wedrifid comments on Guilt: Another Gift Nobody Wants - Less Wrong

67 Post author: Yvain 31 March 2011 12:27AM

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Comment author: wedrifid 31 March 2011 01:44:00PM *  2 points [-]

There was no evolution to optimize adaptations to account for such a disproportionately large gain as a monarchy with a throne.

The disproportionate gain is mostly in currency that evolution doesn't care about anyway. You do get some reproductive advantages from being a monarch but nothing remotely like in proportion to the wealth and power.

In reproductive terms you would be better off being the playboy second son of one of the wealthier minor nobility. Lower risk with a lot more time and attention to devote to promiscuity rather than those pesky things like maintaining power, and public image.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 31 March 2011 02:48:14PM 6 points [-]

I agree with your main point, but don't ignore the evolutionary value of your offsprings' inherited status and how that caches out in terms of their reproductive success.

Comment author: Vladimir_M 31 March 2011 07:22:17PM 6 points [-]

You do get some reproductive advantages from being a monarch but nothing remotely like in proportion to the wealth and power.

You're confusing Christian monarchs with monarchs in general.

Comment author: wedrifid 01 April 2011 03:54:03AM *  1 point [-]

You're confusing Christian monarchs with monarchs in general.

No, I'm not. The reproductive advantages do not scale with wealth and power in general.

You seem to be confusing monarchs in general with a particular instance of a conquerer that was not born of a monarch, the a founder of a monarchy or in any way a king or prince.

Comment author: Vladimir_M 02 April 2011 04:12:57AM *  6 points [-]

The reproductive advantages do not scale with wealth and power in general.

You seem to be confusing monarchs in general with a particular instance of a conquerer that was not born of a monarch, the a founder of a monarchy or in any way a king or prince.

Rulers who used their power and wealth to acquire enormous harems and then reproduced like crazy, leaving hundreds or even thousands of children, are not at all uncommon historically. Furthermore, the children of regular royal concubines were typically not in danger of starvation, and thus had a decent chance of reproducing themselves, while the most favored sons would normally become powerful enough to amass their own harems with time. This seems like pretty good scaling.

The Christian idea that the ruler is bound by the same moral standards of monogamy as his ordinary subjects is a huge outlier among human cultures. (In fact, I can't even think of any other similar historical example, though someone more knowledgeable could probably find it.) Certainly, if you look at almost any other place and time, you'll find rulers reproducing at rates unthinkable even to their high-ranking subjects.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 02 April 2011 05:01:34AM 0 points [-]

In fact, I can't even think of any other similar historical example, though someone more knowledgeable could probably find it.

IIRC, there's a kind of a cultural precedent in the Old Testament notion that a king ought not have too many wives or horses... though I can't remember exactly where that comes from.

Comment author: JoshuaZ 12 April 2011 08:21:19PM 2 points [-]

IIRC, there's a kind of a cultural precedent in the Old Testament notion that a king ought not have too many wives or horses... though I can't remember exactly where that comes from.

Deuteronomy chapter 17. The standard scholarly explanation puts this text as being written at the end of or right after the destruction of the first Temple, so they've had a few hundred years to see all the bad things that kings can do.