How would a benevolent, all powerful deity evolve a race of happy, peaceful humans

Great Debates
1

So assume there is a deity, and assume that this deity could provide for all of our material needs while protecting us from all forms of harm.

What breeding pressures would the deity use to create a race of humans that are peaceful, content, empathetic and blissful? How many generations would it take?

Naturally, you can’t do that in the real world. If you breed out anger and hate then there is no reason to stop others from taking advantage of you since there’d be no retribution. If you breed out pain then there is no reason to avoid trauma, family breakups, humiliation, etc. If you make humans too empathetic then it becomes hard to hunt or defend yourself.

So obviously in the real world it’d never happen and if it did they’d go extinct pretty fast. But this assumes that none of that matters.

For one thing I guess the deity would select people who are (wait for it) high on liberalism and low on conservatism as far as outlooks. The reason is that liberals seem to have a lower fear response, they feel less threatened by events and people, and they have a higher level of empathy. Conservatives seem to have a higher fear response (taken to extremes, they feel that every social improvement will collapse civilization and every third world dictator is the next hitler). On the other hand Liberals, taken to extremes can ignore danger where it actually exists by supporting pacifism even in the fact of authoritarian dictators or not taking issues like crime or terrorism as seriously as they should.

But yes, I would assume the deity would breed the liberals together and purge the conservatives.

Supposedly selecting for juvenile characteristics is also important. Domesticated animal have certain physical traits common in juveniles such as floppy ears. So selecting for juvenile characteristics and all that comes with it (being overly passive and trusting) would be looked into.

The problem is that are happiness, peace and bliss the same thing as empathy and trust? Some of the liberals I know who are very empathetic and trusting are very despondent since they see how much bad there is in the world. Then again, who knows.

I believe it takes a dozen or so generations of breeding to turn foxes into dogs who are very submissive to humans by selecting the most doglike ones. On the other hand if you do a dozen generations in the opposite direction (finding foxes that hate humans) by the end you have animals that can’t be in the same room as a human. I believe the USSR ran the latter experiment.

La Fin

2

We already are . . . without the deity. IOW, we have it within ourselves to choose to be happy and peaceful. If it’s not a choice, and we’re programmed that way . . . we might be peaceful, but we’d be automatons, incapable of being happy.

3

It isn’t about genetic evolution any more, its about cultural evolution. Genetic evolution is too slow. Physically, we’re already smarter than we need be. The rest of it depends upon intelligent use of intelligence.

You could just as well think of it as a spiritual evolution. Not saying you have to, mind, if one has a materialist fixation, its not strictly necessary. But you might as well. A Bokonon says, if you’re going to believe lies, believe the ones that make you wise, strong and kind.

4

Well, there are white mice that lead very nice lives that are completely taken care of. But only the control group. You don’t want to be among the non-elect.

5

Have you ever actually used the internet, or do you own a DVD player, or do you have access to a library? Put the words" climate change" into Google, watch “Fahrenheit 911” or “An Inconvenient Truth”, read “Collapse” or “The Population Bomb” or “Silent Spring”. Then try to tell me with a straight face that liberals are less fearful and less prone to predicting the collapse of civilization or the next Hitler.

If we constructed a list of popular “end of the world” or “New Hitler” beliefs since WWII would wager that 9 out of every 10 would be liberal beliefs, and 6 out of 10 would be core liberal beliefs of the time.

Except that domestic animals aren’t less aggressive, they are just less aggressive to their human owners. Human children are in fact far more aggressive than human adults in all societies.

6

Humans can change in a split second if persuaded hard enough to do so.

If this deity does not show them pain, turmoil and human suffering, how could they know what purely being happy is? I don’t believe these traits are in some kind of collective conscience. At least strong enough that you even have to breed it out. Pain and stuff like that has to be felt to know what it is.

Simply warn of the dark, stand in the light and see if they follow. It is easy to tell someone something in a manner that they will quickly catch on and follow suit. But does this make it natural or even real?

Breeding a race for having a better attitude is hard. The deity could become the butt of the joke if these people figure out what pain and suffering and human emotions are all about, regardless of being bred to simply be happy.

7

Hell, just type the word “Godwin” into the search engine here see how many liberal hits come up.

I would also posit that conservatives, because they generally live more responsibly and take life on its own terms, rather than trying to pound round pegs of idealism into the square holes of reality, are already happier as a population segment.

In fact, getting rid of liberals would probably be the single most effective thing a deity could do to create happiness. There would be hard work, profitability, effective schools, criminals in jail, virtually no drugs (save single malt scotch, of course) and peace and contentment all around without the never-ending whinebaggery of liberalism in society’s side. It would be like the fifties. :smiley:

8

“So, humanity, you can live a peaceful, blissful existence, in harmony with nature, with all your needs provided for and protected from harm—or you can have this piece of fruit. Which do you choose?”

