NationStates Jolt Archive

Because agricultural production is capable of doing certain things that hunter-gatherers can't - like support armies. That's why agricultural societies have tended to defeat hunter-gatherer ones in conflicts.

That is what happened after sedentary societies developed. If the hunter-gatherer lifestyle is the most natural way of living, why did the sedentary lifestyles begin in the first place?

It may be - indeed, likely is - true that human beings have an "innate desire to accept those cultural memes that are prevalent within our social network."

That does mean that we have no other significant innate desires. It doesn't mean that the suppression of our other innate desires to those "cultural memes" is natural.

I am not saying that society cannot force us against our natures (governments mandating religious belief which are not consistent with those that we would have accepted), I am saying that our natures are to behave in accordance with societal norms.

It is also very possible that our nature is in conflict with itself. It could be that various archaic innate behaviors still have residual effects that counter what would be more recently developed behavior.

That is what happened after sedentary societies developed. If the hunter-gatherer lifestyle is the most natural way of living, why did the sedentary lifestyles begin in the first place?

That's a good question. I don't have a precise answer, not being an expert, but my inclination would be to suggest that the differences at that point were not so precise; many hunter-gatherers probably engaged in certain kinds of limited agriculture, and those who engaged in it to a greater degree were more successful - not because it was more natural, or necessarily more suited to the (natural) environment, but simply because they were better capable of engaging in conflict than their opponents were. Nor is a sedentary lifestyle necessarily incompatible with an essentially hunter-gatherer society, if resources are plentiful.

Regardless, all this point does is reinforce my prior expressed position that instead of predicting what our lifestyles naturally should be, we should make the attempt to emancipate ourselves, and see what happens. Even if certain kinds of agriculture are natural to us, I still find it extremely hard to believe that our current post-industrial civilization is, or even civilized life thousands of years ago.

I am not saying that society cannot force us against our natures (governments mandating religious belief which are not consistent with those that we would have accepted), I am saying that our natures are to behave in accordance with societal norms.

Yes, but there is far more to our natures than that. We all know how conformism and groupthink can lead to catastrophic consequences; what evolutionary benefit would there be to making us almost wholly subject to such forces? It makes more sense to me to say that we have biologically-defined natures, and that a portion of that biologically-defined nature is to cooperate with other human beings - to be social. This part of our nature need not, and should not, be in conflict with the other parts.

You continually make the error of assuming that because we adapt to our societies, this adaptation need conflict with the rest of us - but this is not necessarily the case.

It is also very possible that our nature is in conflict with itself. It could be that various archaic innate behaviors still have residual effects that counter what would be more recently developed behavior.

In which case a hunter-gatherer society, by permitting us to express those "archaic innate behaviors," would be more natural than our post-industrial ones, which necessarily put them in conflict with the "more recently developed" ones - yes?

Oh, you meant for whatever the child does, something is done to the child...an eye for an eye, so to speak. That isn't what I meant, no, I thought you were saying something else.Do it right, and you'll never need an eye for an eye. ;)

They can start much smaller by ceasing to feed him.No matter how "small" they start, it's going to be a contest of force. At the very least, it's going to be a contest of coercive wills--and I see no principled distinction between one kind of coercion and another.

Once he leaves the house to find food, they can have the locks changed.And when he breaks a window to regain entrance, I suppose they'll call the police?

Government merely gives the propertied the luxury of using force by proxy. That's one of the main reasons that anarchists have always opposed it.

How do we determine whether or not someone is an adult or an adult child before they make their decision regarding primitivism?It's not easy... and I don't appreciate your insinuation that I am implying that all mature rational people necessarily favor primitivism. I have said no such thing.

Of course, I will concede that all mature rational people (on my view) must necessarily take the primitivist seriously. The tendency to brush it aside without careful review is, I suspect, a deeply defensive reaction. ;)

While Dennett is primarily a philosopher, his work in evolutionary theory carries weight. He may not be Dawkins or Gould, but he is still a prominent naturalist.From what I have been able to skim in professional reviews, real scientists view him with skepticism. While he reports their findings accurately enough, academic scientists are unconvinced by the connections he makes between them.

That being said, I have not read Dennett myself and I do not care to do him the injustice of criticizing his work second-hand. More importantly, my own work for the semester is already beginning to pile up, so that I am also unable to give your lengthy post the response it deserves. Forgive me then for pulling out what most immediately grabs my attention for a response: I do not mean to imply any opinion of the remainder by my acts of omission.

However, as climate changes brought about suitable environments for a sedentary lifestyle, humans, as their nature suggests, began to best exploit their environments and become sedentary.This prehistory is no doubt more or less as you attest--the primitivist argument does not contest this.

Rather, what the primitivist points out is that regardless of whether agriculture spurred population growth, agriculture itself could not have been developed unless some (probably most) members of the community became laborers--a new social role that had not previously existed. As I have already pointed out, the gatherer-hunter lifestyle was one dominated by leisure, sleeping and play. What "advantage" could have compelled these creatures to work long hours that they had never known? If it was not something necessary for survival (as you allow that their lifestyle could have been retained indefinitely), what could make them adopt it other than some social compulsion; some force alien to their own will?

You will reply that I have it backwards: that nothing required the appearance of the worker, but that once this "mutation" appeared its tendency toward exponential reproduction simply wiped out the non-worker.

Of course this is precisely what happened: no biological necessity required the appearance of the worker, but his civilization has all but wiped out the gatherer-hunter lifestyle. I do not dispute this. What I dispute is the cause.

If some "random" biological mutation favored the worker to the non-worker, then modern humanity would be a species of such creatures, biologically predisposed to work--but on the contrary, we resist it to this day! It is our very natural tendency to be "lazy" that all our schooling works to suppress! Our compulsion to work has not been passed down genetically from ancient ancestors who acquired this adaptation; rather it has been passed down culturally from ancient ancestors who were forced to do so: forced by convention and the wills of other men.

This is not nature. It opposes nature at every step.

In other words, human evolution has pressured us towards not so much complete altruism (as if we were completely altruistic we would be constantly ravaged by the defectors), but towards a self-interested pseudo-altruism. In other words, evolution has made us want to appear good, not simply be good.This is somewhat surprising, since most of the reviews of Dennett's work (even the negative ones) emphasize that he is obsessed with all the most recent findings in biology and evolutionary theory.

I say it is suprising because he seems to be ignorant of the most compelling research in evolutionary ethics, which has not only discovered truly altruistic behavior among a wide range of social species, but has developed a very convincing explanation: evolution is less concerned with the survival of individuals than it is with the survival of genes. In complex animal life, any given individual shares almost all of the genes of the entire species. Within smaller gene groups (e.g. families, clans, communities) individuals share even more. For this reason, it may be a very effective adaptation to develop preservative instincts that stretch beyond the individual: hence, real compassion, commiseration, pity, love.

1. How does crime even apply to paleolithic social structures, and furthermore how is it studied."Crime" is a juridical term which has unfortunately muddled this discussion. Dennett's "defector" works just fine for me, and in broad strokes its definition seems to be "one whose actions harm the social group more than they help it." (This is actually a bit broader than our modern "criminal," but that's fine.) It would at a minimum include those who behave violently toward members of the community (at least without social sanction). As for ancient hunter-gatherers, we can gain some limited insight by studying similar modern cultures. We may also study the fossilized remains, which often reveal the person's cause of death: a skull fractured by a violent blow looks different than one caused by a fall, and the markings caused by a knife wound remain clear in the bone even after thousands of years.

