, let me resurrect this gay thread because here is an article dealing with some of the same material:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?cha...D380A84189F2D7

[Former castleva]

Neoteny material.

Since when was Jared Diamond an evolutionary biologist?

[Surferdude]

So did anyone hand out condoms yet???