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The Modern-Day Mind-Killer

keaganstokoe.com

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Re: The Modern-Day Mind-Killer

#71
post #54

Since this is freshman-level "think, don't believe", here's an equally valid counterargument at roughly the same level. In Heinrich's book "The Secret of our Success" on cumulative cultural evolution, he gives an example of pre-Columbus American cultures whose diet was based on bitter manioc (a.k.a. cassava). Like the name suggests, in its raw form it's too bitter to eat, but these cultures evolved a set of tradition…

"Think for yourself" is humanity's adaptation of forager ants[0]. Sure, many will be lost, but we need those people that hunt for novelty because it eventually benefits everyone else. You could even think of historical figures that advanced society as the forager ants of our culture. I'm not sure what the benefit would be if everyone chose to be one, though. The hive mind is an interesting phenomenon, it seems that t…

> "...there has to have some advantage at some level even if it isn't obvious at all."

I don't think 'natural selection' makes a bidirectional claim in this way. Not every gene expression is an advantageous mutation. In other words, a lot hinges on your interpretation of 'advantage'. Darwin's observations of advantage explained difference, whereas a mutation which leads to similar traits in organisms would not have an advantage per se--it's just mutation, replication, selection. repeat.

This is not my field of study. Maybe someone else can correct me or say this better...

Re: The Modern-Day Mind-Killer

#72
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently watched a lecture series on Machine Learning and the speaker talked about how one of the deeper principles is balancing exploration and exploitation. Spend all your time doing one or the other and you'll never get anywhere, but the optimal balance depends on the problem and the environment (no free lunch etc.) Forager ants, Galileos and people who just boil their cassava are the explorers I guess, and prob…

The Greeks in Socrates's time also shrouded and secluded women in high-status families, for similar reasons as Muslim extremists do today. There was no religious smokescreen in thar case. But many women in burqas consider it liberating not to be obliged to wear makeup and track fashion. Invisibility can be a power, in context. Maybe everyone should have a burqa on hand, for those times. You can conceal a lot in there…

> "Maybe everyone should have a burqa on hand..."

Or, we can just stop 'selling' women?

Re: The Modern-Day Mind-Killer

#73

Since this is freshman-level "think, don't believe", here's an equally valid counterargument at roughly the same level. In Heinrich's book "The Secret of our Success" on cumulative cultural evolution, he gives an example of pre-Columbus American cultures whose diet was based on bitter manioc (a.k.a. cassava). Like the name suggests, in its raw form it's too bitter to eat, but these cultures evolved a set of tradition…

> "For basically all of history, using reason would get you killed." Relevant to this is the analogy by Phil Goetz of reason as a memetic immune disorder [1]: > The reason I bring this up is that intelligent people sometimes do things more stupid than stupid people are capable of. There are a variety of reasons for this; but one has to do with the fact that all cultures have dangerous memes circulating in them, and c…

Thank you `user234683` for the link to 'Reason as memetic immune disorder'. I think more needs to be said about 'dangerous' memes.

Re: The Modern-Day Mind-Killer

#74
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Greeks in Socrates's time also shrouded and secluded women in high-status families, for similar reasons as Muslim extremists do today. There was no religious smokescreen in thar case. But many women in burqas consider it liberating not to be obliged to wear makeup and track fashion. Invisibility can be a power, in context. Maybe everyone should have a burqa on hand, for those times. You can conceal a lot in there…

> "Maybe everyone should have a burqa on hand..." Or, we can just stop 'selling' women?

Well, that too, but that is a different topic.
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