No Moods, Ads or Cutesy Fucking Icons

You could always move across the border…

…oh wait no, scratch that 😛

Thank God we’re not alone in the realm of Fucktardery. The US is still in the lead, tho.

And I thought we in the US were unique in having corrupt, ignorant morons in charge. I guess the difference, ours were appointed, they wear black robes, and serve (apparently, big corporations) for life.

This sucks. Oh well, that’s one more point in favor of moving to somewhere in the EU instead of moving to Ontario or Quebec, asmuch as I loathe the idea of losing all my connections on this continent. Or, if I were to take it less selfishly, another reason to stay and fight, even if feebly as I do thus far.
At least Canada has further to slide than the US, small comfort.

May good government return in another four years, or if possible sooner.

“Jesus, almost anyone.”

Well, I guess you know this, but you will never get “anyone” who can be disinterested. So intelligence is not the problem. Quoting from here (http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/raghuram-rajans-wrongness-rankles.html) cos I’m lazy, “… the common fallacy that autocratic governments answer to no one, and thus have a free hand to make far-sighted investments, as long as the despot happens to be an enlightened one. In fact, autocratic governments also have to answer to someone – but instead of the people, it’s usually a mix of army officers, party cadres, local officials, and mafia goons. There is always a selectorate, and they always have to get paid off.”

So my (genuine) question as an outsider would be: why do so many Canadians think it’s a good idea to reelect Harper? Sheer tribalism? The devil you know? It’s all OK as long as you don’t raise my taxes?

Was sorry to see this in the news. Liberals in the US used to say “fuck this, I’m moving to canada” when conservatives won, but I haven’t heard that phrase in a long time.

Wow, that sounds a lot like what happened in Austria (including the science hostility, re-electing criminals and so on) over the last one-and-a-half decades. I’m very sorry to hear this happened, but I’m getting less and less surprised when it does.

It seems that there is no democracy left on this planet where politicians serve their people. What ever shall we do? )-:

Sorry, Americans = people of the USA. It’s a hard habit to break.

Sincere condolences, lefty people of Canada.

We can send care packages of aspirin and booze, maybe?

Speaking as someone who’s countrymen actuallyre-elected George W. Bush, I can certainly sympathize. My advice is alcohol, and lots of it. My only concern is with some of the nightmare scenarios the right is flirting with for the 2012 elections, there simply won’t be enough booze in the world.

But come on, listening to 30 seconds of *anything* out of Sarah Palin’s mouth, has to make you feel a *little* bit better about your country. The Right in my country has simply disconnected whatever chemical switches are responsible for producing emotional responses like shame or embarrassment, and that is an evolutionary adaptation with which inferior minds burdened with self-awareness simply cannot compete.

I remember thinking on W’s re-election that if even 40% of voters still wanted him after what he’d done, then the country just deserved him. (clearly I was naive)
Now I have to somehow come to terms with the idea that I/we *deserve* Harper for my/our inability to educate the millions who think having him run the country is the *best* choice.
On another note, I see people slowly starting to realize that there are better voting systems than FPTP. It may still take a few decades for change (largely because those in power never seem to want changes that might take them out of it!), but it feels like movement in the right direction.

Hey don’t look at me, I voted for Layton. Which means I did my part to turn Quebec a nice Orange color. 🙂

Also Ignatieff wasn’t the only one to go bye-bye: Gilles Duceppe of Bloc Québécois infamy resigned after his party got splattered clean off the political landscape (which is what happens when you keep all your eggs in one province).

So silver lining, basically .

Yikes, I stand corrected and apologize profusely for the previous post… I though that this guy was about to be voted out; I didn’t know he’d just been returned to office. My condolences.

Yup, we’re Fucktards with a capital F …. BUT there were some reassuring signs. First, the Bloc is dead – specifically, they don’t get official party status – and frankly that’s a good thing. It was always more than a little bit offensive to have a bunch of folks sitting in parliament with the avowed purpose of breaking up the country. Second, the good folks in Quebec now have elected representatives who are PART of the federal process. How long that will last is a great question but it’s a start. Third, it would seem that the “natural governing party” (i.e. the Liberals) have been sufficiently humbled that they might have to rethink who and what they are all about – and that, as Ms Stewart might say, is a good thing. Which brings us to the Conservatives.
Let’s face it – they got elected cause they were the least horrendous choice available. Will the world end? No – no more than it did when the NDP found themselves running Ontario – nor did it end when they were followed by “Slash and Burn” Harris. The bottom line is that things will change …. somewhat ….. BUT more than anything else we ought to bear in mind that;

“No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government ….. except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

Winston Churchill wasn’t perfect either – but I think he is still hit that nail on the head.