2. I have read of some evidence (anthropology is not a strong interest of mine) that violence was very prevalent between social groups, if not within them.I have read of such evidence regarding agricultural groups. To the best of my knowledge, we have no such evidence regarding pre-agricultural groups.

3. Dennett does make a note that freedom has evolved along with the evolution of our society and culture. That would lead to the conclusion that the opportunity for crime has risen more, and so a freer population would obviously commit more crime.We clearly have very different definitions of "freedom" in mind!!

4. There are many other factors that could attribute to this: lower population density, closer knit social groups mostly made up of family, and most obviously there was little to no reward for crime.I agree with all of this: I think the absence of crime in such societies is overdetermined. All the more reason to believe that their organization is socially superior to ours.

I understand what you mean by "independent", it is the point of primitivism to create social groups where all that one person can attain is what they can attain by themselves.No, they can attain quite a bit more by free association. What makes them independent is that they never feel compelled to work together, because if they do not they will be perfectly capable of autonomous survival.

No, it is not equivocation. I believe much of our nature (at the level you are digging to) is malleable.Perhaps it is, through breeding and genetic engineering: only in these ways might you ensure that our innate (natural) qualities do not rear themselves up to resist domestication in every generation. Choose the most obedient, the most accomodating, the most servile among us: allow only these to breed, or select only their DNA for replication.

Then you will have changed human nature. It worked with dogs and cats, why not humans as well?

Social structures, however, cannot directly change our nature: they appear on top of it, they attempt to suppress it or they learn to sublimate it. They do not change it. That is the reason they must work so hard to infuse themselves on every generation.

If you deny this distinction, you deny that there is anything unnatural in our civilization at all. For on what other grounds can you make the distinction? How do you pick and choose among cultural artifacts to pull out the "natural" from the "unnatural"? I say that the "unnatural" are precisely those that must be imposed on the young generation by the one before it. This is a perfectly sensible, perfectly coherent definition. What's yours?

Also, these differences don't so much turn us against our nature, whereas they turn our nature against itself.This seems incoherent to me. What's the difference?

Do it right, and you'll never need an eye for an eye. ;) Hitting the child back would be an example of 'eye for an eye'.

No matter how "small" they start, it's going to be a contest of force. At the very least, it's going to be a contest of coercive wills--and I see no principled distinction between one kind of coercion and another.How is refusing to feed someone an example of coercion if they can feed themselves?

And when he breaks a window to regain entrance, I suppose they'll call the police?That would be an instance of him using force; not necessarily force against property; he would be forcing his company upon them. They would be justified in defending themselves.

Government merely gives the propertied the luxury of using force by proxy. That's one of the main reasons that anarchists have always opposed it.Certainly; violence against property isn't necessarily unjust; this doesn't mean it's a good idea, either.

It's not easy... and I don't appreciate your insinuation that I am implying that all mature rational people necessarily favor primitivism. I have said no such thing. Then why would there be a need to destroy society? If eveyone leaves society, it will crumble on its own.

Of course, I will concede that all mature rational people (on my view) must necessarily take the primitivist seriously. The tendency to brush it aside without careful review is, I suspect, a deeply defensive reaction. ;)I can't disagree with this part.

Hitting the child back would be an example of 'eye for an eye'.Obviously an example of the metaphorical use of the phrase. In my last usage I was "joking" by implying that if the principle is employed correctly, the appropriate sense of justice should be instilled without ever needing to apply the principle in its literal sense. :rolleyes:

How is refusing to feed someone an example of coercion if they can feed themselves?I think coercion only makes sense as a relative term--relative, that is, to the abilities, education, and sensibilities of the individuals in question.

Parents use the refusal to provide food as a coercive influence all the time: "Clean your room, or no supper for you!" In an abstract sense, of course, the child in question might obtain his own food: he might scavenge for food in the woods (or the dumpster), he might steal, or he might offer to do some favor for a neighbor in exchange for food or the resources to procure it.

In actual fact, however, this child has only ever known how to receive food from his parents--who have, in fact, been the ones to establish this habit. He does not know how to do any of the things required to obtain food for himself. Hence, his parents' refusal exerts a coercive effect: relative to his habits and abilities (not to the abstract habits or abilities that he might have or should have), they effectively hold him hostage to his needs. This should not be surprising: it was the explicit intent of their action!!

Now, the same holds true for our immature, dependent adult. If his parents have always provided food for him, and they have not seen to it that he acquire the abilities necessary to provide for himself, they can effectively coerce his behavior by refusing to provide food in the future. They may say, "Clean your room, or no dinner!" Or they may say, "Clean yourself up and search for a job, or no dinner!" In either case, their intent is to compel him to do what he would not otherwise do, and to do so by holding him hostage to his needs. They exercise coercive force relative to him, even if the same action would not be coercive relative to the habits and abilities (in abstraction) that he might have or should have at his age.

Then why would there be a need to destroy society? If everyone leaves society, it will crumble on its own."Everyone" is never everyone. Even if people began a mass exodus, do you think that no one would be left who would have an interest in attempting to force their return? When the workers no longer want to work, the masters will surely invent new ways to attempt our enslavement.

Life-expectancy in the post-industrial nations has only recently returned to what it was in prehistory. Medicine took that long to catch up to the horrifying things civilization does to our bodies.


and by only recently, that means longer than ever. you'd last fifteen seconds in a hunter gather society. srsly,

mind you, the collapse of civilization wouldn't be all bad. it would get rid of the twats who spend their time hanging around at universities. so nothing lost there.

Obviously an example of the metaphorical use of the phrase. In my last usage I was "joking" by implying that if the principle is employed correctly, the appropriate sense of justice should be instilled without ever needing to apply the principle in its literal sense. :rolleyes:You said that to apply the principle of lying to the child for when the child hits someone, you would hit the child back.

I think coercion only makes sense as a relative term--relative, that is, to the abilities, education, and sensibilities of the individuals in question.

Parents use the refusal to provide food as a coercive influence all the time: "Clean your room, or no supper for you!" In an abstract sense, of course, the child in question might obtain his own food: he might scavenge for food in the woods (or the dumpster), he might steal, or he might offer to do some favor for a neighbor in exchange for food or the resources to procure it.

In actual fact, however, this child has only ever known how to receive food from his parents--who have, in fact, been the ones to establish this habit. He does not know how to do any of the things required to obtain food for himself. Hence, his parents' refusal exerts a coercive effect: relative to his habits and abilities (not to the abstract habits or abilities that he might have or should have), they effectively hold him hostage to his needs. This should not be surprising: it was the explicit intent of their action!!

Now, the same holds true for our immature, dependent adult. If his parents have always provided food for him, and they have not seen to it that he acquire the abilities necessary to provide for himself, they can effectively coerce his behavior by refusing to provide food in the future. They may say, "Clean your room, or no dinner!" Or they may say, "Clean yourself up and search for a job, or no dinner!" In either case, their intent is to compel him to do what he would not otherwise do, and to do so by holding him hostage to his needs. They exercise coercive force relative to him, even if the same action would not be coercive relative to the habits and abilities (in abstraction) that he might have or should have at his age.Well, then, even though I disagree that coercion is force, I suppose they will have to use coercion on him.

"Everyone" is never everyone. Even if people began a mass exodus, do you think that no one would be left who would have an interest in attempting to force their return? When the workers no longer want to work, the masters will surely invent new ways to attempt our enslavement.By offering them "incentives", or something more violent? If it's more violent, a defensive use of violence is justified.