9

What kind of fruit. Are they cumquats?

10

Remember - they must be happy, peaceful humans that a sociopath can’t take advantage of. If they’re all suckers, then any wise guy who figured out how to game their happiness and peaceability would become fantastically successful and spread his genes and memes like crazy.

11

This assumes the deity has taken care of that. In the real world any species of overly peaceful people would be toast. There are (I should say were) species of birds that evolved on Galapogos and were not exposed to predators. When humans landed they found they could just walk up and grab them, then kill them for food because they didn’t fly away. They are extinct now. Suffice it to say, yeah this would never work.

Generally we humans respond to people who cheat by punishing and shunning them. But this assumes even that isn’t necessary, since there is nothing we need to do to obtain land, mates or nutrition and to avoid predators or competitors. So there is nothing they’d need to do but exist.

12

Read Lord of the Flies for a commentary on the passiveness of juveniles. :wink:

13

How dare you use facts to contradict my supercilious assumption that people who share my political views are morally superior to those who do not.

However, I do not think I am wrong. As a general rule of thumb which has also been born out by research, liberals do not perceive threats as strongly as conservatives whereas conservative psychology is generally based on a strong response to various threats (physical threats, the threat of death, threats to the status quo)

http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~hannahk/bulletin.pdf

As a result the stereotypical extreme conservative is terrified of everything including minor social change (gay marriage, racial integration), street crime, people who look/act differently from them and every third world dictator or anti-american terrorist out there. And they want a strong military, strong intelligence agencies and police to protect them. Which is why despite the calls for fiscal constraint, conservatives will always put as much money into the military as needed.

The stereotypical extreme liberal is the opposite, naive and ignoring threats where they exist. They may feel sympathy with a convicted criminal and never give their victims a second thought. They may feel the cold war was totally unnecessary, that pacifism is always the best response or that terrorism is overblown. They may think anyone who watches out for suspicious behavior when walking alone in a dark neighborhood at night is racist.
Juvenile characteristics are selected for when breeding domesticated animals. It is something we have been doing for eons.

14

Are you looking to breed Eloi then, obviously without the ‘food supply’ detail?

15

One obvious reason that it’s impossible: even in this debate, we haven’t been able to discuss the nature of happiness without getting into Republican/Democrat feuding.

I agree with dangermom: you’re talking about a race with no incentive for development or growth, no curiousity, no investigative ability, no empathy for fellow-beings (assuming that this state of happiness doesn’t preclude death.)

16

An all-powerful diety wouldn’t “evolve” its people - evolve = slipshod self-construction. An all-powerful diety would make its people, like the christians all thought He did before reality convinced them otherwise.

And all the diety would have to do is make his people exactly like him. He has free will, yet is not tempted to evil. He has complete power over his environment, yet is not tempted to abuse it willy-nilly (er, ignoring reality again).

Presumably it helps a lot that he experinces no shortages. A great deal of crime would vanish if people could just make whatever they wanted appear ex-nihilo - and then if you make everyone able to personally shield themselves from all harm the rest of crime vanishes too.

17

Happiness and peace are not part of “the real world,” and ultimately not compatible with that world. They are a distraction from it, albeit one we need huge amounts of to remain sane.

18

But I’m curious as to how it would evolve.

It doesn’t even have to be a deity. Assume a race of aliens kidnapped 50,000 people and were running a science experiment. And they could provide for all our material needs while protecting us from disease, competitors and predators.

19

Like I said, it wouldn’t evolve. Evolution can be characterized as “survival of the fittest” - it’s fundamentally dependent on various species clawing their way to the top over the heads of their rivals. Conflict is inherent in the system - absent conflict you don’t have evolution, you have random genetic drift. Which is also something your creator race doesn’t need.

No, a benevolent superbeing/superrace would just make us how he wants us, and he would make us without a need to claw our way to the top.

Okay, what’s the question again? This hypothetical removes the question of creation entirely, because the people already exist.

20

The question is:

“Starting with the current crop of humans, if aliens or a creator decided to use breeding to evolve a race of happy, content, peaceful, pacifist humans what traits would they select for, and how many generations would it take”

Like I said in the OP, foxes can either be bred into dogs who enjoy humans or snarling creatures who hate humans within a dozen generations, depending on which breeding pressures you put them under and whether you select traits that make them human friendly or unfriendly.

I would assume it could be done in under 20 generations if you had a large enough starting pool based on the wolf example.