# Would it be justified to remove the negative aspects of human nature entirely through fantastical means? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 6, 2024, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-justified-to-remove-the-negative-aspects-of-human-nature-entirely-through-fantastical-means/1011273 "2024-12-06T20:58:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2025, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-justified-to-remove-the-negative-aspects-of-human-nature-entirely-through-fantastical-means/1011273/41 "2025-01-19T00:17:47Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > Atwood seems to be suggesting that, even with the most extreme intervention imaginable, it’s impossible to de-religionize us. I really don’t buy that; if it was true atheism wouldn’t exist. Real life humanity is the result of many thousands of years of selective breeding ([via murder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impiety)) for religiosity. There’s no reason to assume that a species created without that baggage would be religious. It’s also telling that it’s religion, _specifically_ that is supposedly so inevitable. The idea that it’s possible to live happily and morally without religion is deeply offensive to most people. ---
**Author:** ![Zoobi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/13edae/32.png) [@Zoobi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoobi)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2025, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-justified-to-remove-the-negative-aspects-of-human-nature-entirely-through-fantastical-means/1011273/42 "2025-01-19T00:35:11Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > revert to 3rd world status due to too-rapidly changing demographics, What “demographic” in particular should we worry about? ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2025, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-justified-to-remove-the-negative-aspects-of-human-nature-entirely-through-fantastical-means/1011273/43 "2025-01-19T01:07:47Z")
> [@Zoobi](#): > > What “demographic” in particular should we worry about? Why do you think the USA was unable to establish democracy in Afghanistan? Because the cultural underpinnings aren’t there. Why does Israel have a GDP per capita of $52,000 and neighbouring Egypt a GPD per capita of $3,500? Different cultures are different. If you waved a wand and replaced the population of the USA with the population of Mexico, the resulting country would be more like Mexico that like America. People from the third world do not magically become capable of sustaining a first world economy and democracy the second they arrive in a first world country, and that’s the issue in plausible future circumstances. > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Real life humanity is the result of many thousands of years of selective breeding ([via murder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impiety)) for religiosity. There’s no reason to assume that a species created without that baggage would be religious. It’s also telling that it’s religion, _specifically_ that is supposedly so inevitable. There are several examples where ideology replaces religion as the overarching moral principle, but humans do seem to have a need for one. Dunno if it would be possible to remove this need, or beneficial if we could. It might mean removing abstract morality, too. ---
**Author:** ![Zoobi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/13edae/32.png) [@Zoobi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoobi)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2025, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-justified-to-remove-the-negative-aspects-of-human-nature-entirely-through-fantastical-means/1011273/44 "2025-01-19T01:10:57Z")
It seems like you are avoiding giving me an answer. Perhaps it’s unfair for me to ask because I don’t think you can truthfully answer given the board rules (as far as I understand them). ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2025, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-justified-to-remove-the-negative-aspects-of-human-nature-entirely-through-fantastical-means/1011273/45 "2025-01-19T01:11:19Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > Why do you think the USA was unable to establish democracy in Afghanistan? Because we never tried or wanted to. They’d have voted for us to go away, after all. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2025, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-justified-to-remove-the-negative-aspects-of-human-nature-entirely-through-fantastical-means/1011273/46 "2025-01-19T01:13:16Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Because we never tried or wanted to. They’d have voted for us to go away, after all. Why was the USA able to establish democracy in Japan, and (re)establish it in Germany? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2025, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-justified-to-remove-the-negative-aspects-of-human-nature-entirely-through-fantastical-means/1011273/47 "2025-01-19T01:14:53Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > Why was the USA able to establish democracy in Japan, and (re)establish it in Germany? Because it _did_ try, there. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2025, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-justified-to-remove-the-negative-aspects-of-human-nature-entirely-through-fantastical-means/1011273/48 "2025-01-19T01:23:07Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Because it _did_ try, there. Nah. Not trying in Afghanistan wouldn’t benefit the US. It made the whole war an embarrassing failure and huge waste of money. Afghanistan is just too tribal to support democracy. You need people to feel part of a more abstract idea of society for it to work. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2025, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-justified-to-remove-the-negative-aspects-of-human-nature-entirely-through-fantastical-means/1011273/49 "2025-01-19T01:27:50Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > Not trying in Afghanistan wouldn’t benefit the US. It made the whole war an embarrassing failure and huge waste of money. We never cared about it in the first place; it was just a speedbump on the way to conquering Iraq. So we took it over in the quickest and easiest way we could and then ignored it for years while Bush and company tried their little colonialist project in Iraq. And even after we never had an actual goal in Afghanistan, which is why we were always doomed to failure; you can’t succeed unless you first set up a goal to succeed _at,_ and we never had one there. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2025, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-justified-to-remove-the-negative-aspects-of-human-nature-entirely-through-fantastical-means/1011273/50 "2025-01-19T02:44:25Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > Why was the USA able to establish democracy in Japan, and (re)establish it in Germany? And yet both populations were committing some of the most sadistic warcrimes seen in the modern world just months prior. So which is it – did they “evolve” in the last few months of the war or, if you’re just saying it’s culture, then both are textbook examples of how a culture can flip 180 degrees overnight, thus horribly undercutting your own point. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2025, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-justified-to-remove-the-negative-aspects-of-human-nature-entirely-through-fantastical-means/1011273/51 "2025-01-19T05:44:35Z")
Margaret Atwood isn’t in favor of religion. She just thinks it’s inseparable from the human brain. Why are there still atheists, then? One consideration left out is the communal nature of religious participation. The genetically-constructed people in the novel were newly arrived in a strange and dangerous world (dangerous because lots of vicious genetically-engineered wolvogs and pigoons were roaming wild), so they spontaneously came up with rituals that would help them bond as a community. They had been programmed to form communities; Atwood seems to be implying that religion is an emergent phenomenon in social bonding, whether planned or not. There is no reason given for atheists to not exist; it’s probable that atheists could very well appear among them, given time. The thing is, though, each atheist arrives at it individually, without forming community bonds around atheism the way communities are formed with religion. The atheist communal-bonding game is weak by comparison, very much weaker. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2025, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-justified-to-remove-the-negative-aspects-of-human-nature-entirely-through-fantastical-means/1011273/52 "2025-01-19T06:58:34Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > The genetically-constructed people in the novel were newly arrived in a strange and dangerous world (dangerous because lots of vicious genetically-engineered wolvogs and pigoons were roaming wild), so they spontaneously came up with rituals that would help them bond as a community That’s not religion; denial of reality _(aka_ “faith”) is religion. There’s plenty of social bonding rituals that have nothing to do with religion. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2025, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-justified-to-remove-the-negative-aspects-of-human-nature-entirely-through-fantastical-means/1011273/53 "2025-01-19T07:38:26Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > That’s not religion; denial of reality _(aka_ “faith”) is religion. There’s plenty of social bonding rituals that have nothing to do with religion. Then why do people feel uncomfortable when established rituals are ignored? Not just uncomfortable in a general societal sense, but actually feeling that something bad will happen if the ritual isn’t observed? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2025, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-justified-to-remove-the-negative-aspects-of-human-nature-entirely-through-fantastical-means/1011273/54 "2025-01-19T08:18:03Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Then why do people feel uncomfortable when established rituals are ignored? Instinct, apparently; as I understand it a propensity for ritualistic behavior seems to be something built into what’s sometime called the “reptile complex” in the brain. But that’s ritual, not religion; society is full of non-religious rituals. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2025, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-justified-to-remove-the-negative-aspects-of-human-nature-entirely-through-fantastical-means/1011273/55 "2025-01-19T08:59:11Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > And yet both populations were committing some of the most sadistic warcrimes seen in the modern world just months prior. So which is it – did they “evolve” in the last few months of the war or, if you’re just saying it’s culture, then both are textbook examples of how a culture can flip 180 degrees overnight, thus horribly undercutting your own point. It shows the cultural factors that allow for democracy or a well developed tech industry don’t in themselves prevent war crimes (and capitalist democracies have committed such, though they aren’t the worst offenders), AFAIK it’s specifically clannishness in Afghanistan, the loyalty to a tribe or extended family rather than to the state, that gets in the way of democracy and of a functioning capitalist society. What to us is nepotism and corruption is to them acting morally correctly by aiding family members. Even Japan has a different underlying culture to the West (collectivist rather than individualist), but it seems to work for them. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2025, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-justified-to-remove-the-negative-aspects-of-human-nature-entirely-through-fantastical-means/1011273/56 "2025-01-19T09:04:56Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > What to us is nepotism and corruption is to them acting morally correctly by aiding family members. Capitalism has never had any problems with nepotism and corruption; rather the opposite, in fact. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2025, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-justified-to-remove-the-negative-aspects-of-human-nature-entirely-through-fantastical-means/1011273/57 "2025-01-19T09:20:57Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > That’s not religion; denial of reality _(aka_ “faith”) is religion. There’s plenty of social bonding rituals that have nothing to do with religion. Over the last few decades we’ve seen the decline of organised religion, and that has seemingly left people with various needs unfilled: social bonding, but also the need to have some kind of moral guide or purpose. Other things seem able to fill this gap (ideologies like communism; various leaders who have encouraged cults of personality) even if they don’t contain any supernatural elements. > [@Johanna](#): > > Margaret Atwood isn’t in favor of religion. She just thinks it’s inseparable from the human brain. Why are there still atheists, then? One consideration left out is the communal nature of religious participation. The genetically-constructed people in the novel were newly arrived in a strange and dangerous world (dangerous because lots of vicious genetically-engineered wolvogs and pigoons were roaming wild), so they spontaneously came up with rituals that would help them bond as a community. They had been programmed to form communities; Atwood seems to be implying that religion is an emergent phenomenon in social bonding, whether planned or not. There is no reason given for atheists to not exist; it’s probable that atheists could very well appear among them, given time. The thing is, though, each atheist arrives at it individually, without forming community bonds around atheism the way communities are formed with religion. The atheist communal-bonding game is weak by comparison, very much weaker. Religion developed for a reason. I guess the question is whether it’s useful for group survival in itself, or only useful for competing with other groups of people. Traits that are only necessary because other people might have them, in a ‘tragedy of the commons’ sort of way, are the ones that could be feasibly targeted for removal. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2025, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-justified-to-remove-the-negative-aspects-of-human-nature-entirely-through-fantastical-means/1011273/58 "2025-01-19T09:25:11Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > Religion developed for a reason. I guess the question is whether it’s useful for group survival in itself, or only useful for competing with other groups of people. Or whether it’s just an effective parasite. Something doesn’t need to be _good_ for people to be effective at persisting. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2025, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-justified-to-remove-the-negative-aspects-of-human-nature-entirely-through-fantastical-means/1011273/59 "2025-01-19T10:58:56Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Instinct, apparently; as I understand it a propensity for ritualistic behavior seems to be something built into what’s sometime called the “reptile complex” in the brain. But that’s ritual, not religion; society is full of non-religious rituals. And religion is created when people try rationalize these rituals. It all comes from the same place. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2025, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-justified-to-remove-the-negative-aspects-of-human-nature-entirely-through-fantastical-means/1011273/60 "2025-01-19T11:25:59Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > It shows the cultural factors that allow for democracy or a well developed tech industry don’t in themselves prevent war crimes (and capitalist democracies have committed such, though they aren’t the worst offenders) Right but you’re ignoring the point I am putting to you. If you suggesting are that the issue is that certain cultures are not amenable to democracy, the strongest counterpoint are some of the examples that you yourself have raised, like Japan post-war. Japan went virtually overnight from an authoritarian state with a quasi-religious standing of their Emperor, whose newspapers gleefully reported on mass murders of civilians abroad, to a liberal democracy and hello kitty. Cultures can change, fast. The fact that Afghanistan after being invaded for the nth time, with a propped up government that was rich in oil (and therefore didn’t need to invest in the wider economy) failed is proof of nothing. Or do you think that this is some biological difference that’s relevant here? Let’s hear it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-justified-to-remove-the-negative-aspects-of-human-nature-entirely-through-fantastical-means/1011273.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-justified-to-remove-the-negative-aspects-of-human-nature-entirely-through-fantastical-means/1011273.md?page=4)