Anyway…..

Suppose psychopaths in the US all moved to a single state. One in twenty five has a similiar diagnosis.

Would they suck as much as us neurotypicals? At democracy? Or governing themselves?

One self-confessed, very eloquent psychopath, who calls himself the “Notable ‘Path ” says only 1/10 of sociopaths are in the prison or criminal.

They can be far more aware of the charades and stupid rituals that people keep. The smart ones, they claim that to them, we are open books. They claim to be able to read us,to can play us like a violin.

This guy.. he says he is a sadist. And that he loves more, hurting people who hurt his friends. He’ll go full out of them, slander, ruin them.. them, even hurt them physically. He claims re relishes putting other ‘paths into their places. Loves playing mind games, scaring people, winning.

He says ‘paths are the people who can get stuff done. Monsters, movers.. No conscience, no regrets. Better fear responses.

His take is.. you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. So he cultivates a do-gooder image. His blog offers what looks like very sound advice on dealing with psychopaths, sociopaths, narcissists( he has a special distaste for those idiots)

So.. do psychopaths.. I mean, smart ones, IQ of 110+. Do they suck less than us? Their chief weakness is reportedly a lack of firm identity, and being very impressionable.

Would Earth be better off if it were full of people who just have no conscience?

Could they have a working society?

Anyway.. his blog makes great reading. Guy should write more of that stuff and get it published. I’m told psychopath-self introspection is not really common.

Would Earth be better off if it were full of people who just have no conscience?

Correction: full blooded psychopaths.

How will we fare if we meet a species that has that kind of psychology? Is there a book about that..

What about the democracy where the more you can score on some very tough test of intelligence, deviousness and the like, the more your vote counts?

Say, someone with an IQ of 150 who can spot a conman from a hundred paces and doesn’t measure 150 that because he spent half of his life solving IQ tests would have a vote weight of 50, your average 88 would have a vote of weight, say, 1 or 2.

Also combined with a system, where all major pieces of legislation, would have to be approved, paragraph by paragraph, by a body of citizens volunteering for the task. The task of lawmakers would be to draft, clear, concise law and very good explanations, cases for each paragraph. Why the law has to have that kind of paragraph.

There’d be discussion threads for each paragraph. Bad grammar would make your posts invisible.

A bit of .. direct democracy. I know it is a very ugly word, direct democracy.. but I think it’s something many countries need.

Condolences, Peter! This is a sad day for justice, democracy and sanity.

Non-Canadians check out the infographic on the retarded Canadian voting system and be amazed and dismayed to see why this could still happen whilst 60% of Canadians voted liberal/ndp/greens: http://bit.ly/kx2OFK

“these arrogant, corrupt initiatives were undertaken when the Harper Administration was in the relatively weak position of minority rule. Canada has just rewarded that behavior with a majority.”

Well what did you expect? Public perception is all in a democracy. The appearance is that as a minority government the majority let them get away with these things through tacit approval. Then it looked like they got together to overturn the government in an election nobody but them wanted. I think the public can be forgiven for seeing them as complicit, don’t you?

In a country where we only vote parties out how can you expect the people to vote out the party at the head of the most economically stable G8 country? You want to talk about arrogance? Let’s talk about the size of Iggy’s ego in thinking this was a good time to go to the polls. Let’s talk about all the people on the internet calling the electorate “idiots”. Iggy made the same massive miscalculation that so many people did: he confused his own opinion of himself with that of the electorate, and (judging by his lackluster campaign) assumed he didn’t need to convince the people to vote his way.

Anyway, I suppose since we only vote people out, and you can’t really be voted out until you’ve been voted in, this probably means there’s a much higher chance of a change in leadership in five years. Maybe.

You forgot that he passed a law mandating fixed dates for elections, then promptly broke the law and called an election (not the most recent election). His government was complicit in exporting a Canadian citizen to Syria to be tortured. His government refused to come to the aid of a 15 year old Canadian citizen being held, tortured and tried in Gitmo. His government, superficially against the death penalty, refuses to help Canadian citizens sentenced to execution in foreign countries. He calls for an election, breaking the fixed date law for a second time and then prorogues Parliament when the opposition parties state that they can form a government, a completely legal process in the parliamentary system.

And then we can talk about his dirty politics. He airs attack adds against the other parties before an election is called and claims that it is not election spending. There were numerous incidents of liberal supporters receiving phone calls on the day of the election telling them that their polling station had changed.

