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Grapefruit
Freak in the forest


Registered: 05/09/08
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Sometimes it's not an addiction, it can just be fun, and there's value in fun. Depends mostly on whether you have compulsive tendencies, and how well you can keep them in check.
-------------------- Little left in the way of energy; or the way of love, yet happy to entertain myself playing mental games with the rest of you freaks until the rivers run backwards. "Chat your fraff Chat your fraff Just chat your fraff Chat your fraff"
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RJ Tubs 202



Registered: 09/20/08
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Quote:
BrendanFlock said:
Social Darwinism is natural selection necessarily.
It's challenging for me to adopt the theory individuals, groups, and peoples are not subject to the same Darwinian laws of natural selection as plants and animals. I'm unsure how societies could avoid natural selection. Populations, like individuals, vary in many adaptive traits. How could this variation not be subject to some level of natural selection?
Is what some call "social Darwinism" related to the subject of sociobiology? That's the idea that certain genes or gene combinations can influence particular behavioral traits can be inherited from generation to generation - such as when newly dominant male lions often kill cubs in the pride that they did not sire.
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laughingdog
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the idea is used to justify white privilege, and other such notions. that is the crux of the objection that you seem to have missed, that is the main issue with it. Also used to justify abuses of eugenics, if you look up the history of eugenics, which by the way the Nazi's in Germany copied from the USA - interesting bit of history...
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RJ Tubs 202



Registered: 09/20/08
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Using the concept of social Darwinism to justify eugenics is one thing - but DQ opened the thread with a statement challenging the validity of the idea ("Social Darwinism has been thoroughly debunked in academia, and common sense rather condemns it as well."). I was voicing an objection to the idea that natural selection acts on individuals but not on groups.
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laughingdog
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The problem with the idea itself is that when breeding plants or animals enormous control of all variables is managed, by only allowing certain individuals to breed in controlled conditions. This never happens with humans in natural conditions.
In nature what is selected for is the most offspring that survive within a certain niche - thus the cockroach and shark have been around for something like millions of years longer than humans. So in nature it is not only a very amoral game of poker that is played: but also a game that does not particularly favor either greater awareness or conscious intelligence. Not a good model for what anyone would desire among humans, I think.
Never the less, humans now wear glasses, whereas nature allowed no Eskimos to survive with weak eyes. So again an answer is perhaps not so simple.
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RJ Tubs 202



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I'm interested in hearing how social Darwinism is used to justify "white privilege".
Quote:
laughingdog said:
The problem with the idea itself is that when breeding plants or animals enormous control of all variables is managed, by only allowing certain individuals to breed in controlled conditions. This never happens with humans in natural conditions.
A pandemic is very similar to disease screening in breeding. The one and only variable is being infected with the pathogen. I do agree natural selection lacks moral intent - as my example of newly dominant male lions killing cubs in the pride they didn't father.
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laughingdog
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RJ Tubs 202 said: I'm interested in hearing how social Darwinism is used to justify "white privilege".
"Those who are on top deserve to be there because they work harder, and are generally superior, while those on the bottom of the heap are lazy good for nothings", is the justification - which of course ignores that those in power, keep it in the family, or within groups of similar people that owe each other favors. This sort of behavior in most human societies is at least partly why DQ said what he said. We even have a word for it within governments: "nepotism".
Incidentally eskimos do sometimes wear glasses - but they are sunglasses - there has not been enough evolutionary time for their retinas to adapt to the blinding white of, sun on snow. Unlike Africans & skin color, and 'whites' & skin color.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=eskimo+sungleasses&t=h_&iax=images&ia=images
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laughingdog
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. As regards intent, its not just that evolution is amoral, it also places no premium on the other human values of conscious intelligence or awareness of self, aka awareness of awareness. As far as evolution "is concerned" these factors are just tools, like claws, or swimming ability that may or may not give an advantage to genes when it comes to reproducing. . Humans in terms of species' lifetimes before extinction are a very young experiment, that has yet to prove itself. At present it appears humans are like a disease organism that is too virulent and so kills the host before it can spread. . As we know, successful disease organisms strike a balance between contagion abilities and the amount of damage they inflict. Rabies which actually kills, as part of the disease process causes the victim to bite others, to make sure it spreads, although it is ultimately fatal. . It appears humans like the cancer process are about to take down the ecosystem of the planet with themselves, at which point the evolutionary experiment with a large frontal cortex ends.
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DividedQuantum
Outer Head


