Friends Are Genetically Similar (2014) • Hacker News Board

Re: Friends Are Genetically Similar (2014)

#121

Post by BearGoesChirp » Mon, Sep 11, 2017, 9:25 PM UTC

atapaiea wrote: post #54

matkoboska wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are on a cocktail party. Have had a few drinks with friends. You all start talking about spiders. How they are these wonderful tiny creatures to be protected. You know, they got rid of insects and it's actually good to be above this. After all we have intellects, a sense of morality, and a will. We're not some freaking lobsters driven by phobias. And you know what? At this wonderful evening party, we all agree, t…

Or, like my father-in-law, you go and grab a paper towel, pick up the spider, and let it go outside on front lawn. I have never seen him kill a spider. And some percentage of the time, more and more with each passing year, even though I am terrified of spiders, I don't kill them because of conversations like the one you describe. Just because some people react with their emotion doesn't mean everyone does and it does…

>I have never seen him kill a spider.

Given how many spiders are only inside or only outside spiders, you basically just said you seen him sending the spiders to their death. The person smashing the spider isn't much different than the person putting it outside.

Not the best source, but a good starting point: https://www.livescience.com/48479-spider-myths-busted.html

>Just because some people react with their emotion doesn't mean everyone does and it doesn't mean we have to.

And yet consider the example you gave in light of the current body of evidence.

Re: Friends Are Genetically Similar (2014)

#122

Post by doctorstupid » Mon, Sep 11, 2017, 9:26 PM UTC

okreallywtf wrote: post #17

I have anecdotally noticed this with tall people and short people, I will notice a group of friends who are all 6'2"+, or who are all <=5'7", both of which seem statistically unlikely. There are plenty of more diverse groups (in terms of height) but its hard to say whether they are work friends or something else where you have less overall choice.

I think we have a tendency to form groups in which the individuals have roughly the same ability to beat each other up. It's a primitive mutual respect.

Re: Friends Are Genetically Similar (2014)

#123

Post by bluthru » Mon, Sep 11, 2017, 9:27 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #112

bluthru wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you could ever make an argument that murder is good, but tribes have their benefits. For example, we know that homogenous societies have less conflict, a greater sense of community, and higher social trust.

So do smaller towns, but that doesn't seem to stop people from advocating urbanization here.

Urbanization doesn't necessarily regress the issues I'm talking about, especially since cities can still have their own neighborhood and block communities.

Urbanization isn't unnatural and it agrees with our tribal instincts.

Look at Tokyo: extremely high density with extremely small social unrest. Paris, now a collection of different tribes, can't say the same.

Re: Friends Are Genetically Similar (2014)

#124

Post by BearGoesChirp » Mon, Sep 11, 2017, 9:29 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #70

tosser350 wrote: post #9

People need to realize we are built on hardware that is hundreds of millions of years old. We share a similar hormonal dominance hierarchy system with fucking lobsters. You can't just say it's and expect these things to disappear. Tribalism was important for survival, trusting someone who didn't look like you could mean death and thus was selected for over long periods of time.

Adultery and murder have happened in just about every human society in the history of time but nobody thinks we shouldn't bother trying to suppress those impulses.

Adultery has become vastly more socially acceptable. It isn't considered nice, but it doesn't get you killed anymore.

And for murder, that can be a bit of a tautology as socially unacceptable killing is murder and anything else isn't considered on the same level as murder. But if we consider killing that isn't considered murder and if you consider forms of killing that, if not legal, are punished lighter than murder, it becomes clear that our society does allow some forms of killing others.

Re: Friends Are Genetically Similar (2014)

#125

Post by eric_h » Mon, Sep 11, 2017, 9:31 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #73

orbitur wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And to take this further, outside of jr. high/high school, this ignoring is unintentional. I'm 5'7" which makes me tall among the shorts, but the number of times I've felt like I had to jump, to make sure other guys pay attention when I interject, is high. Seated meetings/meetups are my friend.

I'm your same height and have never observed this. Frankly a lot of stuff I see online about supposed travails of being my height are bewildering to me.

I'm 5' 4".