You said that to apply the principle of lying to the child for when the child hits someone, you would hit the child back.First, apparently I'm not being very clear: yes, I said these things, which are applications of the "eye for eye" rule. My comment was meant, tongue-in-cheek, to imply that by teaching these lessons early I would never have to get an eye.

Secondly, I never said that if the child hits "someone," I would hit the child back. Rather, only if he hits me will I hit him back. Meanwhile I will ask that anyone who is likely to come in contact with him respond in exactly the same way. I would ask that they not hesitate, but respond immediately. I would also instruct them not to scold or lecture him: the action itself should be enough. If they say anything at all, it should be to this effect: "How do you like it?" Nothing more.

If I encounter anyone in the process who seems reluctant to follow through on my request, whether due to pity, principle, or lack of will... then I shall do my best to see to it that my child avoids contact with this person.

If I hit him for hitting someone else, because I don't believe in "punishment." I do not believe that the child really understands the reasons for abstract precepts (even if he can recite them to satisfy me), so how shall I hold him responsible for conforming to them? No, I believe that he can only follow the rule that he feels, and for this I must involve his senses and his emotion, not his reason. How is he to understand that my hitting him bears any relation to his hitting another?

Of course, if he hits me in the first place then my mode of education has already gone astray. If I have done correctly, he should never have conceived the idea that through force he might bend my will to his. But if I have gone astray, I will not worsen the situation by allowing my pity to overwhelm my plan: I will return blow for blow.

Well, then, even though I disagree that coercion is force, I suppose they will have to use coercion on him.And how do you distinguish coercion from force?

By offering them "incentives", or something more violent? If it's more violent, a defensive use of violence is justified.I don't think this "defensive" and "justified" use of force is a very coherent concept. The capitalists, after all, will have branded you criminals and rebels: yes, criminals, for even if you "secede" you no doubt inhabit lands that they believe to be "theirs," yet you refuse to pay the taxes required by their system. When they send someone to collect and you resist, they will say they are justified in using violence against you, yes?

You say that their government is illegitimate, therefore their laws, their property, and their violence is illegitimate as well.

For the sake of argument, lets say that you want to secede from a legitimate, democratic government--one which has democratically adopted the capitalist mode of production, which you oppose. Is their attempt to force you to obey their democratic law still illegitimate? How do you ground your right of secession, given that they (or another neighboring country) have already claimed the land you want?

I see no way in which a theory that legitimizes government of any kind can consistently conceive a right to secede. The first law of every government, after all--the very one which conditions all the rest--is this: "within the territory delimiting the rule of this state, all residents shall obey its laws."

Having done away with government, of course, the true anarchist has no need for any law other than the law of nature: there is no "right" to self-defense, merely the fact that anyone who is attacked will defend himself. There is no sense in talking about "legitimate" and "illegitimate" uses of force.

Well, here's my score.

You scored as Anarcho-Communist.

Anarcho-communists seek to build a society based upon a decentralised federation of autonomous communes and a moneyless 'gift economy'. The movement first emerged in the late 19th century and has had a large influence particularly in Spain, Italy and Russia. Key thikers include Peter Kropotkin and Errico Malatesta.

Anarcho-Communist 90%
Anarcho-Syndicalist 65%
Anarcha-Feminist 60%
Anarcho-Primitivist 50%
Christian Anarchist 25%
Anarcho-Capitalist 10%

This prehistory is no doubt more or less as you attest--the primitivist argument does not contest this.

Rather, what the primitivist points out is that regardless of whether agriculture spurred population growth, agriculture itself could not have been developed unless some (probably most) members of the community became laborers--a new social role that had not previously existed. As I have already pointed out, the gatherer-hunter lifestyle was one dominated by leisure, sleeping and play. What "advantage" could have compelled these creatures to work long hours that they had never known? If it was not something necessary for survival (as you allow that their lifestyle could have been retained indefinitely), what could make them adopt it other than some social compulsion; some force alien to their own will?

You will reply that I have it backwards: that nothing required the appearance of the worker, but that once this "mutation" appeared its tendency toward exponential reproduction simply wiped out the non-worker.

Of course this is precisely what happened: no biological necessity required the appearance of the worker, but his civilization has all but wiped out the gatherer-hunter lifestyle. I do not dispute this. What I dispute is the cause.

If some "random" biological mutation favored the worker to the non-worker, then modern humanity would be a species of such creatures, biologically predisposed to work--but on the contrary, we resist it to this day! It is our very natural tendency to be "lazy" that all our schooling works to suppress! Our compulsion to work has not been passed down genetically from ancient ancestors who acquired this adaptation; rather it has been passed down culturally from ancient ancestors who were forced to do so: forced by convention and the wills of other men.

This is not nature. It opposes nature at every step.

There are two things I need to address here.

First, while I am sure that there have been various shiftings of genes, I am not saying that this is a case of purely genetic evolution. On the contrary, I would say that the vast majority of Darwinian changes occurred within the culture, memetically. It has been my point all along that the hunter-gathering economic system is a naturally valid system, not the naturally valid system. A great majority of hunter-gatherers before the advent of agricultural technology could have accepted the sedentary life naturally(and many did, the nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle was not universal during the paleolithic). Our brains are wired to behave socially, spread information, and to exploit our environment, and the sedentary agricultural lifestyle fit that nature.

Also, you don't do much in explaining what caused paleolithic humans to alienate their own nature at such a steady rate at many completely unrelated locations on the globe.

I would say that climate change opened up an abundance of opportunities that our naturally industrious ancestors began to exploit of their own volition. I want to know what great compulsion you believe compelled these early people to go against their nature.

This is somewhat surprising, since most of the reviews of Dennett's work (even the negative ones) emphasize that he is obsessed with all the most recent findings in biology and evolutionary theory.

I say it is suprising because he seems to be ignorant of the most compelling research in evolutionary ethics, which has not only discovered truly altruistic behavior among a wide range of social species, but has developed a very convincing explanation: evolution is less concerned with the survival of individuals than it is with the survival of genes. In complex animal life, any given individual shares almost all of the genes of the entire species. Within smaller gene groups (e.g. families, clans, communities) individuals share even more. For this reason, it may be a very effective adaptation to develop preservative instincts that stretch beyond the individual: hence, real compassion, commiseration, pity, love.

I guess I should have mentioned that Dennett claims the most cost effective way to appear good is to actually be good, he also presents the benefit of our impure altruism as providing a method of self-control in regulating our hyperbolic future discounting method.

As for the benefits of altruistic behavior, he addresses it with the prisoner dilemma. As it applies, two cooperators will always have a mutually high Darwinian fitness, two defectors will have medium fitness, with single contributer having low fitness with its defector partner having medium fitness. This is how the evolution of altruism works. It is a rather fleeting system though, as it is difficult to achieve and maintain in equilibrium. All that it requires is a signal with which contributers recognize defectors.

One central point of the book, however, is that we are not genetically determined to be a cooperator or defector, as is the case with animals. We evolved the ability to be opportunistic, and subsequently (maybe coincidentally) we developed rational signals with which to determine cooperators and defectors.

Dennett is very gene-centric, and while I don't remember him addressing the evolution of genes over individuals, he does draw a picture of ourselves and our genes as being sort of a bundle of organisms working together and benefitting mutually from reproduction, rather than a single entity, so I imagine that he subscribes to evolution being gene oriented rather than individual oriented.


