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Azathoth123 comments on November 2014 Media Thread - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: ArisKatsaris 01 November 2014 03:42PM

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Comment author: MrMind 03 November 2014 10:58:39AM *  0 points [-]

We can't observe gods, but women exist empirically, and men have had to live with them all along.

LOL: "had" to live with them. I like (= I find humorous) the implied, possibly unintended, sexism.

If the resulting body of experiences with women have condensed into a patriarchal tradition which puts women in a bad light - well, you can't blame that on theology, now, can you?

Why not? I mean, I don't say that we should or shouldn't put women in a bad light, nor that we should or shouldn't blame theology for that. But why we can't blame theology?
It's not like memes evolve to attain truthiness, or that humans are automatic maximizers / strategizers. Pretty any memeplex I know of has some form of "push away / ostracize my enemies". Understood, any meme that contains "kill all women" would have a pretty short lifespan. But one containing "enslave all women and use them as breeding cattle" could survive indefinitely, whether women are cattle or not. Isn't the whole Neoreactionary movement born under the fallacy that equates survivability with adherence to truth? I find this to be a somewhat inclusive description.

Despite this, I still find the linked article to be appalingly bad at presenting the issue with some form of objectivity. They are not even trying. But I don't know the site and I'm possibly mistaken assuming that it has as mission disseminating informations of some quality.

Comment author: Azathoth123 04 November 2014 02:14:41AM 5 points [-]

LOL: "had" to live with them. I like (= I find humorous) the implied, possibly unintended, sexism.

What definition of "sexism" are you using here? The word "had" there serves an important point, contrast this with the fact that people don't have to live with other ethnic groups.

It's not like memes evolve to attain truthiness,

Yes, they do. If this wasn't the case we'd still be on the savannah getting chased by lions.

But one containing "enslave all women and use them as breeding cattle" could survive indefinitely, whether women are cattle or not.

Um, tribes have to compete with other tribes. Memes can't survive for long simply because they aren't immediately destructive.

Comment author: MrMind 04 November 2014 08:49:35AM *  -1 points [-]

The word "had" there serves an important point, contrast this with the fact that people don't have to live with other ethnic groups.

Yes, but it could also imply that women are difficult to endure, and men would be better off without them. But of course this meaning was unintended, thus the humor.

Yes, they do. If this wasn't the case we'd still be on the savannah getting chased by lions.

But where does the selective pressure comes from? Why this pressure has not made the atomistic idea, or the spherical Earth, formulated almost three thousands of year ago, immediately popular? Why there are people that still believe in magic? Why we still believe in both relativity and quantum mechanics, despite these ideas being incompatible and more than a century old?

Um, tribes have to compete with other tribes. Memes can't survive for long simply because they aren't immediately destructive.

Yes, avoiding to be immediately destructive is not sufficient to guarantee a meme survivability, but cultures can lock all kind of memes if there's no immediate selective pressure against them.
For example, a society that has to battle on phyisical grounds, with physical strength, gains no immediate disadvantage over a more egalitarian society if it enslaves women.
A false meme can even gain a society some advantage, such as the case of an ethnic group that enslaves another ethnic group and makes them work for hard labor.
Past history was about guns, germs and steel, not about truth. Those are what has been selected. The rest of the memes are purely random junk.

Comment author: Azathoth123 05 November 2014 01:23:16AM *  5 points [-]

Why this pressure has not made the atomistic idea, or the spherical Earth, formulated almost three thousands of year ago, immediately popular?

As advancedatheist said in the OC:

We can't observe gods, but women exist empirically, and men have had to live with them all along.

Rather then mocking his phrasing maybe you should try actually paying attention to his point.

Past history was about guns, germs and steel, not about truth.

In particular truths about metallurgy and the chemistry of gunpowder.