Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also, I've heard the theory (I don't know if it's true) that while Chinese invented porcelain and used it for containers (cups, plates, etc), Europeans never did, and ended up inventing glass instead (and windows, microscopes, telescopes, ...).
Telescopes were brought into Europe by Arabs living in what was then Iberia, Sicily and a few other places. As well as many farming new technologies like irrigation for example.
Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears
71–80 of 105 posts
Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Social contracts, religions, wisdom traditions of all kinds have been founded on the insight that "hitting back a bully if you can" is not a good behavior in the long term. The Buddhist text Dhammapada puts it like this, in Gil Fronsdal's translation: Hatred never ends through hatred. By non-hate alone does it end. This is an ancient truth. (Of course this is not evidence; you didn't provide any, either.)
Idealistic moral philosophy and real life are quite different. My own experiences tell me repeatedly turning the other cheek will rarely improve your situation in reality. I think the utopia of religions and "wisdom traditions" run counter to human nature, especially in individual situations (e.g. bully violence) as opposed to a lofty moral concept for mankind (as in "we all ought to strive to...").
I see your point. Moral philosophy and real life aren't separable in a clear-cut way, though. This conversation isn't about judging whether individual actions by people in extreme situations involving violence are right or wrong. It's about the ideas, emotions, and structures that surround those situations.
Let's take another example. Consider the moral injunction "don't steal," and the ethical/philosophical idea "stealing is wrong." These are quite basic, definitely not outlandish. Yet there are many situations where stealing is necessary for one's survival[1] and therefore proper.
Someone discussing the ethics of theft could well be accused of lofty idealism because of the existence of emergency situations wherein theft are necessary. But I think such examples don't completely invalidate the moral prohibition against stealing; they only show that nuance is required.
This conversation started as a discussion of male conditioning, the culture of male violence, and how that relates to bullying at an early age. That's a larger scale than individual incidences of bullying.
The "utopian" idea of nonviolence, for example as expressed in my Dhammapada quote, isn't primarily saying that kids should be scolded for hitting back. I'd say it's more relevant to how parents, perhaps especially fathers, should talk about such violence. The hypothetical parent who cheers on the bullied kid when he/she hits back may be propagating values that are not beneficial.
[1]: Even such a strict property ethicist as Ayn Rand wrote about this in an essay called "The Ethics of Emergencies."
Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Early attempts to study stress hormones from aggression in large cats (e.g., lions and tigers) studied hunting behavior. The researchers puzzled over data that didn't make any sense to them for a long time before realizing that to a lion, killing that smaller mammal is like opening a box of cereal. That you really have to look at lion-on-lion violence to study aggression.
Do you remember where you read this? I have been looking for a source without success.
I'm pretty sure all this kind of pseudo science comes from /r/MensRights. Victimhood for everybody!
Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Idealistic moral philosophy and real life are quite different. My own experiences tell me repeatedly turning the other cheek will rarely improve your situation in reality. I think the utopia of religions and "wisdom traditions" run counter to human nature, especially in individual situations (e.g. bully violence) as opposed to a lofty moral concept for mankind (as in "we all ought to strive to...").
I see your point. Moral philosophy and real life aren't separable in a clear-cut way, though. This conversation isn't about judging whether individual actions by people in extreme situations involving violence are right or wrong. It's about the ideas, emotions, and structures that surround those situations. Let's take another example. Consider the moral injunction "don't steal," and the ethical/philosophical idea "st…
That's one way of looking at it. Another is violence is part of establishing a pecking order. Not fighting back generally establishes you as someone on a lower rank in the pecking order and invites more of the same over the long term. In cases where someone thinks physically you may be above them but you keep backing down this creates a tension. Where fighting back can clear things up and long term you may start a friendship with some of those bullies.
Also, even if you lose making fights more costly / painful is a significant disincentive.
PS: There are also pure sociopaths out there and not everyone can put up a good fight etc. But, in plenty of situations violence is not really vicious and can calm things down.
Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
I see your point. Moral philosophy and real life aren't separable in a clear-cut way, though. This conversation isn't about judging whether individual actions by people in extreme situations involving violence are right or wrong. It's about the ideas, emotions, and structures that surround those situations. Let's take another example. Consider the moral injunction "don't steal," and the ethical/philosophical idea "st…
That's one way of looking at it. Another is violence is part of establishing a pecking order. Not fighting back generally establishes you as someone on a lower rank in the pecking order and invites more of the same over the long term. In cases where someone thinks physically you may be above them but you keep backing down this creates a tension. Where fighting back can clear things up and long term you may start a fr…
That seems like a very appropriate viewpoint in a thread about primates. However, as an irredeemable idealist and utopist, I have hopes for a human social order not based on violence.
Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
That all makes sense as a theory, but is this fact based on hard evidence or merely academic speculation? 2.2 million years is an awful long time ago, and I didn't think we had that much evidence about humans habits and culture dating back that long ago. Exactly what happened roughly 2.2 million years a to explain this evolutionary change?
That's the thing. Most of the evolutionary theories about how something happened 2 or 200 million years ago are just on the level of speculation. That's one of my gripes about evolution ... the field attracts a lot of pseudoscience (such as evolutionary psychology) in the form of "explanations" for various phenomena we observe today, or how a transition happened. The truth is no one actually knows, or can test most o…
I think the bigger mistake is to claim the invention of the baby sling caused our lengthened human gestation: it gives no selection pressure in favour of lengthening our gestation period, it merely removes a selection pressure against it.
Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
That all makes sense as a theory, but is this fact based on hard evidence or merely academic speculation? 2.2 million years is an awful long time ago, and I didn't think we had that much evidence about humans habits and culture dating back that long ago. Exactly what happened roughly 2.2 million years a to explain this evolutionary change?
That's the thing. Most of the evolutionary theories about how something happened 2 or 200 million years ago are just on the level of speculation. That's one of my gripes about evolution ... the field attracts a lot of pseudoscience (such as evolutionary psychology) in the form of "explanations" for various phenomena we observe today, or how a transition happened. The truth is no one actually knows, or can test most o…
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Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
That all makes sense as a theory, but is this fact based on hard evidence or merely academic speculation? 2.2 million years is an awful long time ago, and I didn't think we had that much evidence about humans habits and culture dating back that long ago. Exactly what happened roughly 2.2 million years a to explain this evolutionary change?
That's the thing. Most of the evolutionary theories about how something happened 2 or 200 million years ago are just on the level of speculation. That's one of my gripes about evolution ... the field attracts a lot of pseudoscience (such as evolutionary psychology) in the form of "explanations" for various phenomena we observe today, or how a transition happened. The truth is no one actually knows, or can test most o…
Is the field of EP completely pseudoscience?
Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears
#79If you ever want to have real fun, point this out to a doctrinaire feminist who is heavily invested in the idea that men are more violent than women because in the primordial landscape men did most of the hunting. I did this to a freind once, quite innocently, and she ended up so angry she could--in her own description--barely speak. There is a whole literature in a particular brand of feminism (mostly associated wit…
You make some interesting points, but there should be a norm against introducing a political topic on a non-political thread. There's a way to get to a political point from most non-political topics, but then every thread leads to a political fight. I think it's especially important not to criticize a political point that no-one has brought up in the thread already. It's always tempting to address the worst arguments…
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Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears
#80I've read of theories that ancient man's brain development came so quickly because we learned to throw spears at prey. We nearly doubled our brain size in a very short time period (anthropologically speaking.)
It was thought that it resulted from developing a sense of lay calculus by throwing the spears. One anthropologist I heard speak said he thought that would mean major league pitchers are the pinnacle of human evolution. :)
Of course, that gentleman consumed more psychedelics than anyone I've ever known, so I'm not so sure.
More to the point, what if this is the beginning of a very fast evolutionary change?