Yo Watts: you’re too embroiled in your partisanship

From your posts it’s clear that you’re a big Obama booster. Your lack of regard for Harper and the cons is also pretty clear. But I will wager you this…

Even with Obama in the white house and Harper at 24 Sussex, Canada is still by an order of magnitude a saner place to live than the states.
Given the orientation of the respective governments, you would think it was the other way around, but you of all people have the scars to prove otherwise.

How much difference did Obama’s election make, really? The US is still all about kicking ass and getting paid, and as a bonus, a black president with a funny name rallies the right wing loons like they’ve never been rallied before. Can a president really change the country, change the people?

Also, let’s have some respect for the voting public! The republicans fear slashing SS and Medicaid. They want to but they know the consequences, and so they don’t. Obama campaigned on ending the great military adventure. But look at the news lately: he can order a hit when he has too. Obama gives the order, someone pulls the trigger, Popularity goes up 9%. Political leaders, right wing or left are tolerated, but never entirely embraced, and the leaders know it.

Same thing over here in Canada: the cons know the consequences of trying to gut Medicare. They will tinker with the system, but there will be no radical changes. Harper has already promised 6% annual increases to medical transfer payments through 2014. At that point we are less than 2 years from an election, so I think medicare and other core social programs are safe. Too much righwing assholery will lead to left-leaning provincial governments, and it’s the provinces who are ultimately in charge of education and healthcare.

Don’t get me wrong. The next 4 years won’t be particularly fun. They cons will gut NSERC and the CBC, fuck climate change initiatives, defund the greens. Stevie will try to take the country to the right: that’s his lifelong ambition. He has been with us for over 10 years. Everyone knows what the man wants. How much he will accomplish is another question. How far was Obama able to take the US to the left?

And then there is history. Who knows what kind of insane fucked up surprises await the world in the next 4 years? There may be a catastrophe in the offing, but I don’t think that the Harper government quite rises to that level. Obama didn’t save our souls. Neither will Harper damn us for all eternity. Peace.

noen came back with:

“We’re hardwired”

No, we are not. We are not machines executing a fixed program. Or any program at all. We are free to choose between alternative courses of action.

Uh, no. Sorry, Noen, but all the neurological evidence contradicts you (not to mention pure logic: every effect has a cause, so every spark in the brain results from some previous cause — unless you’re going to try and invoke some kind of duallistic spirituality here, in which case, dude, you’re in the wrong saloon). Check out Wegner’s “The Illusion of Conscious Will” for starters. Or download the recent Nature podcast interview with David Eagleman (or read his research). Search this very ‘crawl on the “neuro” category for a sampling of recent papers punching holes in the whole free-will thing. Hell, just Google “Is free will and illusion?” Every popsci outlet from New Scientist to slashdot has been picking up the p-zombi vibes trickling down from the primary lit. Shit, even the US Legal system is starting to realize that the very concept of criminal culpability is at odds with neurological reality.

But if what you say is true, that our choices are fully determined from the big bang to now then the very concept of freedom goes aways doesn’t it?

Yes. Exactly. You’ve got it.

And if so then what are you complaining about?

I’m complaining because I have no choice. I would have thought that was obvious.

“verything from the instinct to gorge on fat and sugar right down to homocidal rage responses and alpha worship”

If this is true then how do you explain atheism? If religious alpha worship is, in your words, “hard wired” then humans should no more be capable of going against their programming then your wristwatch can choose to tell the wrong time.

By that logic, there’s no such thing as a self-preservation instinct because after all, if there was, nobody would ever commit suicide. I get the sense you aren’t that familiar with basic principles of biology. The fact that certain traits are ubiquitous does not make every member of a species identical, even where those traits are concerned. Hardwiring can vary between individuals; but even different hardwiring is still hardwired. And individuals with identical hardwiring can manifest different behaviors, depending on developmental and environmental interactions. I like to fuck women; other men like to fuck men; still others swing both ways. Some people get off on pain, some on pictures of feet. But in every case the response is a sexual one; the same part of the brain lights up in response to the arousing stimulus. (In the case of foot fetishists, the part of the brain’s sensory strip that handles input from the genitals bumps up against the part that handles input from the feet; it’s a boundary especially susceptible to cross-wiring.)

The whole basis of natural selection is an interaction between variation and preprogramming. Individuals have be different, or there’d be no basis for selection. And those traits have to be encoded genetically, or the adaptive traits wouldn’t get transmitted to subsequent generations.

You’re right on one score; it probably is impossible for humans to go against their programming (and by “programming” I mean the whole suite of causal factors, environmental, developmental, and genetic, internal and external). The fact that we feel as though we’re making our own decisions is a compelling illusion, but free will as a real, standalone product of the conscious mind has been pretty thoroughly discredited. If the sources I’ve already cited don’t convince you, try reading Metzinger and Ramachandran; they’ve both written books on the subject for lay audiences, and you can find them on Amazon.