I've generally found that in a professional setting, my height is not generally an issue.

However, if, at a bar, my height is considerably (>= 6-8") below the median of the people i'm hanging out with, interjection does require more effort than it does amongst those who are closer to my own height.

It may just be pure acoustics :P

[Edit: in case it isn't clear, this is in situations where everyone is standing]

Re: Friends Are Genetically Similar (2014)

#126

Post by Cybiote » Mon, Sep 11, 2017, 9:47 PM UTC

SirensOfTitan wrote: post #53

jawns wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then we became human and started not acting like lobsters. We have intellects, a sense of morality, and a will. Those allow us to drastically curtail what might otherwise be instinctive behaviors. I know there are some determinists who say that free will is illusory and we're as much slaves to our genetics and instincts as lobsters are. But it certainly seems as if, in practice, tribalism (at least the clear-cut…

> We have intellects, a sense of morality, and a will. Those allow us to drastically curtail what might otherwise be instinctive behaviors. An excerpt from Julian Jaynes's 'Origin of Consciousness' comes to mind here: > Consciousness is a much smaller part of our mental life than we are conscious of, because we cannot be conscious of what we are not conscious of. How simple that is to say; how difficult to appreciate…

That a process is non-conscious does not necessitate that it is primitive or incapable of sophisticated inference and computation. Sophistication and conscious reportability are absolutely not anti-correlated. Indeed, if I were to lean one way, it would be against the things we consciously perceive as difficult, inferring from the Moravec Paradox.

Non-consciously accessible processes play an important role in our ability to reason, predict and control behavior in a manner Evolution could not anticipate. They are no less us.

Re: Friends Are Genetically Similar (2014)

#127

Post by colordrops » Mon, Sep 11, 2017, 9:48 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #109

colordrops wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there are countless facets to tribalism, and racism doesn't have to be one of them. But in any case my point is more general in nature and not about tribalism.

It's really hard for me to see how you can treat "genetically similar tribes" and races as unrelated concepts.

The concept of races and racism are completely orthogonal.

Re: Friends Are Genetically Similar (2014)

#128

Post by emodendroket » Mon, Sep 11, 2017, 9:49 PM UTC

BearGoesChirp wrote: post #124

emodendroket wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adultery and murder have happened in just about every human society in the history of time but nobody thinks we shouldn't bother trying to suppress those impulses.

Adultery has become vastly more socially acceptable. It isn't considered nice, but it doesn't get you killed anymore. And for murder, that can be a bit of a tautology as socially unacceptable killing is murder and anything else isn't considered on the same level as murder. But if we consider killing that isn't considered murder and if you consider forms of killing that, if not legal, are punished lighter than murder,…

Does this kind of nitpicking actually invalidate the argument? Use sexual assault if you prefer. The point is that a behavior being natural or instinctual doesn't make it moral or desirable.

Re: Friends Are Genetically Similar (2014)

#129

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Sep 11, 2017, 9:52 PM UTC

bykovich2 wrote: post #120

SirensOfTitan wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have intellects, a sense of morality, and a will. Those allow us to drastically curtail what might otherwise be instinctive behaviors. An excerpt from Julian Jaynes's 'Origin of Consciousness' comes to mind here: > Consciousness is a much smaller part of our mental life than we are conscious of, because we cannot be conscious of what we are not conscious of. How simple that is to say; how difficult to appreciate…

One might go so far as to say that substance and sustenance of life dwells in those holes. I won't go so far, but someone (not me, of course) might.

[deleted]

Re: Friends Are Genetically Similar (2014)

#130

Post by BurningFrog » Mon, Sep 11, 2017, 10:05 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #70

tosser350 wrote: post #9

People need to realize we are built on hardware that is hundreds of millions of years old. We share a similar hormonal dominance hierarchy system with fucking lobsters. You can't just say it's and expect these things to disappear. Tribalism was important for survival, trusting someone who didn't look like you could mean death and thus was selected for over long periods of time.

Adultery and murder have happened in just about every human society in the history of time but nobody thinks we shouldn't bother trying to suppress those impulses.

Am I the only one not seeing the adultery/murder connection here?