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Tradition is Smarter (2018)

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Re: Tradition is Smarter (2018)

#151

Post by KineticLensman »

afpx wrote: post #115
jpitz wrote: post #15

Chesterson's fence is about understanding: tradition may be smarter than you, maybe not, but it would serve well to understand the reasons why it's a tradition before disposing with it.

Except few people ask why. And, that's frustrating. It reminds me one of my daughter's science shows. In an experiment, they hire an actor to repeat a nonsensical ritual in a waiting room. When new people come in, without being asked, they copy the ritual. The ritual continues indefinitely well after the actor leaves the room. In another experiment (I think referenced by Sapolsky), an animal (primate) watches a human…

> In another experiment (I think referenced by Sapolsky), an animal (primate) watches a human perform a ritual that produces a reward (treat). When the animal is given the same challenge, they dispose of all of the ritualistic steps and only do the relevant steps. But, when a young Human watches, they will repeat the entire ritual

I was initially sceptical of this but some googling led me to [0]. Quite fascinating. For a more general survey of how primates learn by observation have a look at [1]

[0] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10071-004-0239-6

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5934467/

Re: Tradition is Smarter (2018)

#152

Post by KineticLensman »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #104
m4nu3l wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This person pretty much sums up my thoughts. I'll let him speak for me (although my position is probably a bit more moderate). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TzM1TO2pb4 He's also English while I'm not.

At the beginning of this video, though, he makes the argument (one which I think is quite common these days) that all the news around QEII, and all of the tributes to her, are imposed from on high by media-elite overlords. My argument is that it's just as probable that the media is feeding into a desire that a large portion of the population holds. The line to see QEII's coffin was 5 miles long, with a wait time of 1…

> The line to see QEII's coffin was 5 miles long, with a wait time of 13 hours. Clearly some people really were interested in the queen

I'm not a monarchist but I queued (11.5 hours). I wanted to pay my respects to her as a person who had been a central figure in Britain for my entire life. I also believed that many other people would feel the same, and it was a chance to be a part of this large ad-hoc community.

I also believe that for all the faults of the monarchy, and considering as an example the massively polarising debate around Brexit, that the British would not be able to easily create a better system without setting off some intense and destructive national tensions.

Re: Tradition is Smarter (2018)

#153

Post by criley2 »

lelanthran wrote: post #150
criley2 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's horrifying that these are even compared. The foreskin is just some skin and absolutely not required to experience sexual pleasure or climax. But for women, they cut their clitoris out , fundamentally altering their ability to have sex forever. You cannot compare this. There is no equivalence here. IMO, female genital mutilation is comparable to male gelding --- removal of the entire penis. Both are designed to r…

> The foreskin is just some skin and absolutely not required to experience sexual pleasure or climax. A significant portion of ED is traced back to male genital mutilation. > Always weirds me out when a dude compares a circumcision to FGM, like someone is intentionally conflating a much lesser evil with a far greater one. You keep avoid using the term "male genital mutilation". Always weirds me out when people don't…

No post body was provided.

Re: Tradition is Smarter (2018)

#154

Post by 0134340 »

drekipus wrote: post #147
0134340 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you can just as well use it to vouch for change. If you don't understand why a change is being pushed for, maybe try to understand it first before trying to tear it down so therefore 'change is smarter'. Hopefully that now makes clear the ignorance and clickbaitiness of the title. Pretentious titles and articles never fail to show their faces on the daily here.

This is pretty strawman. You've got to broaden the mind a bit. "We need change to have silly hat day and every one needs to scream at noon., if you don't understand the need for this change, maybe try to understand it first before trying to tear it down." - you can't understand it because I made it up, just then, nonsensically. It is a valid change that me and my supporters are pushing for. The difference with tradit…

If you want to call it strawmanning then I was mirroring the tactic of the author in the article. I thought it ignorant and pretentious to call tradition "smarter" as if changes, in general, are dumber; that's a strawman. And of course it's obvious, some things that are in place are in place because they're good, you should understand it first. And then you should likewise understand the need for changes; both are valid. Nowhere in my reply did I invalidate tradition, more defending the need for changes sometimes and pointing out the folly of the title.