Even supposed cultural universals like the prohibition against sibling inter-breeding cannot possibly be true. Because if it were true that there is a genetic basis for the cultural taboos against marrying your sister then there would be no need for the taboo in the first place.

That makes no sense at all. How exactly would a genetic imperative manifest itself in a social context if not via something you’d call a “taboo”? A lot of cultural standards arise from hardwired imperatives; “taboo” is just another word for a shared gut reaction to something that we all know just ain’t natural, dadburnit. We recoil from the sight and smell of a rotten maggoty carcass not through a rational analysis of its status as a health risk, but because it evokes a visceral disgust response. Why does it do that? Because over time, some folks were disgusted by the sight of rotting carcasses, and others weren’t. The ones that weren’t were more likely to get sick and die from playing around in rotting carcasses. The others became our ancestors. Your incest taboo doubtless arose the same way; brothers and sisters fucking each other squick us out, but that’s just because those it didn’t squick out experienced greater inbreeding depression and didn’t leave as many descendents. (And at its base, it’s unlikely to be an actual aversion to breeding with relatives, per sé; more likely it’s an aversion to fucking anything that smells too familiar, which usually accomplishes the same thing.)

The claims made by the socio-biologists seem to me to be deeply flawed in their reasoning.

I don’t know which sociobiologists in particular you’re referring to, but given the arguments you’ve posted I’m wondering if you’ve actually read any of them.

(This is Peter, btw. WordPress may list me as “Anonymous” because my session timed out.)

PW: I kinda like the thought experiment he played in Starship Troopers: the people who get to vote are the people who’ve proven they’ll put society’s interests ahead of their own.

That is the general criterion for being a moral human being. Can I put my needs, fears, agenda on hold for a the greater good or a higher principle.

Noen: We are free to choose between alternative courses of action.

If I got the jist of noen’s remark, it’s that we can’t have it both ways – either people are utterly hardwired, in which case voting is meaningless and Peter objecting to how they voted is meaningless, and me objecting to his objection is meaningless because Peter could do nothing else, and further objection about my objections …ad absurdum. OR there is some freedom of choice, in which case people are free to vote badly, and Peter is free to be appalled, and I am free to comment upon his being appalled, et cetera.

As long as we cast it dichotomously, as either/or.

PW: Oooh, you’re very wrong. Like many, I had high hopes… or if he’s just fucking up a lot

This freaked me out, because these two paragraphs could have been written by my husband, as in, the word choice, the tone, the opinion expressed are like, perfect. Creepy.

To be fair in Starship Troopers Heinlein very specifically pointed out other jobs that would qualify one for citizenship. Nurses, firefighters, ambulance drivers are the specific examples I recall off the top of my head.

Because of the nature of the book the military gets the most emphasis but, yes, he made it more general.

my problem with democracy is most people are not in a great position to make informed choice–whether they are smart or stupid, greedy or community oriented. The media greatly confuses people about important issues, or avoids those issues altogether. It is easy to use fear on ignorance

Even if so inclined, does the average citizen have the time, energy and accurate information to become knowledgeable about economics, environment, climate, social costs and benefits? I’m not saying the average voter is a simpleton (though it seems that way at times) but that s/he is very busy with mundane immediate concerns and the world is a very big and very complex set of systems.

the average citizen doesn’t even understand that smaller government means less social goods and protections. They do not understand that that tax money is recycled right into society via jobs, social programs, culture, healthcare, infrastructure, safety regulations, etc, etc.

I do blame our voting system and voter apathy for awarding a majority government to the party that received approval from 24% of the electorate.

All that said, i am always shocked by how gullible the voter is. Why do farmers vote conservative, their worst enemy? I know working poor and unemployed people who voted conservative. I know rabid atheists who voted for Harper. You would think in a world of record oil profits even the most ignorant voter would be wary of parties that endorse fat subsidies and tax breaks for the oil industry?

Harper doesn’t even talk a good game about “the people” or “family values” or any other traditional political veil. Whenever he refers to Canadians, he sounds like he is speaking of foreigners who he barely deems human, an irritating obstacle that needs to be humoured at times. So, I just don’t understand him winning an election, except that a lot of voter apathy is people who wouldn’t have voted conservative if they had voted. They did not understand that refusing to vote was not a vote for none of the above, but a tacit endorsement of whoever did end up with the most votes. If every person who earns less than 25 grand a year and didn’t vote had added their vote to the NDP, we’d likely have Prime Minister Layton today.

