Multiheaded comments on Welcome to Less Wrong! (2012) - Less Wrong

25 Post author: orthonormal 26 December 2011 10:57PM

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Comment author: Multiheaded 01 January 2012 09:34:00PM *  0 points [-]

I can easily visualize that, in our world, some very quickly passing one-in-a-lifetime temptation to get rid of an infant is experienced by many even slightly unstable or emotionally volatile parents, then forgotten.

Would you really want to give that temptation a chance to realize itself in every case when the (appropriately huge - we're talking about largely normal people here) social stigma extinguishes the temptation today?

Oh, and in no way it's "only the illegalization", it's the meme in general too.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 06 January 2012 04:40:28PM 0 points [-]

Maybe.

Suppose, for example, that what you're describing here as instability/emotional volatility -- or, more operationally, my likelihood of doing something unrecoverable-from which I generally abhor based on a very quickly passing once-in-a-lifetime temptation -- is hereditable (either genetically or behaviorally, it doesn't matter too much).

In that case, I suspect I would rather that infants born to emotionally volatile/unstable parents ten million years ago had not matured to breeding age, as I'd rather live in a species that's less volatile in that way. So it seems to follow that if the social stigma is a social mechanism for compensating for such poor impulse control in humans, allowing humans with poor impulse control to successfully raise their children, I should also prefer that that stigma not have been implemented ten million years ago.

Of course, I'm not nearly so dispassionate about it when I think about present-day infants and their parents, but it's not clear to me why I should endorse the more passionate view.

Incidentally, I also don't think your hypothetical has much to do with the real reasons for an infanticide social stigma. I support the meme, I just don't think this argument for it holds water.

Comment author: Multiheaded 06 January 2012 09:23:39PM *  0 points [-]

Sorry, but I don't like your reasoning.

  • Emotionally volatile people shouldn't be automatically assumed to fail upon most such temptations, after all (when they fail in a big way, that's when we hear about it the most), and might not even be a net negative for society in other spheres (although yeah, they probably are... still, it's awfully cold just to unapologetically thin their numbers with eugenics. I know that a lot of things LWians (incl. me) would do or intend to do are awfully cold, but hell, this one concerns me directly!).
  • The "volatility" of one's behavior is a sum of the individual's psychological make-up - which might or might not be largely hereditary - and the weakness or strength of one's tendency for self-control - which is definitely largely cultural/environmental.

Look at the Far Eastern and Scandinavian societies. Wouldn't an emotionally unstable person being raised in one of them be trained to control their emotions to a much greater degree than e.g. in Southern Europe?

Further on the "hereditability" part; I'm really emotionally unstable (as you might have witnessed), but my parents are really stable and cool-headed most of the time; however, my aunt from my mother's side is a whole lot like me. I attribute most of my mental weirdness to birth trauma (residual encephalopathy, I don't know if it's pre- or post-natal), but I don't know whether part of it might be due to some recessive gene that manifested in my aunt and me, but not at all in my mother.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 06 January 2012 09:49:04PM 1 point [-]

I agree that we shouldn't assume that emotionally volatile people fail upon most such temptations.
I agree that my reasoning here is cold (indeed, I said as much myself, though I used the differently-loaded word "dispassionate").
I agree that if impulse control is generally nonhereditable (and, again, I don't just mean genetically), the argument I use above doesn't apply.
I agree that different cultures train their members to "control their emotions" to different degrees. (Or, rather, I don't think that's true in general, but we've specifically been talking about the likelihood of expressing transient rage in the form of violence, and I agree that cultures differ in terms of how acceptable that is.)

I understand that, independent of any of the above, you don't like my reasoning. It doesn't make me especially happy either, come to that.

I still, incidentally, don't believe that the stigma against infanticide is primarily intended to protect infants from transient murderous impulses in their parents.

Comment author: Multiheaded 06 January 2012 09:59:29PM *  0 points [-]

I still, incidentally, don't believe that the stigma against infanticide is primarily intended to protect infants from transient murderous impulses in their parents.

Neither do I; the reasons for its development do need a lot of looking into. I just listed a function that it can likely accomplish with some success once it's already firmly entrenched.

..."control their emotions" to different degrees. (Or, rather, I don't think that's true in general, but we've specifically been talking about the likelihood of expressing transient rage in the form of violence, and I agree that cultures differ in terms of how acceptable that is.)

Yeah. I used "control" in the meaning of "steer", not "rule over".

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