Re: Tradition is Smarter (2018)

#155

Post by vharuck »

betwixthewires wrote: post #138
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #49

Rarely have I had such a negative reaction to a blog post, for 2 main reasons: 1. The author seems to "mysticize" tradition, basically taking the approach "sometimes you just have to take things on faith". Which I think is complete nonsense. If you look at the traditions that "work", like the manioc processing given in the article, this is basically just the scientific method at work, but where we've lost the documen…

I think it's just an open minded anthropological exploration of culture and tradition, and the beginning sentence hints at there being some long term computation occurring with cultures similar to evolution, i.e "doing things that work benefit a culture selectively whether they understand how they work or not." I don't think the author wants us to "lose the documentation", only to not throw the procedure out just bec…

>They did propogate because they did serve the societies, just not necessarily the individuals in those societies.

The article didn't dive into this implication, but it also comes up with bird divination (i.e. random selection) to pick crop locations. It made sure the society as a whole wouldn't collapse because of a disaster in the most productive fields. But there had to be unlucky rice farmers who were trying to grow rice in crappy fields. They might not have prospered and raised a large family, despite doing the exact same thing as the people with good fields. Traditions can be overall good while punishing individuals.

Re: Tradition is Smarter (2018)

#156

Post by cratermoon »

klyrs wrote: post #27
cratermoon wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Progress itself is a tradition, but a relatively recent one, and not one deserving reverence. At least, not any more.

How recent is relatively recent in your mind?

No earlier than the Age of Enlightenment and at least by the Industrial Revolution.

Re: Tradition is Smarter (2018)

#157

Post by cratermoon »

api wrote: post #12
cratermoon wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Progress itself is a tradition, but a relatively recent one, and not one deserving reverence. At least, not any more.

… says someone who if they are posting on HN has very likely never known actual hunger or true poverty and has all humanity’s history and knowledge at their fingertips instantly. The problem with progress is that it makes people so comfortable and privileged that they dream up inane fantasy ideologies that question progress and harken back to the imaginary golden ages from which their ancestors painfully crawled.

No one is fetishizing the past. It's simply a fact that progress is not a inevitable, not a law of nature. We live in a time when one generation is objectively less well off than their parents. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/feb/14/economics-v...

Re: Tradition is Smarter (2018)

#158

Post by lelanthran »

criley2 wrote: post #153
lelanthran wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The foreskin is just some skin and absolutely not required to experience sexual pleasure or climax. A significant portion of ED is traced back to male genital mutilation. > Always weirds me out when a dude compares a circumcision to FGM, like someone is intentionally conflating a much lesser evil with a far greater one. You keep avoid using the term "male genital mutilation". Always weirds me out when people don't…

Quoted post unavailable.

> I now posit that you do so to undercut the horrifying abuse done to women. Why you choose to do that, I'll leave to the readers imagination.

Me calling male genital mutilation an amputation does not, in any way, venture any opinion on other types of mutilation.

Re: Tradition is Smarter (2018)

#159

Post by danjoredd »

jpitz wrote: post #15

Chesterson's fence is about understanding: tradition may be smarter than you, maybe not, but it would serve well to understand the reasons why it's a tradition before disposing with it.

In the Art of Manliness podcast, there was an episode recently on how athletes with traditions and rituals tend to perform better than those without, even if they are tiny. Its something inside our monkey brains that helps us with our confidence and performance. Weird stuff, but interesting

Re: Tradition is Smarter (2018)

#160

Post by tim333 »

m4nu3l wrote: post #82

Coincidentally I had debates recently about traditions. In particular about Monarchies. While traditions can be there for reasons and it's OK to follow some traditions, all traditions should be questioned. The amount of knowledge we have today is not comparable with what we had in any previous time in history. The article actually proves that. We now know about chronic cyanide poisoning to a level that was unknown ev…

>the Monarchy serve no real purpose in modern societies

There may be a bit of a Chesterton's fence thing going on. You say these idiots have no function but one underrated function is preventing other idiots taking the ruler for life role. See eg:

Germany - got rid of the monarchy in 1918, got Hitler as ruler for life

Russia - got rid of theirs early C20th, got Stalin, Putin

France - got Napoleon. etc

on the other hand

Thailand - kept the monarchy - only Asian country that was never colonized/occupied by the West partly because the people would object to the kind being dissed.

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