John Ralston Saul, in The Unconscious Civilization, discusses at length how helpful it is to conservatives to spread the idea that “all parties are the same” and “what difference does my vote make” and “politics is all corruption and greed”, because it never fools conservatives, only left leaning people and vulnerable people who feel powerless. Every time a conservative rolls back the social good, it reinforces powerlessness to the vulnerable people in society and they feel further disenfranchised from the political process. it’s a terrible ignorance fed feedback loop.

I’m babbling because I am so upset and reeling from this election

3. Government gets constant feedback about it’s actions and has to care.

This was Dewey’s big point about the strength of representative democracy, essentially – the little guy is the one who knows where the shoe pinches, even if he doesn’t know why, and elections are a well-established way of canvassing his collective opinion on the fit of the shoe.
Unfortunately, the “doesn’t know why” part of that statement allows little Duces like Harpo to frame the issues for the voter according to their own agendas.

Intelligence in and of itself is not a guarantee of… I don’t know what the proper term is, “honesty,” “integrity…” hopefully something less “And The American Way,” but anyway… however, I do think a basic civics test (like, say, the one we give immigrants) should be a prerequisite to vote. If you have to pass one to move to a country, why shouldn’t you need to pass one to influence its political processes?

Even raising the entry level an INCH would weed out most of the Teabaggers.

I’ve been trying to think of some scenario where a small group of “intelligent” people attempt to explain to much larger group of “non-intelligent” people that they will be ruling them in some manner where their opinion counts for more, that doesn’t involve the violent deaths of a small group of intelligent people. Unfortunately, as many of the rich have learned over the centuries, you don’t need to be particularly intelligent to wield a torch and pitchfork. Or a guillotine for that matter.

I understand this is a fantasy commonly entertained by the losers of any major election. I recall shortly after Obama’s election, the focus of Fox News’ “reporting” for at least a week was the general level of ignorance of the U.S. public, which they illustrated by conducting pop-quizzes of the man on the street, and assembling gag reels of the more entertainingly ignorant. Of course, I also believe their official response to studies that indicated Fox News viewers were more prone to misinformation than people who got their news from other outlets was also something along the lines of, “Those guys are stupid!”

But really, though, wouldn’t the notion of the the intellectually gifted ruling the intellectually impoverished be just another example of the “have’s” ruling the “have-nots”?

In fact, if I were an intelligent person ( a proposition I am forced rely on my whimsical imagination to conceptualize), and I was designing a society to be ruled by the intelligent, at least in a purely self-interested fashion, it wouldn’t be very different from what we have now. I would design a system where the gifted find it considerably easier to enrich themselves, and the masses are given just enough of an illusion of rights, freedoms, and simple, accessible narratives of tribal conflicts and alien threats to keep them from lighting the torches, but which clearly favors the rich in every conceivable aspect, in the most absurdly lopsided fashion. So, as Peter observed, it’s not solely a matter intelligence you’re after, as that is still subject to rabid self-interest, and not necessarily, or even commonly, concerned with the Species.

The interesting question, which I’ve had just enough beer to voice without putting my head through the nearest available section of unblemished drywall, is if this *is* the society designed to be run by soooooper-geniuses, where does that put us?

Oh, I see. We all assumed we would be the ones with the votes that count in this Brainatopia. Well. Anyone want a beer? I like the way the bubbles feel on my tongue.

I’m going to drink the rest this beer now, and try desperately to fall asleep without wondering whether I inadvertently fumbled at some sort of pro-Objectivist ethics argument here.

Now me, I used to think Starship Trooper was ‘way kewl, until that is I went blind (actually low-vision, but the phrase “went blind” is so evocative) & I thought back to the about how Juan is explaining about those stupid folks who, despite their disability, insisted on earning the franchise even if they couldn’t fight. Juan went on about they were given make-work joe jobs like counting the hair on a caterpillar’s back by feel. Boy, sorry my crappy vision is ruining your utopia!

The current Mother Jone’s magazine is running an excellent article on why the Harpo-types are hardwired to hate science (the article is called The Science of Why We Hate Science”). Highly recommended.

But if you really want to see the Conservative Party’s hatred of science in action, wait until the release of the Cohen Commission report. The collapse of the 2009 Fraser sockeye fishery apparently had nothing to do with lose of habitat, climate change or over-fishing. Nope, it’s all predation: salmon sharks, blue sharks, daggertooths, sablefish, lamprey and the common murre. See. It’s all natural, so we don’t need any stinking science.