Registered: 12/06/13
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Yes, and I think this highlights the difference between social Darwinism, and the theory of evolution itself. They are not really analogous. This is the point of attack many critics seem to take, although of course there are others, some of which have been discussed.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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laughingdog
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. Also of note in terms of biological function; humans are not as smart as they think they are, or in other words not as sophisticated as other species.
. I mentioned Rabies, and of course, in this case, to cause the host to bite, it must mean that a micro-organism is controlling the human or the host's nervous system and/or brain. . A search for the terms: " mind controlling parasites ", on youtube will turn up many videos, with fascinating examples, of all sorts of species than can do what humans can't, namely control other species brains and nervous systems. There are many example of both fungi and wasps that do this, and who knows what else may be found. . In the case of Rabies it is of course a disease and not a parasite, as it kills quite rapidly.
. On these grounds perhaps one could fault the idea of social darwinism, as just another example of human arrogance. We're all pretty unsophisticated compared to what the wasps do to cockroaches; which involves an injection or 2 into a specific brain area of the "host", resulting in total control by the wasp. The case of fungi and ants, and snails ( & the green banded broodsac) are also amazing.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=snail+parasite
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=snail+infected+with+green+banded+broodsac+
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
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I think that this shows poor understanding of rabies and other behavior changing diseases. there is no mind control, there is systemic disruption and the mind goes defensive maniacally. biting happens to anything in range, but is not actually under control of an invasive controlling infectious agent.
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Loaded Shaman
Psychophysiologist



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I think the only thing that offsets this is there is actually a large portion of the population below 100 IQ, which we can all argue doesn't matter, blah, blah, blah, but it's certainly a measurement of SOME capacity of mental capability. The army won't take anyone below 80 IQ for example.
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  "Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance." — Confucius
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
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"sit" "stay" "fetch" "eat" "kill" below 80 they still can be trained and operated remotely. they just don't want the label "moron" to lower morale.
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mycot
Crazy as fuck


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Darwinism itself has been discredited. Social darwinism is a complete BS fabrication. Einstien never became a millionaire. Neither did Nicola Tesla. Many of our greatest artists, thinkers, visionaries and philosophers died penniless. Some wouldn't even have been able to continue their work had they not had patrons. Who knows what Fadiman may have accomplished had his work not been cut shot. Then there is the enormous destruction and waste of human talent and lives through the drug war. None of this can be considered evolutionary progress and fitness.
Being able to adapt to evolutionary dead ends is no indication of fitness. Would we consider a criminal gang leader as an example of evolutionary fitness because he's making a lot of money regardless of consequences. If a person can adapt to a lunatic asylum does that show evolutionary fitness ?
Social darwinism is just a political narrative as in work yourself into an early grave and you too may make it.(regardless of consequences) I agree with the OP. Social darwinism is well and truly dead.
Edited by mycot (12/04/20 05:05 AM)
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
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Re: Social Darwinism [Re: mycot]
#27069859 - 12/03/20 11:19 AM (3 years, 1 month ago) |
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the gangster only has fitness in certain niches, in other environments, like the native healing circle, he will atone, and cease to dominate.
Someone like Ghengis Khan, however, the biggest gangster, managed to sire a very large number of children in his raping conquests, and that has had some impact.
it comes down to the genes that are preserved. it's not even personal. and money may not figure into it at all.
for evolution, surviving progeny is all.
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mycot
Crazy as fuck


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Not only the criminal but also people in general only have fitness in niches. The average american would die in a very short amount of time if they had to survive in the wild. The hunter-gatherer would have a nervous breakdown adapting to a modern city. Success at evolutionary dead ends is not success. It's only there a very short time. There is no future in it. Not sustainable. Suicide is not fitness by any measure.
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laughingdog
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Quote:
redgreenvines said: I think that this shows poor understanding of rabies and other behavior changing diseases. there is no mind control, there is systemic disruption and the mind goes defensive maniacally. biting happens to anything in range, but is not actually under control of an invasive controlling infectious agent.
. No one who bothers to watch, the interesting links provided, and referred to, would indulge in such a dismissive attitude. But of course anyone and everyone is free to spout all the dogmatic opinions , they wish to, and to fish out examples out of context, as well as avoid the main point; (perhaps in hopes that others will play the same game, and so keep a thread going, where there is constantly an opportunity to keep such a game going, with like minded individuals).
. In this case the data that has been filmed seems of far more interest, than apparently anyone suspects. So be it.
. In the odd event anyone is just bored, or actually curious:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mind+controlling+parasites
. Rabies is only one example of a virus (which is not even alive) that ultimately effects behavior. The mechanisms are detailed here "How rabies 'hijacks' neurons to attack brain" https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141006133424.htm
. Next a single celled parasite Toxoplasmosis which also results in a specific behavior of advantage to the parasite. This is obviously no accident. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=toxoplasma+gondii
. With fungi of course we have more cells, but still the parasite has no brain, yet the results are remarkable. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=fungi+controlling+ants
. When we get to the wasps it all becomes glaringly obvious that very directed brain control is happening. In fact the events are so amazing probably almost no one would believe it who hasn't seen it. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=wasp+cockroach+parasite+
. The most extremely colorful example, is seen in snails: "A type of parasitic flatworm, called the green banded broodsac, is capable of invading a snail's body and controlling its behavior."
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=snail+parasite scroll down to this one, "ALIEN MIND CONTROLLED SNAILS" for something concise & accurate, if you like, or enjoy some of the others, again a very surprising display...
...way beyond anything a human can do to any another organism, purely through its own organism.
. The one special adaptation humans have (other than endurance running on 2 legs) has in a very short period of evolutionary time shown itself, to be a 2 edged sword that may very well prove to be its own undoing, as the mechanism of foresight, really didn't evolve to be of sufficient power, to balance other aspects of brain and/or mind. And the power of reason, also did not evolve sufficiently to balance out the instinctual/emotional aspects of mind, body & brain.
. Many evolutionary experiments before have proved short lived, due to a poor balance of parts - the Irish elk comes to mind first, but you may think of others. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+irish+elk
. So again, it seems one way of looking at Social Darwinism, is that it is just another example of human arrogance, (of which there are many). Arrogance in assuming the species is superior, and arrogance in assuming one's own group deserves to be at the top in terms of privilege, opportunity, power, wealth and so on in society. As such, its very existence is an example, of what is wrong with the concept.
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Loaded Shaman
Psychophysiologist