"Crime" is a juridical term which has unfortunately muddled this discussion. Dennett's "defector" works just fine for me, and in broad strokes its definition seems to be "one whose actions harm the social group more than they help it." (This is actually a bit broader than our modern "criminal," but that's fine.) It would at a minimum include those who behave violently toward members of the community (at least without social sanction). As for ancient hunter-gatherers, we can gain some limited insight by studying similar modern cultures. We may also study the fossilized remains, which often reveal the person's cause of death: a skull fractured by a violent blow looks different than one caused by a fall, and the markings caused by a knife wound remain clear in the bone even after thousands of years.

I have read of such evidence regarding agricultural groups. To the best of my knowledge, we have no such evidence regarding pre-agricultural groups.

This (http://www.touregypt.net/ebph3.htm) notes violence among hunter-gatherer groups, and attributes a possible cause to scarcity of resources brought on by the failure of some early agricultural advancements.

Of course, all of the forces counteracting "crime" in the paleolithic would also counteract violence. But it seems as if scarcity causes the same violence amongst hunter-gatherers as it does amongst sedentary tribes.

We clearly have very different definitions of "freedom" in mind!!

I (and Dennett) am referring to freedom as opportunity and ability. You are referring to it as a lack of necessity. That is a drastic difference.

I actually do see the freedom of independence, lack of obligation, unnecessity, however, I do feel it is a very worthless freedom. Birds have this freedom in greater abundance than early humans, but do they actually enjoy it?

True freedom is the opportunity for action, and in such there must be a freedom to commit crime to actually commit it, and you aren't advocating the removal of the causes of crime, but the freedom to do it. Don't misconstrue my argument as saying "Criminals are fully responsible for being criminals," I am not saying that. I am merely saying that, while there are cultural forces that compell individuals to resort to crime, it is that the ability is there that makes its avoidance so important.

In this way, primitivism creates freedom by making it irrelevant.

We have the freedom of independence, but that no longer matters because we have no other choice.

No, they can attain quite a bit more by free association. What makes them independent is that they never feel compelled to work together, because if they do not they will be perfectly capable of autonomous survival.

And why doesn't the repeated free assosciation that results in more advanced technology not lend itself to necessity to the group?

If you deny this distinction, you deny that there is anything unnatural in our civilization at all. For on what other grounds can you make the distinction? How do you pick and choose among cultural artifacts to pull out the "natural" from the "unnatural"? I say that the "unnatural" are precisely those that must be imposed on the young generation by the one before it. This is a perfectly sensible, perfectly coherent definition. What's yours?

I have never considered "What is genetically natural" to be an important moral question, so I have never considered the qualifications for the answer.

Also, I don't know enough about child psychology to say that you definition is not sensible or coherent (it seems to make good sense to me), but I can say that its practicality is definitely wanting, and making prescriptive ideologies based on it makes for unreliable systems.

This seems incoherent to me. What's the difference?

I just felt that it was more accurate. Where you say that much of our behavior in society is a matter of unnatural compulsion, I say that you are observing the complexity of our present level of freedom and the spotlight it places on our competing natures.

Also, you don't do much in explaining what caused paleolithic humans to alienate their own nature at such a steady rate at many completely unrelated locations on the globe.I think that the roots of symbolic culture crept up on them slowly--so slow that people didn't even really notice the change. But without a long growing season, this did not allow for immediate inequalities: it simply was not possible for a minority to force the majority to grow enough food for themselves and the non-working minority. When climate change occurred, well-placed minorities (primitive priesthoods) were able to do just that.

I want to know what great compulsion you believe compelled these early people to go against their nature.I'm sure it was the idea of those who would benefit directly, rather than those who would be working longer and harder than ever before.

Dennett is very gene-centric, and while I don't remember him addressing the evolution of genes over individuals, he does draw a picture of ourselves and our genes as being sort of a bundle of organisms working together and benefitting mutually from reproduction, rather than a single entity, so I imagine that he subscribes to evolution being gene oriented rather than individual oriented.Based on your explanation, I don't see that. At any rate, he seems to be clinging unnecessarily to the view that the organism's survival mechanism precludes the possibility of genuinely altruistic behavior--a view popular among Hobbesian/Lockean political theorists, but no longer popular among evolutionary ethicists. Even if the best way for the individual to "appear" good is to "be" good, this is hardly the same thing: it is not genuine altruism, but bad faith altruism.

This (http://www.touregypt.net/ebph3.htm) notes violence among hunter-gatherer groups, and attributes a possible cause to scarcity of resources brought on by the failure of some early agricultural advancements.It also notes that these are gatherer-hunter groups who attempted an agricultural "experiment" which failed. Not only had they already subjected their culture to the deformities of technological existence, but they probably faced population pressures (due to their previous state) that natural gatherer-hunters do not. This proves very little indeed.

I actually do see the freedom of independence, lack of obligation, unnecessity, however, I do feel it is a very worthless freedom. Birds have this freedom in greater abundance than early humans, but do they actually enjoy it?Ever seen puppies at play?

From what I have read about him, Dennett would seemingly agree to a "scale" of sentience among animals (with humans, of course, at the "top"). Enjoyment and feeling require neither intellect nor technology. Indeed, among humans the most free and playful are the children: precisely the people with the least intellect or technological understanding!!

True freedom is the opportunity for action, and in such there must be a freedom to commit crime to actually commit it, and you aren't advocating the removal of the causes of crime, but the freedom to do it.Does it take so much technology to hit someone over the head with a rock? I may be preventing corporate fraud through lack of opportunity... but I'm sure we can imagine countless hideous crimes that are possible even without the invention of money and property.

"You Dont Know Me" continually refers to "memes" as if they replicate according to a logic similar to the replication of genes in biological evolution. I want to point out that while the processes may be analogous in some ways, certain comparisons should not be made.

When a species possesses a particular genetic trait, it is (usually) reasonable to conclude that this trait benefits that species in some way--it is useful (or it once was) with respect to the environment and ecology of that organism. We know this because we understand the mechanism of genetic propagation: advantageous genes tend to the survival of the organism that carries them, and thus to the spread of these genes.

YDKM wants to make essentially the same claim for "memes"--cultural analogues to genes. If a particular cultural artifact is very prevalent, says YDKM, then it must be (or have been) beneficial to people in general. This might be true, if memes (like genes) had to contend only with natural survivability--unfortunately, memetic survivability itself depends on pre-existing cultural constructs, especially the power structure with respect to the control and transmission of knowledge!!

There is a simple test of the hypothesis that "beneficial" memes survive in a way comparable to advantageous genetic adaptations. In general, it is all but inarguable that when it comes to knowledge of the world, accuracy counts: the more you know about the world, and the more accurate your knowledge, the better will you survive the onslaughts of nature. In short, accurate knowledge is objectively better for the organism than inaccurate knowledge (or no knowledge at all).

Of course, this principle can be seen everywhere at work in genetic evolution: it tends to select the light-sensitive organism over the non-light-sensitive (except for cave dwellers); the better eye over the worse, the better ear over the worse, the more sensitive organ over the less sensitive (with variations, of course, with respect to diverse habitats).

Not so with so-called "memes." Consider, for instance, the evidence that various scientists and philosophers (the world over) knew thousands of years ago that the Earth is round!! Did the various peaceful sects of early Christian heretics die out because their ideas were worse than Catholicism, or because the Catholics killed them? Did people believe that slavery was justified because it was good for the species, or because it was good for the slaveholders--who also happened to be the opinion-makers of the day?

