No, I’m saying they already have all the elements of human society which distinguish them from other animal life. I’m saying there’s nothing in the lifestyle of the Maasai that’s any more (or less) “natural” than a New Yorker’s. I’m saying you’re quibbling over differences of degree between them and us, when the dividing line between them, us and everything else couldn’t be clearer.
The Maasai are as removed from nature as you or I. Their cattle are no more or less natural than those in Texas, their red tartans are no more their natural coverings than my 501s, their bomas are no more or less a natural structure than my Victorian house.
Neither am I - but “complexity” isn’t an engineering term. What did you mean by “more complex”? More interactions? More components? What? I’ve already said why it fails by any sensible measure of “complexity”, but you continue to disagree. Why?
In what way? If you just mean in function, then so is any house or apartment. And functional difference is not a measure of complexity.
I think you’ll find it’s also a place to raise kids, host parties (yes, parties), bind a group together. Yes, it’s not a public building, as all those you listed are, but I see no difference between the hut and my house, in terms of its relevance to the idea of society. Certainly, we can say it is not *just *a shelter, as you intimate. And, from what I can read, not meant to be that temporary at all.
And I think the other crucial difference is that it is a cultural artifact, not a genetic one like all the animal structures you mention, which are all built by instinct. Equating them to nests strikes me as all kinds of chauvinistic.
So, as I alluded to in post #14, this discussion is not about learning anything, or thinking differently, or realizing a point, or really paying attention to or attempting to comprehend anything I’ve said - - it’s about the definition of the word “society”. How utterly, dreadfully predictable.
“willing to adopt” – you make it sound like a cross to carry. The elimination of the genes of those not wanting children will make the future a better place. Yes. That’s about right. A little bit better if in the future people will want children because they are genetically coded to love children. I assume people that don’t want children, don’t love children as much as people that want children.
I find it hard to imagine ways in which you could more thoroughly miss the point of everything I’ve said here. Read this, paying special attention to the law of limited competition, which indigenous peoples still follow, and we don’t. That is the difference between us and them, and between us and “nature”. It was suggested that it is essentially human to live “against nature” the way we do, and I merely offered counter-examples that strongly suggest that it’s not.
As human society becomes less agrarian, it even more favors intelligence - the smarter you are, the more money you can make, the more succesfully you pass your genes on.
War is and always has been a selective pressure on humans. On chimps, too.
Western humans are probably adapting to a sedentary lifestyle. Whoever has whatever stupid gene combo that lets you be a couch potato, eat fat, and still live to 90 will probably have lots of descendants.
Cancer-resistant skin will be a big seller going forward.
Wrong. In fact it seems just the opposite is true–the less money you make and the lower your quality of life, the more offspring you pop out. There is much less pressure against low intelligence than there should be (Darwin awards notwithstanding) because once you are born society will do its best to cushion your survival rate.
True, but these are not necessarily selective pressures for the net good, which is what the OP is concerned with.
There was still “Society” prior to 10,000 years ago. It was tribal and didn’t leave behind a written record, but we were social animals all the same. Limiting your definition of “society” to “the way we’re doing it now” doesn’t make any sense.
Your cite seems very worked up about the notion that humanity existed before agriculture. Well, so what? We were still social creatures. Some humans may have a greater capacity for altering their environment that others, but in the grand scheme of things ALL humans remain at the mercy of the environment and nature; even the most technologically advanced societies are utterly dependent on nature to survive, and are hopelessly unable to prevent it from killing them when chance decides to do so.
How so? The way I see it, this person only needs to live to 40 or 50, or however long it takes for him to have a few kids. Typically, 90 year old men/women don’t have children. So I don’t really see how this person is favored in any evolutionary sense to any ordinary person who lives to the age of 40 or 50. Someone explain how this would work over an aggregate.
“Should” implies a judgement call. Who decides whether or not there is enough selective pressure? From the perspective of someone who is educated and well-mannered, perhaps there is not enough selective pressure on low intelligence individuals. From the standpoint of natural selection, however, I’m not sure there’s ever “too little” or “too much” selective pressure. Whatever selective pressure is present on a population is the right one under the given environmental conditions.