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Re: Social Darwinism [Re: mycot]
#27071012 - 12/04/20 12:35 AM (3 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
mycot said: Darwinism itself has been discredited. Social darwinism is a complete BS fabrication. Einstien never became a millionaire. Neither did Nicola Tesla. Many of our greatest artists, thinkers, visionaries and philosophers died penniless. Some wouldn't even have been able to continue their work had they not had patrons. Who knows what Fadiman may have accomplished his work not been cut shot. Then there is the enormous destruction and waste of human talent and lives through the drug war. None of this can be considered evolutionary progress and fitness.
Being able to adapt to evolutionary dead ends is no indication of fitness. Would we consider a criminal gang leader as an example of evolutionary fitness because he's making a lot of money regardless of consequences. If a person can adapt to a lunatic asylum does that show evolutionary fitness ?
Social darwinism is just a political narrative as in work yourself into an early grave and you too may make it.(regardless of consequences) I agree with the OP. Social darwinism is well and truly dead.
A lot to unpack here and I'm not disagreeing with you, I just want to establish a consistency here: are you saying darwinism, as in natural selection, has been proven incorrect? If so, where is this source? Genuinely curious here!
By logical extension that would make social darwinism moot, but this thread appears to go back and forth on what that definition may or may not actually be, and just adds to the ambiguity here.
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  "Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance." — Confucius
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sudly
Darwin's stagger

Registered: 01/05/15
Posts: 10,798
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Up biological superiority..
The true social Darwinism is billionaires vs the rest.
The Panama files and everything to do with American legislation in favor of corporate entities.
Social Darwinism is economic, not biological.
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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mycot
Crazy as fuck


Registered: 05/31/06
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Quote:
Loaded Shaman said:
Quote:
mycot said: Darwinism itself has been discredited. Social darwinism is a complete BS fabrication. Einstien never became a millionaire. Neither did Nicola Tesla. Many of our greatest artists, thinkers, visionaries and philosophers died penniless. Some wouldn't even have been able to continue their work had they not had patrons. Who knows what Fadiman may have accomplished his work not been cut shot. Then there is the enormous destruction and waste of human talent and lives through the drug war. None of this can be considered evolutionary progress and fitness.
Being able to adapt to evolutionary dead ends is no indication of fitness. Would we consider a criminal gang leader as an example of evolutionary fitness because he's making a lot of money regardless of consequences. If a person can adapt to a lunatic asylum does that show evolutionary fitness ?
Social darwinism is just a political narrative as in work yourself into an early grave and you too may make it.(regardless of consequences) I agree with the OP. Social darwinism is well and truly dead.
A lot to unpack here and I'm not disagreeing with you, I just want to establish a consistency here: are you saying darwinism, as in natural selection, has been proven incorrect? If so, where is this source? Genuinely curious here!
By logical extension that would make social darwinism moot, but this thread appears to go back and forth on what that definition may or may not actually be, and just adds to the ambiguity here.
The problem of with darwinism is it's emphasis on competition and struggle and conflict in the matter of survival as in "survival of the fittest". It does so at the cost of ignoring how much a role co-operation plays in the survival of life. Even the human organism itself is made up of many non-human cells. Symbiotic relationships occur all throughout nature. Human co-operation enables human survival. Life relies upon life. In this sense Darwinism is indeed discredited. That's Darwinism as philosophy and more because of it's reflection on theory. Evolution theory itself would be outside the subject matter of this thread.
Edited by mycot (12/04/20 03:32 PM)
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