As far as I can tell, "memes" operate like genes only in that some survive while others do not. Their survivability, however, has nothing to do with their general utility and everything to do with their specific utility to the men (and sometimes women) with the power to make the decisions.

Of course, this boils down to a very simple point: the fact that people believe something does not make it true--and it does not make it "useful" either.

Those memes that are prevalent are those that were able to replicate themselves most effectively. Because their transmission is primarily horizontal, the survival of the host is not necessary, and in some cases death is even preferable (martyrdom).

I have never said otherwise, I have only said that the acceptance and application of said cultural memes is not unnatural to humans. We accept them and live by them quite naturally (although methods of transmission may be less than natural), and in many cases the forced removal of memes can be more unnatural than the way they were transmitted in the first place.

First, apparently I'm not being very clear: yes, I said these things, which are applications of the "eye for eye" rule. My comment was meant, tongue-in-cheek, to imply that by teaching these lessons early I would never have to get an eye.

Secondly, I never said that if the child hits "someone," I would hit the child back. Rather, only if he hits me will I hit him back. Yes, this part is true, I misunderstood.

Meanwhile I will ask that anyone who is likely to come in contact with him respond in exactly the same way. I would ask that they not hesitate, but respond immediately. I would also instruct them not to scold or lecture him: the action itself should be enough. If they say anything at all, it should be to this effect: "How do you like it?" Nothing more.

If I encounter anyone in the process who seems reluctant to follow through on my request, whether due to pity, principle, or lack of will... then I shall do my best to see to it that my child avoids contact with this person.How...unusual.

If I hit him for hitting someone else, because I don't believe in "punishment." I do not believe that the child really understands the reasons for abstract precepts (even if he can recite them to satisfy me), so how shall I hold him responsible for conforming to them? No, I believe that he can only follow the rule that he feels, and for this I must involve his senses and his emotion, not his reason. How is he to understand that my hitting him bears any relation to his hitting another?You can involve his emotion and senses without hitting him; you could try asking him how he would feel if someone hit him.

Of course, if he hits me in the first place then my mode of education has already gone astray. If I have done correctly, he should never have conceived the idea that through force he might bend my will to his. But if I have gone astray, I will not worsen the situation by allowing my pity to overwhelm my plan: I will return blow for blow.I'm not certain that when a child hits a parent, that it is necessarily an attempt to bend the parent's will, but that's a minor quibble.

And how do you distinguish coercion from force?Force is active; coercion is not necessarily. Force would be for the parent to physically take the food from their son's hand, or physically kick him out. Coercion would be doing it the way I suggested, or perhaps a threat of force.

I don't think this "defensive" and "justified" use of force is a very coherent concept. The capitalists, after all, will have branded you criminals and rebels: yes, criminals, for even if you "secede" you no doubt inhabit lands that they believe to be "theirs," yet you refuse to pay the taxes required by their system. When they send someone to collect and you resist, they will say they are justified in using violence against you, yes?It would depend on how the person wants to collect the taxes and how I resist. But, yes, they will say their violence is justified, but that doesn't mean that it is.

You say that their government is illegitimate, therefore their laws, their property, and their violence is illegitimate as well.

For the sake of argument, lets say that you want to secede from a legitimate, democratic government--one which has democratically adopted the capitalist mode of production, which you oppose. Is their attempt to force you to obey their democratic law still illegitimate? How do you ground your right of secession, given that they (or another neighboring country) have already claimed the land you want?Land rights are based upon occupancy and use (unless there is a consensus saying otherwise). Therefore, if I am seceding, at the very least I would have the land that I am occupying and using to live on. Ideally, something could be worked out where I wouldn't be an island in the middle of this nation, but if worse comes to worst, that would be how it is.

I see no way in which a theory that legitimizes government of any kind can consistently conceive a right to secede. The first law of every government, after all--the very one which conditions all the rest--is this: "within the territory delimiting the rule of this state, all residents shall obey its laws."Which is fine, as long as they abide by land rights meaning occupancy and use.

Having done away with government, of course, the true anarchist has no need for any law other than the law of nature: there is no "right" to self-defense, merely the fact that anyone who is attacked will defend himself. There is no sense in talking about "legitimate" and "illegitimate" uses of force.Yes, but when we talk about the rights of defense, we don't (usually) mean one person defending themselves from attack, we usually mean other people helping that one person defending themselves. If there is a situation where this has been agreed to, we say there is a right to defense.
Anyway, I wasn't saying that there was a "right" to self-defense, I was talking of the just use of force i.e. an attack; to attack someone is never justified, except to defend others from the use of force.

You can involve his emotion and senses without hitting him; you could try asking him how he would feel if someone hit him.And he will inevitably figure out what I want to hear, and say that. This teaches him only how to dissemble, not how to live. He should not be given to question that if he hits someone, they might not hit back--they might prefer a speech that he can ignore instead.

Force is active; coercion is not necessarily.If the intent and the effect are the same, what moral difference should that make? This implies only that "coercion" employs some force external to itself: the threat of force, in your own words. You also seem particularly obsessed with the physical. If I exercise profound psychological power over a person, do I not force her to do things?

There were, perhaps, many "good" slaves who were never hit by their masters. Were they any the less forced to labor against their will? Perhaps you will say they were "merely" coerced?

It would depend on how the person wants to collect the taxes and how I resist. But, yes, they will say their violence is justified, but that doesn't mean that it is.

Land rights are based upon occupancy and use (unless there is a consensus saying otherwise).EXACTLY!!!

You admit that all your talk of land rights collapse in the face of "a consensus saying otherwise." Well, what else is the social grouping from which you secede? If you admit the right of collective decision-making, you deny the right for a minority to secede--and it must be a minority, since otherwise you would have simply changed the rules from within, by majority vote!

Yes, but when we talk about the rights of defense, we don't (usually) mean one person defending themselves from attack, we usually mean other people helping that one person defending themselves.No we don't. At least, whenever "self-defense" is raised in the law (or anywhere else that I can find) it means self-defense.

Anyway, I wasn't saying that there was a "right" to self-defense, I was talking of the just use of force i.e. an attack; to attack someone is never justified, except to defend others from the use of force.And I was pointing out that the whole discussion of "justification" presumes a social/political will that accepts or rejects justifications. It presumes law, politics, and the "justified" use of force.

Meanwhile, I am trying to paint a picture of a society that need not distinguish between "justified" and "unjustified" uses of force, because it raises individuals who simply do not see the need (or have the desire) for force at all.

Anarcho-capitalism is perhaps more closely linked the libertarian tradition than anarchism as it favours a free market and a stateless society. Private businesses would replace the functions of the state. This form of anarchism is largely an American phenomenon and first emerged in the 1950s (although it arguably has its roots in 19th century individualist anarchism and classical liberalism). Key thinkers include Murray Rothbard.

Anarcho-Capitalist

85%
Christian Anarchist

60%
Anarcho-Syndicalist

45%
Anarcho-Primitivist

35%
Anarcho-Communist

25%
Anarcha-Feminist

20%

I have never said otherwise, I have only said that the acceptance and application of said cultural memes is not unnatural to humans.Yes, but that says nothing of the naturalness of any particular meme. The primitive lifestyle itself involves the transmission of "memes" (defined broadly as they usually are)--including behaviors such as tool-making and tool use, hunting in groups, and so on. The future primitive would add a further meme, namely the conscious social/individual rejection of all forms of domination.