Very simple summary of thread:
-The OP asks about humans that have “generally have found ways to not subject ourselves to the whims of nature.”
-Beadalin and ghardester suggest that this is natural way for humans to live
-I point out that it is actually a recent, and not universal development
-Several posters ignore my point and launch a quest to define the word “society”
I kinda went into this at length in my previous posts, but I understand if you didn’t see it in the flood of posts. I quote myself:
I agree with you that ‘natural selection’ in as much as it is a force or entity in our minds, doesn’t give a flying fuck. My point is that we as conscious and intelligent animals, capable of giving and receiving pain and pleasure, should start giving a fuck and making judgment calls.
Again, the posters I was responding to were referring to society that paved roads, etc. If ghardester meant “society” in the way that you mean it, then his/her statement:
wouldn’t make any sense. It’s a foregone conclusion and no one would disagree that we are social animals. He/she was referring to “the way we’re doing it now.”
Because that’s necessary for survival, and they don’t all live to reproduce. As people and societies move away from the subsistence level, they’re able to have fewer children and focus their resources on a smaller number of children, which gives greater advantages to the kids and increases the chances they survive.
Both of these assume that just having the baby is enough. In most mammals, and with humans in particular, the parent needs to stick around to makes sure the offspring survives to raise offspring. Human lifespan is a reflection of the evolutionary need to be around for the young and even for the young’s young. I should cite-check a column **Cecil **did on this.
It’s also worth noting that humans protect members of the species they aren’t even related to - really rare in the animal kingdom. Social animals’ groups are almost always built around extended families. In fact, I can’t think of another species (even including perhaps other *homo *species) that moves beyond extended family. It’s a different strategy on gene preservation - it helps the species in our case because of the complex societies we develop. It’s still evolution, and it still favors intelligence as societal roles change and require intelligence. Here, I should cite Before the Dawn, an excellent, substantive-but-layman-oriented exploration of human evolution.
Thanks for clarifying my misunderstanding, I understand that point better now. Still I think it’s safe to say that the kinds of selective pressures present today are not ideal for the very specific goal of increasing happiness experienced.
edit: thanks for the book recommendation bup, and again, I am not disputing that evolution is still happening (as has been mentioned it is impossible to stop as long as reproduction is imperfect), I’m merely questioning natural selection’s relevancy in a new, electron-speed world. There are better ways for humans to improve ourselves than to sit around and wait millennia.
Oh, just noticed this. Murder like humans do it is also pretty rare; I wouldn’t call it a ‘law of nature.’ Lots of other species kill others’ young, but just killing healthy adults is (I think) restricted to a few primates.
I disagree. Any behavior that arises naturally (i.e. as a result of our nature) is natural. The fact that it is rare means just that: that it is a rare but natural phenomenon. Premeditated murder for emotional reasons is surely more complex than farting or hunting, but that is only because powerful brains capable of the range of emotions and thoughts necessary for such an act is a new development.
You’ve clearly got some goal in mind for humanity other than continuing to produce descendants. Evolution doesn’t. It’s not an optimizing principle. If whatever genes humans have are good enough to allow us to keep producing descendants, that’s good enough from an evolutionary standpoint. Evolution isn’t some kind of deity that is trying to create a better human being, or a happier one.
Yes. Evolution isn’t going to improve our quality of life for us, or get rid of genetic diseases that diminish quality of life but don’t prevent reproduction. If we want that, we have to do it ourselves.
Evolution didn’t eliminate smallpox, or make humans immune to it. It was much more efficient for us to use vaccination and other public health techniques to do that.
We’re K strategists, not r strategists. An r strategy, where you pump out lots of kids, isn’t the only game in town for ensuring that you have descendants. Having a few kids and expending a lot of resources in caring for them is a plausible strategy, too. In fact, in a stable environment, it tends to predominate over the strategy of having lots of kids and not taking care of them.
Yes, you’re exactly right, I understand the theory of evolution. I’ve said as much in 2 or 3 posts on this page. My only point was that evolution is no longer the primary force of change, we have much greater tools for improvement at our fingertips, which is a point you seem to agree with.