Bugmaster comments on LW Women- Minimizing the Inferential Distance - LessWrong

58 [deleted] 25 November 2012 11:33PM

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Comment author: ewbrownv 27 November 2012 11:16:45PM 6 points [-]

Very true. Also, the 'right technology' does not currently exist, and isn't likely to in the next decade.

Social reformers often don't seem to understand that pushing a society far away from 'default' human modes of conduct is a bit like pushing a boulder up an increasingly steep slope - you spend more and more energy fighting just to stay in place, while creating an increasingly dangerous pool of potential energy that acts to oppose your efforts. Push hard enough for long enough, and eventually you get crushed as the boulder rolls back downhill.

Comment author: Bugmaster 27 November 2012 11:24:16PM 6 points [-]

What is a "default" human mode, though ? As I said on a sibling thread, there do exist examples of apparently successful social engineering efforts. For example, in most of the developed world, outright slavery was not only eliminated but rendered morally repugnant, and this change does not show any signs of reversal. To use an older example, monogamy became the social norm sometime during the Middle Ages (IIRC), and it persists as such to this day -- despite the fact that humans are biologically capable of polygamy.