The naturalness of memes in the abstract is not at issue. The issue at hand is the naturalness of the division of labor. I maintain that it does not arise naturally, but is imposed on a resisting majority by the minorities that benefit directly from the system.

EDIT: For a variety of reasons, I am no big fan of the "theory" of memes, as I do not think it constitutes a proper theory at all. The man who coined the term (Richard Dawkins, who also invented the gene-centric theory of evolution and ethology to which I have previously referred) happens to agree with me: he used it as a sort of "anti-gene" thought experiment designed to demonstrate that the theory of evolution requires a replicating mechanism, but not necessarily a biological one. He never intended it to serve as a "theory of culture," and he maintains that it cannot be defended as such.

You scored as Anarcho-Capitalist.



Anarcho-capitalism is perhaps more closely linked the libertarian tradition than anarchism as it favours a free market and a stateless society. Private businesses would replace the functions of the state. This form of anarchism is largely an American phenomenon and first emerged in the 1950s (although it arguably has its roots in 19th century individualist anarchism and classical liberalism). Key thinkers include Murray Rothbard.

Anarcho-Capitalist

100%

Anarcha-Feminist

80%

Anarcho-Communist

60%

Anarcho-Syndicalist

40%

Anarcho-Primitivist

40%

Christian Anarchist

10%

And he will inevitably figure out what I want to hear, and say that. This teaches him only how to dissemble, not how to live. He should not be given to question that if he hits someone, they might not hit back--they might prefer a speech that he can ignore instead.He could also ignore them hitting back; nonetheless, if the speech didn't work the first time, there are other options that could be used.

If the intent and the effect are the same, what moral difference should that make? This implies only that "coercion" employs some force external to itself: the threat of force, in your own words. It's the same moral difference between shooting someone and letting them die and seeing someone get shot and letting them die.

You also seem particularly obsessed with the physical. If I exercise profound psychological power over a person, do I not force her to do things?No.

There were, perhaps, many "good" slaves who were never hit by their masters. Were they any the less forced to labor against their will? Perhaps you will say they were "merely" coerced?Yes. This isn't to say that coercion is okay and acceptable, mind you, I was simply trying to establish guidelines for when force is acceptable.

EXACTLY!!!

You admit that all your talk of land rights collapse in the face of "a consensus saying otherwise." Well, what else is the social grouping from which you secede? If I haven't seceded from the social grouping yet, there wouldn't be 100% agreement; I would be disagreeing.

If you admit the right of collective decision-making, you deny the right for a minority to secede--and it must be a minority, since otherwise you would have simply changed the rules from within, by majority vote!No. The right of collective decision making exists as a matter of association; the people decide the rules for when they wish to associate with each other. The minority may choose to continue the association even if they disagree with the decision because the benefit of remaining a part of the larger group might outweigh the risks of splintering off into a smaller group. To force the minority to do remain part of the larger group, however, is a violation of the right of free association.

No we don't. At least, whenever "self-defense" is raised in the law (or anywhere else that I can find) it means self-defense. I'm fairly certain that there are cases where it's perfectly legal to defend somebody else.

And I was pointing out that the whole discussion of "justification" presumes a social/political will that accepts or rejects justifications. It presumes law, politics, and the "justified" use of force.Certainly.

Meanwhile, I am trying to paint a picture of a society that need not distinguish between "justified" and "unjustified" uses of force, because it raises individuals who simply do not see the need (or have the desire) for force at all.Weren't you just saying that you might need to exert force to create this society?

He could also ignore them hitting back; nonetheless, if the speech didn't work the first time, there are other options that could be used.If the speech doesn't work the first time, all is lost. The child no longer respects what I say (because I say things he cannot understand), and he has learned to lie--for the only reason my speech would stop is that he should say "Yes, I understand; I will not hurt others." He neither understands why he should not hurt others nor does he intend to stop--now he simply knows that he must do it without being "caught."

It's the same moral difference between shooting someone and letting them die and seeing someone get shot and letting them die.No, it's not.

In these cases, you omit the power and the motive. Yes, there is a significant difference between shooting someone and merely watching them die. This difference becomes less distinct when the power relations change--e.g. when I can very easily save the person but do not (a difference in power). The difference may vanish entirely when I consider certain motives: I might shoot someone to steal his wealth, or I might opportunistically refuse to save him (assuming this is within my power) so that I can steal his wealth. Equivalently, I might also threaten to poison him (when he is in my power) on the condition that he do some thing... or, finding him poisoned, I might refuse to administer a readily available antidote unless he do the very same thing. I call these both equally acts of coercion, both equally acts of force.

(Note, however, that I must specify that the potential aid must be readily available and easily administered. The moral circumstance does change significantly if saving the life requires extraordinary efforts on my part--efforts which defy the limits of ordinary human compassion. In this case I am not an opportunist, but blessed with good fortune; I am not a blackmailer, but a bargainer for my efforts.)

If I haven't seceded from the social grouping yet, there wouldn't be 100% agreement; I would be disagreeing.Ah, so you require 100% consensus for social decisions... I didn't know that. I thought you were some variety of majoritarian.

Of course, in this case no secession is necessary: if legitimate social decisions require 100% agreement, this is equivalent to saying that each may do as he pleases--for even if every single one of his compatriots disagree with him, they do not have the votes to constrain his behavior!

No. The right of collective decision making exists as a matter of association; the people decide the rules for when they wish to associate with each other. The minority may choose to continue the association even if they disagree with the decision because the benefit of remaining a part of the larger group might outweigh the risks of splintering off into a smaller group. To force the minority to do remain part of the larger group, however, is a violation of the right of free association.Now this is equivocal nonsense. Either you require consensus, or you do not. If you do, then your association is purely voluntary and I have no quarrel with it. If you do not, then your majority claims some sphere of sovereign authority within which your minority may not secede--this is the very definition of sovereign authority and political rule. They may, perhaps, attempt to find a place with a more agreeable majority, or some territory that has not already been claimed--but where will they find this, unless the world's population decreases dramatically AND political associations cease their habit of covering every available location with their influence?

I'm fairly certain that there are cases where it's perfectly legal to defend somebody else.Yes, but in the theory of jurisprudence these are inevitably defined in terms of the right to self-defense, where the defender acts as a proxy for someone unable to exercise this right directly. This is because no one has been able to make a convincing case for an original right to "interfere."

Weren't you just saying that you might need to exert force to create this society?Naturally. I also need to exert force to demolish a building; I need not continue my exertion to keep the rubble from building itself up again.

If you must ask, I'm the drunk, hedonistic, raging blonde barbarian, capitalistic sort of anarchist :D

the one nobody spoted on.
Bakounin was a prick,guy roux was better

Now this is equivocal nonsense. Either you require consensus, or you do not. If you do, then your association is purely voluntary and I have no quarrel with it. If you do not, then your majority claims some sphere of sovereign authority within which your minority may not secede--this is the very definition of sovereign authority and political rule.

This is a false dichotomy. Association itself would require consensus - that is, no one would be forced to participate in whatever cooperative endeavours the autonomous commune would undertake. The terms of association, however, would be decided upon by majority rule, with reluctant minorities always free to disassociate themselves.

They may, perhaps, attempt to find a place with a more agreeable majority, or some territory that has not already been claimed--but where will they find this, unless the world's population decreases dramatically AND political associations cease their habit of covering every available location with their influence?

