Simon Paynton

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
If only I was an Ivy League student, I would be better able to figure it out and not have to wonder why Netanyahu said that the price Hamas will pay is its very existence.

I think it’s understandable (never mind right or wrong) given the zero-sum situation they are both in.  Hamas wants to wipe out Israel; Netanyahu…[Read more]

jakelafort wrote:
WISH I KNEW HOW TO DO THAT DEVILTRY IN ITALICS.

Use the quote function, or the ” blue button (block quote on/off).

jakelafort wrote:
Generations upon generations of mindless devotion, fear, and authoritarian control resulting in retardation of normal curiosity and intellectual exploration might be inheritable in terms of intelligence? It would certainly aid the mind virus of Islam to dumb down its hosts. IDK

Muslim people don’t lose their wits, or common…[Read more]

Why does Islam seem so authoritarian compared with other religions?  Is it really more authoritarian than some of the Christians?

I have been reading a bit and finding out about Hinduism.  They encourage free-thinking and free enquiry – within a rigid framework of rituals connected with ideas of sacredness and purity, and “feudal ethics” (the c…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
Adults, one hopes, cooperate for the good of a collective (family, community, employer, club, whatever). That comes over time with life experience and maturity.

We also coooperate just to get things done that we need to achieve and benefits we need to gain.  We also cooperate because socially we enjoy it – a benefit gained through…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
Kids are narcissists.

I wasn’t saying they’re fantastic.  They are monsters compared with adults.  But they seem to be born with innate cooperation skills that aren’t taught.

Compared with a chimpanzee, a 3-year old child is a great team player.

_Robert_ wrote:
Yes, but can you think of any biological characteristic including the behavior of living things that does not ultimately stem from our genetic composition?

Well, you could say that all behaviour is biological, because it’s carried out by human beings with biological bodies.  I think it’s more relevant to look at the reasons for…[Read more]

_Robert_ wrote:
Unfortunately, even though many antivaxers might erase themselves during a pandemic, the ties to a representative genotype are so complicated that the behavior will not become a phenotype in the normal sense.

I think it’s a case of culturally-induced suicide, rather than maladaptive genes.

Unseen wrote:
Cooperation has to be taught through positive and negative reinforcement.

Are you actually a parent, Simon?

I’m not a parent.  According to laboratory experiments, they develop the skills by around the age of 3.  I should have been more precise.  The point is they don’t need to be taught, they do things like respect commitments an…[Read more]

There are all kinds of people who shouldn’t be here if Mother Nature had anything to do with it.  For humans, it’s not so much survival of the fittest, it’s the survival of the most cooperative.  That’s why young children are born knowing how to cooperate.

_Robert_ wrote:
In many cases the least-fittest humans can propagate as much as anyone.

Yes, millions of years of evolution have resulted in … me.  How did that happen?

I think we’re extremely strongly shaped by evolution, biologically and psychologically.  That’s both a curse and a benefit.  How long before we wipe ourselves out?

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
Ancient human evolution is “unparalleled” in nature.

I too have read it was climate change that drove the evolution of new human species, because it opened up new niches.  Every new niche means a new species.  But

the pattern in Homo species suggests that technology played a far greater role in speci…

[Read more]

But if there are, say, 3 green triangles, and 1000 orange circles, in the world, which is more unique?  Green triangles or orange circles?

Unseen wrote:
“Unique” doesn’t play well with qualifiers.

I disagree, I think that something can be more or less unique, or singular: more or less the same as other things.

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
If you are constrained by religious doctrine then, no matter you age, your moral code remains static especially if you just swallow it in ‘tablet form’ without ever thinking about it.

I do think that religious people think about these things all day long, and they’re bound to make progress of some kind.  Reli…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
Can our capacity for moral reasoning be strengthened.

My moral reasoning has definitely been strengthened a lot as I have got older.  I don’t know whether it’s experience, or learning about theory, or both.

What has made it get better are two or three things: more compassion, more (cognitive) empathy – figuring out…[Read more]