Also, am I the only one who really doesn’t understand how a country with this retarded voting system can be called a democracy?

Shouldn’t the definition of democracy include proportional representation? Otherwhilse, what’s the point of polling what the people want if you don’t hold to it…

We fucktards mostly did not vote for Harper. The non-Harper votes varied regionally and riding to riding, sadly. Some of the vote splits were tragic. For less than 200 votes, we swapped a hard-working, experienced (popular!) Liberal incumbent for an unknown Cons…CAGE-FIGHTER. For reals…

And…yeah…electoral reform. I mean, I Iove that Yukon has its own seat, for 32,000 people (a number which may include a few mangy bears). You could argue we need this for regional representation, but it’s also true that if every (or even some) 32,000 person neighbourhoods of the GTA, Greater Van, Edmonton, etc. had their own seat, this whole thing would go very differently.

More political education, and education generally, please.

I say hang in there…we’ll dump him next go around…

Picking up where I left off. Peter said:
“The fact that certain traits are ubiquitous does not make every member of a species identical, even where those traits are concerned. Hardwiring can vary between individuals; but even different hardwiring is still hardwired.”

How do you get “all behavior is hardwired’ from “there is variation in biological traits”? From the mere fact that biological traits are determined by DNA and acted upon by natural selection it does not follow that all observed behavior is genetically determined. Biology is not destiny. Identical twins, who are effectively clones of each other, have different finger prints. If the genotype *determines* the phenotype this would not happen.

“Hardwiring can vary between individuals; but even different hardwiring is still hardwired”

This is question begging. You have not shown that it is in fact the case that all behavior is hardwired.

“I like to fuck women; other men like to fuck men; still others swing both ways. Some people get off on pain, some on pictures of feet. But in every case the response is a sexual one; the same part of the brain lights up in response to the arousing stimulus.”

Again, from the fact that there are different sexual preferences it does not follow that those preferences are hardwired. The communication pathways go both ways. Not only can on region affect the cerebral cortex, the cerebral cortex can affect other regions of the brain. We re-wire ourselves on the fly. Do the regions in gay men’s brains that resemble those of women *make* them gay or because they were gay did their behavior make their brains resemble those of women?

Through hours of practice a professional musician alters their own brain structure. It would be false to then section that musician’s brain and declare that the neural structures seen were “hardwired” and that this person was determined beforehand to be a musician.

“free will as a real, standalone product of the conscious mind has been pretty thoroughly discredited.”

Well, that’s like, your opinion, man.

“How exactly would a genetic imperative manifest itself in a social context if not via something you’d call a “taboo”?

How from the mere existence of taboos can you claim that they are genetically determined? If sibling inter-marriage is genetically disadvantageous and the incest taboo is a result of natural selection, then how do you explain the kibbutz syndrome? In the kibbutz children NOT related to each other were all raised in common. As a result the last thing any boy from a kibbutz wanted to do was to marry a girl from his own kibbutz. Yet the girls from the other kibbutz down the road, they were very attractive to him. Socio-biology cannot explain this.

“A lot of cultural standards arise from hardwired imperatives; “taboo” is just another word for a shared gut reaction to something that we all know just ain’t natural, dadburnit.”

But there are virtually no taboos. I choose the incest taboo because it is the closest to a cultural universal but it isn’t, not really. If sociobiology is true then I would expect to see many more universal taboos, but there are hardly any at all.

“We recoil from the sight and smell of a rotten maggoty carcass not through a rational analysis of its status as a health risk, but because it evokes a visceral disgust response. Why does it do that? Because over time, some folks were disgusted by the sight of rotting carcasses, and others weren’t.”

But in some cultures rotted meat is prized. The recipe is easy, kill the animal and bury it. Then come back in a few days when it’s nice and “tender” and dig in! Tasty! And the maggots are just an extra treat for desert. “Gut reactions” are no basis for scientific explanation.

“Because over time, some folks were disgusted by the sight of rotting carcasses, and others weren’t. The ones that weren’t were more likely to get sick and die from playing around in rotting carcasses. The others became our ancestors. ”

I can tell just-so stories too. Over time, those people who buried their catch were better able to survive hard times and it kept their food away from predators. The ones that didn’t get sick learned how to minimize the risk and passed their knowledge down.

Bloody hell, can’t take it any more. Universal right to vote and universal right to stand for office are one of the great achievements of civilisation and human rights. Societies based on these principles have the most freedom and least discrimination anytime, anywhere (note that’s most and least, not complete and none) and people here want to throw it away?

Want to ensure crooks don’t get into office? Iran has an impartial body of religious leaders who screen out all the unsuitable candidates.

