Terren_Suydam comments on Is Morality Given? - Less Wrong

19 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 06 July 2008 08:12AM

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Comment author: Terren_Suydam 08 July 2008 03:34:00AM 0 points [-]

There may be a selection effect in that cultures with guns are more likely to persist, but that's different from saying that selection pressures play a really important role in designing the particular features of a culture.

That's what I'm saying - selection pressures are important in determining cultural features, because those features in turn determine a culture's viability. The global-level organization of a culture - including its moral code, political organization, and other important social structures - are key considerations in what makes a culture healthy or stable, and thus competitive in an arena of limited resources. Keep in mind, I think these ideas lend themselves more easily to ancient history, in which the boundaries between cultures were so much clearer, rather than the globalized cultures of our modern world.

A lot of these ideas come from Jared Diamond's fascinating _Guns, Germs, and Steel_, which talks in depth about cultural evolution throughout human history.