Ideally, political associations would indeed "cease their habit of covering every available location with their influence," but the most pressing problems of "tyranny of the majority" can be avoided through decentralized political structures providing highly diverse options.

This is a false dichotomy. Association itself would require consensus - that is, no one would be forced to participate in whatever cooperative endeavours the autonomous commune would undertake. The terms of association, however, would be decided upon by majority rule, with reluctant minorities always free to disassociate themselves.No, you're not thinking it through far enough.

How are they going to secede? Think it through from the beginning. Let us suppose that your association begins freely, as a true consensus--and by consensus vote the members decide that future decisions will be governed by majority rule.

All right, so far so good. Now the members begin making decisions. A majority decides on how to allocate land and resources--and no minority is so discontent as to want to leave. A majority decides on rules of exchange--and no minority is so discontent as to want to leave. Now a majority decides to ban public nudity--and a vocal minority is so discontent that they will not put up with this! They value their natural nudity!!

Okay, so what do they do? Let's consider the case of the smallest minority: one person. Does he simply ignore the law and attempt to go about his business still naked? His neighbors and associates will complain that if he does not want to conform to their decisions, he is "free to leave"--they do not wish to associate with a nudist. Indeed, even some people who opposed the ban (less ardent supporters of his cause) will tell him, "you may not always like the decisions, but if you want the benefits of collective life then you have to learn to live with the decisions you do not like. Majority rules, after all."

Will he then retreat to his own land, to farm for his own subsistence? Perhaps he lives in a residential area that was not zoned for farming--what then, does his rejection of one law of the society entitle him to trample on their collective will? Does every defector get to do his own thing, so that there is no longer any law? His neighbors will complain, "but he still lives among us; surely he also still benefits from public goods provided to all, such as the security of numbers against invasion--why should he receive these benefits if he cannot conform to our laws? Let him go off on his own: we reject his association. He may not live among us."

Thus is he forced from his home. You call it a free choice: freely conform to the majority's will, or freely decide to go somewhere else. I call it the first punishment: banishment.

I don't understand why you seem so blind to the fact that political rule is necessarily territorial. Whether the phrase is "in this land" or "among us," the effect is the same: political societies delimit territories within which the will of some is imposed on the remainder.

Returning to our lone dissenter, where does he go? If he is fortunate, perhaps he can find uninhabited, unruled lands in which to live as he pleases--or, better yet, a society more to his taste. But what if today's conditions hold, and quite literally wherever one goes one encounters political associations with claims to exclusive rule? Surely he has no natural right to inflict himself on them! They will insist that if he would live among them, he must obey their law. He will reply that he never agreed to this arrangement--and they will answer that the choice is his: freely choose to conform, or freely leave. He will find the same wherever he goes and discovers governments in the place of freedom.

Ideally, political associations would indeed "cease their habit of covering every available location with their influence," but the most pressing problems of "tyranny of the majority" can be avoided through decentralized political structures providing highly diverse options.Ah, wonderful.

What you seem to be saying is that when I am forced to leave my home, I will have many "diverse options" on where to go. In none of them will I be free, but at least I get to choose my own confinement: the least of all evils, as it were. Meanwhile, I don't suppose each association is obliged to provide me the means for my move?

Whatever happened to free association in anarchism? Free associations are voluntary, willing, and temporary--lasting only so long as the need remains. Whence comes this "right" of some to bind the will of all?

No, you're not thinking it through far enough.

How are they going to secede? Think it through from the beginning. Let us suppose that your association begins freely, as a true consensus--and by consensus vote the members decide that future decisions will be governed by majority rule.

All right, so far so good. Now the members begin making decisions. A majority decides on how to allocate land and resources--and no minority is so discontent as to want to leave. A majority decides on rules of exchange--and no minority is so discontent as to want to leave. Now a majority decides to ban public nudity--and a vocal minority is so discontent that they will not put up with this! They value their natural nudity!!

Okay, so what do they do? Let's consider the case of the smallest minority: one person. Does he simply ignore the law and attempt to go about his business still naked? His neighbors and associates will complain that if he does not want to conform to their decisions, he is "free to leave"--they do not wish to associate with a nudist. Indeed, even some people who opposed the ban (less ardent supporters of his cause) will tell him, "you may not always like the decisions, but if you want the benefits of collective life then you have to learn to live with the decisions you do not like. Majority rules, after all."

Will he then retreat to his own land, to farm for his own subsistence? Perhaps he lives in a residential area that was not zoned for farming--what then, does his rejection of one law of the society entitle him to trample on their collective will? Does every defector get to do his own thing, so that there is no longer any law? His neighbors will complain, "but he still lives among us; surely he also still benefits from public goods provided to all, such as the security of numbers against invasion--why should he receive these benefits if he cannot conform to our laws? Let him go off on his own: we reject his association. He may not live among us."

Thus is he forced from his home. You call it a free choice: freely conform to the majority's will, or freely decide to go somewhere else. I call it the first punishment: banishment.

I said "terms of association," and I meant "terms of association." I don't think nudity has much to do with association.

I am thinking more in terms of the activities that are necessarily collective - say, factory production. A decision has to be made. Better it be made by majority rule than by consensus, which boils down to tyranny of the minority.

When you can decentralize decisions even more - when you have actions that only substantially affect the actor, or that only "affect" others to the extent that they desire to pry into the business of others - you should of course do it. No community regulation of personal decisions would be legitimate.

I don't understand why you seem so blind to the fact that political rule is necessarily territorial. Whether the phrase is "in this land" or "among us," the effect is the same: political societies delimit territories within which the will of some is imposed on the remainder.

Again, ideally they would not be monopolists - they would use, as is the right of all, but they would not use to the extent that others would be prevented from using. To substantially interfere with their use when they are not substantially interfering with your use is unjust. Thus an autonomous commune might decide to claim a bit of the wilderness, but it would not claim so much as to interfere substantially with the lives of those who live in the wilderness; in return, those who do not wish to live in the commune cannot interfere with its right to use by trampling on its collective decision-making.

I don't know how we could get to such a state, though.

Returning to our lone dissenter, where does he go? If he is fortunate, perhaps he can find uninhabited, unruled lands in which to live as he pleases--or, better yet, a society more to his taste. But what if today's conditions hold, and quite literally wherever one goes one encounters political associations with claims to exclusive rule? Surely he has no natural right to inflict himself on them! They will insist that if he would live among them, he must obey their law. He will reply that he never agreed to this arrangement--and they will answer that the choice is his: freely choose to conform, or freely leave. He will find the same wherever he goes and discovers governments in the place of freedom.

Why do you think there would be no options that would suit him? Not everyone wishes to live the same way. If he were in such a small minority that no place suited him, then the problem is not the nature of political associations, it is simply that the nature of society precludes extreme individual choice. If it is only I, and maybe a very small number of others, who wish to live in a certain way, I am in trouble whatever system is adopted.

Ah, wonderful.

What you seem to be saying is that when I am forced to leave my home, I will have many "diverse options" on where to go. In none of them will I be free, but at least I get to choose my own confinement: the least of all evils, as it were.

Perhaps you will not be free looking solely at each individual case, since the wills of others will constrain the actions you can undertake, but you will nevertheless be free in the totality - you will be free to live in the kind of place in which you wish to live.

Meanwhile, I don't suppose each association is obliged to provide me the means for my move?

Yes, they are. Otherwise it is not free association, it is coercion.