You’d prefer politicians work together for the good of the people and country rather than western style competitive parties? The old Soviet Union or mainland China. And if you think they create less pollution and environmental destruction than us capitalists, look up the Aral Sea or Three Gorges Dam.

Want to live in a smallish house with no warm water, eating what our ancestors ate in the middle ages? Welcome to North Korea.

People shouldn’t be allowed to vote if they can’t make informed decisions? Women, for example. Or blacks. That’s exactly the argument made against enfranchising such groups.

Any right-wing oligarch would be delighted to enact most of the measures being suggested here.

@ Peter:

Sure, breach of promise lawsuits might work for awhile (if we can ever convince the courts that campaign promises are more than mere puffery), but the real problem up until now has been that any reform system has to go through a gauntlet made of folks with a real vested interest in keeping things they way they are now. A prof of mine once pointed out to me Canada is designed to fracture the power elites that, in other countries, challange the government in power.

Let’s say someone comes with a really great idea (like your breach of promise idea) to reform the election system. First step: it is throughly investigated by committees of the house and the senate, both of whom generate reports advising the Government that the reforms are stupid, can’t work, would cost too much, are undemocratic, violate the Statutes of Westminster and are bad for your teeth.

Then the Federal/Provincial Committees have big meetings and we hear the same BS, this time mulitplied by 13. Then the Commissions do their thing and the Cabinet decides. In the end, it either expires during the next election or ends up as a bucket of slush.

I just don’t know. All we can really do is go issue by issue, screaming and yelling until it’s changed.

aletheia:
… who doesn’t contribute to society in some fashion? Who’s to judge?

I will not stand here and be accused of contributing to society.

[snip]Peter vs noen cage match[/snip]

I love this blog. 🙂

HI!

Peter said: — “You should read this stuff. it’s amazing. All of these studies, and hundreds more, point to the brain as a machine whose hardwiring can be interfered with in pretty much the same way your PC can be: magnets. Electrical fields.”

I am not denying that we are machines of some sort. I deny that we are von Neumann machines like the one in my PC. I consider the strong AI position to have been refuted and I interpreted some of your remarks as supporting it. I apologize if I’m wrong. No one today believes, or ought to believe, that our minds are the software implemented in neurons but that we could just as easily be transferred to silicon. Ray Kurzweil’s dream of being uploaded into his PC’s hard drive is just that, a dream.

In your books you’ve written about the Chinese room and you seem to dismiss it. That’s fine, you write fiction and you want a good story, but meantime Searle has won the day. Strong AI is defeated. The cognitive branch of phil of mind represented by Dennet and others is also withering on the vine.

“But I have to point out that you’re not really making an actual argument here; you’re basically stating that my claims can’t be correct because if they were, everything we hold to be self-evident about ourselves would be completely wrong.”

Yes, I am not making an actual argument, sort of, just an appeal. I was not trying to say that because the absence of free will is undesirable that is therefore cannot be true that we have no free will. But I think it is a concept that we cannot do without. I don’t see how we can make sense of the world if it is true and, if we truly have no free will then there is no such thing as rationality. I don’t like giving that up.

“none of us had a say in the way our brains are wired,”

I think we do have a say. If I choose to learn how to play the piano then I am participating in how my brain is structured. I have a say.

“Uh, what exactly was it [the blog], then? I’m a bit confused as to what it was you were reading.”

It used to be just a web page that you scrolled down and you had thoughts and news tidbits posted. I think that was back when Starfish was your only book. I like you Peter, this is not a hostile discussion we’re having. At least I hope not.

“I’d be interested in your critique as to why the arguments [for p-zombies] are so embarrassingly bad”

The argument for them is circular. Do p-zombies understand Chinese? No, but since p-zombies are indistinguishable from us then it is possible you are a zombie. You just think that when they peel off a layer of skin for a donor site that you are in pain. You’re not. You’re not a writer either since that would require an understanding of language and zombies don’t understand anything. There is no possible test that you or anyone could ever conduct that would show that you are a zombie. So… the concept is incoherent.

“The conscious decision to move comes after the motion has already begun.”

That was for a rehearsed action. The subject pushes a button as the clock’s hands move and yeah, his conscious decision lags behind that of his brain. But that is like playing the piano. We repeat an action over and over until it becomes embedded. Musicians have a saying “practice make permanent”. But I don’t think that means there is no musician.

“Tell me noen, where in all this machinery is there room for free will? At what stage of the process do the laws of physics relax enough to let autonomy into the mix?”

