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Lumifer comments on November 2014 Media Thread - Less Wrong Discussion

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

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Comment author: Lumifer 04 November 2014 02:29:31AM 6 points [-]

But one containing "enslave all women and use them as breeding cattle" could survive indefinitely

I wonder if you realize that a direct implication of this statement is that treating women as not cattle offers no advantage to a society..?

Comment author: CellBioGuy 04 November 2014 04:01:37AM 2 points [-]

Deleterious things get locked into fixation in genomes and biological systems all the time. I see no reason that deleterious traits cannot get fixed into cultures.

Comment author: Lumifer 04 November 2014 05:23:13AM 6 points [-]

Oh, they surely can. But that gives those cultures a disadvantage and maintaining this disadvantage "indefinitely" seems to be a stretch, especially given how cultures are malleable and tend to change anyway.

Comment author: MrMind 04 November 2014 08:53:48AM -1 points [-]

Indefinitely meant more "comparably to a culture lifespan" than "until the heat death of the universe".

Comment author: MrMind 04 November 2014 08:26:40AM -1 points [-]

It's not that it offers no advantage, is that it offers no immediate disadvantage.

A discriminating culture that happens to have more material advantage at the start could just wipe other more egalitarian cultures without much concerns. It's only very recently that physical strength has lost its importance as a driving force in cultures clashes.

It is possible that in a future where intellect matters much more, but life is still cheap, a more egalitarian society will employ women more efficiently and thus prevail against discriminating ones. But it seems that the more material wealth we have, the more relaxed we are about the whole killing other people stuff.

Comment author: Lumifer 04 November 2014 03:39:59PM 4 points [-]

it offers no immediate disadvantage

Really, you think so?

Comment author: MrMind comment score below threshold [+] (5 children)

Comment author: Lumifer 05 November 2014 04:27:27PM 5 points [-]

Lack of real-life societies which enslaved all their women should be a big hint.

Think about it for a bit. Half the population is slaves. Somebody has to watch them, guard them, suppress their attempts at rebellion, etc. Your hypothetical society will have to spend a LOT of resources on just keeping things under control while having significantly lower economic productivity. And in the case of war they can't field a large army because a lot of men are prison wardens and can't leave women slaves unattended.

The idea is just very obviously bad and unworkable.

Comment author: MrMind 06 November 2014 08:53:50AM * 0 points [-]

I think this idea of slavery does not match with what historically has been the reality of enslavement. It's not that you need one slavemaster for every slave, or that slaves are kept perpetually in prison.

To have slaves you 'just' need less education, the prevalent idea that they need a master, hard labor and some form of punishment for transgressing. I think this set better describes what has been the reality of (say) women in ancient China or Middle-East, black people under the colonial empires, etc.

But let's just taboo "slave", the main issue is another: a meme that asserts "women are inferior beings and they should be treated as such" does not pose an immediate threat to the surivival of a tribe, and for this reason can be latched into a culture for a very long period of time, in the millennia range. To say that memetic evolution selects for truth is just silly.

I'm not sure if you disagree with my last paragraph and precisely on what.

Comment author: Lumifer 06 November 2014 03:51:17PM 2 points [-]

Heh. Such a nice example of motte and bailey.

Behold, here is your bailey:

meme ... containing "enslave all women and use them as breeding cattle" could survive indefinitely

and here is your motte:

a meme that asserts "women are inferior beings and they should be treated as such" does not pose an immediate threat to the surivival of a tribe

You do notice the difference, right? :-)

Comment author: MrMind 06 November 2014 04:48:02PM 0 points [-]

You do notice the difference, right? :-)

I'm not clear where you place the controversy.
Do you think that the striking difference is between the degree of bad treatment (enslaving vs treating as inferior) or the survivability of the meme (survive indefinitely vs not an immediate threat)?
In the second case, that's not my motte, because I clearly state that I think "not an immediate threat" yelds "indefinite survivability".
In the first case, I can just notice that you think there's a sharp divide where I see just a continuum between the cost of the two memes. But that's not a problem, I'll be happy to stay in the bailey and taboo "slavery", as the article you link suggested, to see if there's a real disagreement here.

Comment author: Lumifer 06 November 2014 05:23:42PM 0 points [-]

I'm not clear where you place the controversy.

Both places.

I think "not an immediate threat" yelds "indefinite survivability".

That doesn't look like a reasonable position, at least if you use words in their normal meaning.

I see just a continuum between the cost of the two memes.

Ah, so there are two memes here? So which one are we talking about and which one corresponds to what you want to claim?

Lumifer comments on November 2014 Media Thread - Less Wrong Discussion

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