I think there is such a thing as intentional causation. I choose to raise my arm and my arm goes up. I think we are conscious moral agents, ok, maybe the free part is hard to prove but the rest seems self evident to me. Consciousness has a first person ontology. So if I feel I am in pain then I am in pain. I don’t think that pain reduces to C-fiber firings. I don’t accept eliminative materialism. I think that I am a self even though I arise from neurons and that I can act in the world and choose “freely” between alternatives. Even if that is untrue is seem to me I must live as though it were true.

” Well, that’s like, your opinion, man.

So it is. And it’s also Wegner’s opinion. ”

Um, that was a joke. I was quoting The Big Lebowski. I %#-ing love the Cohen brothers. The dude abides.

“Who’ve you got on side? Give me some names”

I never went to collage. My parents didn’t really help much. Because I am older now I have time to read and listen. I listen the most to the podcasts the University of Berkeley and mostly the philosophy and cog-sci podcasts. I didn’t have the advantages others had but I’m working on it.

I like your science fiction with is odd because I don’t usually like hard sci-fi. For instance I love Stargate Universe (it has a plot!) but didn’t must care for the others in the franchise.

“Seriously, noen, you’ve gotta read this stuff more carefully; that was in the very same paragraph that you just excerpted.”

Oh I knew that. I was just hoping you wouldn’t notice. Sorry, I can’t help it, after all, it’s not like I had a choice or anything. 😉

“Yeah, but your just-so story doesn’t explain the existence of the visceral disgust response ”

What we find disgusting is, I believe, culturally fixed.

I hope your leg gets better… it will. I worked for over ten years in a burn unit (not a nurse). You’re lucky, trust me.

That was for a rehearsed action.

this is something I was thinking about the other day when someone in a forum mentioned that people can shake hands automatically and then retroactively assign conscious intent. but, shaking hands is a cultural thing, plus rehearsed all of the time. so maybe it comes down to things we do so often in our environment that it becomes hard wired. (and for some other place without handshaking, there would be an equivalent greet behavior).

does anyone here know more about this and whether research has been done on intention in tasks that are very novel?

and while they are being learned. versus after they are learned. etc.

@noen

Interesting. But to me seems as valid as kin selection. Is there a way to disprove it?

ScottC, on May 6th, 2011 at 1:48 pm Said:
Christ, Watts. Man, nothing like a political posting to start the walls of text being erected, although Peter and Noen’s exchanges have gone somewhere else entirely.

50 QUATLOOS on the humungo gedanken experiments of free will and nature-v-nurture not being solved on some guy’s blog!

But, y’know, congrats to the contestants for being willing to wade in One More Time. Go, us!

Rolling up my pant legs, here – have we considered that people judge the “natural” or “hard-wired” aspects of the whole of mankind’s sexual behavior based on their own sexual bahavior and the perceived behavior of their fellows? Nobody’s considered opinion is probably any good in that respect, and scientific study of it is really undoable, because (to go ahead and violate my own principle right away) what humans do with respect to sex is lie. Not because humans are hard-wired liars, just because there is tremendous social pressure with respect to mating and the social contract.

And it isn’t feasible to hold up the poor guy with the brain tumor who suddenly become a pedophile, because we can’t be sure that he wasn’t a closeted pedophile before, and we have no information about how flexible the learned part of his sexuality is. In other words, we cannot say what changed in his brain (other than they removed a tumor), all we can see is his behavior.

A closeted pedophile develops a disease the breaks down his general executive functions, or social embarrassment or even just increases the reward circuits for sexual gratification, and tips him over into acting out his previously closeted desires. Or, a man with no pedophilc bent has his brain altered to increase the flexibility of his sexual response, makes the connections more random, and unlucky for him, he accidentally pairs kids and sex. Again, all we see is the behavior. Of little utility for declaring human sexual responses are totally hardwired.

Similarly, I would not declare that I have sex with men because Nature Dictated It In My Brain from my conception. noen’s right – my brain has been rewired a milllion times for all sorts of functions, including sexual desire. If I have sex wtih a partner with big brown eyes, then big brown eyes begin to look sexy in general. I have learned to find wrinkles sexy, no lie.

With respect to Wilson’s reversal on group selection: Evolution is not directed, it just operates on the species in concert with the environment, and let’s not kid ourselves, the group is and has been part of the environment. If we assume man has been in small groups of dubious relatedness for 100,000 years, if a certain amount of cooperation improves everyone’s survival. evolution will select for it.

Carry on…..

Not sure about p-zombies, but getting back to the election:

http://shitharperdid.ca/

If we had government-mandated internet, then we could force all Canadians to click through this site, as part of their civic duty.

Proudly Quebecois on May 2nd, 2011.