Whatever happened to free association in anarchism? Free associations are voluntary, willing, and temporary--lasting only so long as the need remains.

Why necessarily "temporary"?

Whence comes this "right" of some to bind the will of all?

Nowhere. I am not advancing such a right.

I am thinking more in terms of the activities that are necessarily collective - say, factory production. A decision has to be made. Better it be made by majority rule than by consensus, which boils down to tyranny of the minority.Why does a "decision" have to be made? If I wish to open a factory, why don't I ask for volunteers? Why must I legislate?

Why necessarily "temporary"?Because I can freely will that I work with you for the day. I cannot freely will that I work with you tomorrow (though I can plan on it) or next week (though I might plan on that, too) or next month or next year. What if I change my mind? Then to fulfill my promise is to alienate my will.

Why does a "decision" have to be made? If I wish to open a factory, why don't I ask for volunteers? Why must I legislate?

Of course you ask for volunteers. But in order for the factory to function, the volunteers must coordinate their activities; that requires some kind of management (self- or otherwise.) No one is forced to work, but the terms under which they work should be decided democratically.

Because I can freely will that I work with you for the day. I cannot freely will that I work with you tomorrow (though I can plan on it) or next week (though I might plan on that, too) or next month or next year. What if I change my mind? Then to fulfill my promise is to alienate my will.

But we have the right to undertake actions whose consequences we may not like in the future. Otherwise, we do not have the right to undertake actions that affect our futures at all, which descends into absurdity.

Of course you ask for volunteers. But in order for the factory to function, the volunteers must coordinate their activities; that requires some kind of management (self- or otherwise.)I don't see why this cannot also be organized on a voluntary rather than compulsory basis. The voluntary organization would surely sacrifice some of capitalism's much-prized "efficiency," but what is that compared to a person's freedom?

No one is forced to work, but the terms under which they work should be decided democratically.You still haven't given a convincing reason why they shouldn't be decided voluntarily. This is especially effective under social/economic conditions that do not favor specialization: if every worker understands the entire process of production, then each should be fully capable to put his labor to the most-needed work.

"Management" ultimately presumes that it (whether the hierarchical bureaucracy or the democratic majority) knows better than the workers themselves.

But we have the right to undertake actions whose consequences we may not like in the future. Otherwise, we do not have the right to undertake actions that affect our futures at all, which descends into absurdity.Sure we can act so as to affect future consequences! What we may not do freely is to commit ourselves to future actions before the fact!

I don't see why this cannot also be organized on a voluntary rather than compulsory basis. The voluntary organization would surely sacrifice some of capitalism's much-prized "efficiency," but what is that compared to a person's freedom?

You still haven't given a convincing reason why they shouldn't be decided voluntarily. This is especially effective under social/economic conditions that do not favor specialization: if every worker understands the entire process of production, then each should be fully capable to put his labor to the most-needed work.

"Management" ultimately presumes that it (whether the hierarchical bureaucracy or the democratic majority) knows better than the workers themselves.

I'll concede this point, as long as we are speaking of a society where labor is done for its internal goods rather than its external rewards, and where unused property, instead of being hoarded and thus sold, is free to be taken. Of course, such a society is likely incompatible with many forms of factory production.

Still, though, if society is going to provide people with goods in trade for working in a factory, then factory work that is rewarded in that matter can have conditions on it (to ensure that the incentive is actually an incentive.)

Sure we can act so as to affect future consequences! What we may not do freely is to commit ourselves to future actions before the fact!

I don't see the difference, really. If I willingly choose to undertake an activity today that will substantially affect my life a month from now, I am essentially consenting to whatever that affect will be for myself one month from now. A month from now I may end up thinking that the decision I made today was an idiotic one, and I may hate whatever the affect of that activity ends up being, but that was my fault, and thus not a violation of my freedom. How is this relevantly different from committing myself to an action?

The restriction I would add, however, is the same one we pay attention to in regard to wrong actions - people change. A fifty year old cannot rightfully be held responsible for her crimes as a teenager. Similarly, I cannot, say, sell myself into slavery, even if I really do at the moment will that I become a slave - myself decades from now may not agree, and potentially we may be different enough that it qualifies as an imposition.

I'll concede this point, as long as we are speaking of a society where labor is done for its internal goods rather than its external rewards, and where unused property, instead of being hoarded and thus sold, is free to be taken. Of course, such a society is likely incompatible with many forms of factory production.Yep! ;)

Still, though, if society is going to provide people with goods in trade for working in a factory, then factory work that is rewarded in that matter can have conditions on it (to ensure that the incentive is actually an incentive.)You know my problem with "incentives."

Beyond that, if these "conditions" (wages) are to be free, then this would have to be a society that never engaged in any activity which used up so much land that it left none for people to return to in order to subsist: this provides workers the only reliable "opt out" against exploitation. As long as they can always leave to support themselves, one can be fairly confident that they have not been exploited. Not only Rousseau, but also Thomas Jefferson is quite explicit about this point.

I don't see the difference, really. If I willingly choose to undertake an activity today that will substantially affect my life a month from now, I am essentially consenting to whatever that affect will be for myself one month from now. A month from now I may end up thinking that the decision I made today was an idiotic one, and I may hate whatever the affect of that activity ends up being, but that was my fault, and thus not a violation of my freedom. How is this relevantly different from committing myself to an action?In the first case I may create a new necessity. Perhaps I freely (if stupidly) used up all my food last month--that means that I must conform to the necessity of scarcity the following month. In the present (the latter month) I am constrained not by another will, but by an unfortunate situation. (I think that a truly free and intelligent person would be smarter than this, but for the sake of argument...)

If I "give my word" to work for you a month from now, however, and I change my mind... then nothing binds me to this work besides a will that no longer exists (my own a month ago) and your insistence that we have a "contract." All other things being equal (I can support myself regardless), I am constrained by opinion, by this idea of contracts--by human wills, not nature's necessity.

These are very different situations indeed.

The restriction I would add, however, is the same one we pay attention to in regard to wrong actions - people change. A fifty year old cannot rightfully be held responsible for her crimes as a teenager. Similarly, I cannot, say, sell myself into slavery, even if I really do at the moment will that I become a slave - myself decades from now may not agree, and potentially we may be different enough that it qualifies as an imposition.It's human convention that adds caviats like "different enough." If I do not alienate myself in my own biography, then I am different as soon as I feel different, which may be tomorrow.

If the speech doesn't work the first time, all is lost. The child no longer respects what I say (because I say things he cannot understand), and he has learned to lie--for the only reason my speech would stop is that he should say "Yes, I understand; I will not hurt others." He neither understands why he should not hurt others nor does he intend to stop--now he simply knows that he must do it without being "caught."I wasn't suggesting that you need to listen to what he says at all; simply engage his emotions and sense of justice.

No, it's not.

In these cases, you omit the power and the motive. Yes, there is a significant difference between shooting someone and merely watching them die. This difference becomes less distinct when the power relations change--e.g. when I can very easily save the person but do not (a difference in power). The difference may vanish entirely when I consider certain motives: I might shoot someone to steal his wealth, or I might opportunistically refuse to save him (assuming this is within my power) so that I can steal his wealth. Equivalently, I might also threaten to poison him (when he is in my power) on the condition that he do some thing... or, finding him poisoned, I might refuse to administer a readily available antidote unless he do the very same thing. I call these both equally acts of coercion, both equally acts of force.

(Note, however, that I must specify that the potential aid must be readily available and easily administered. The moral circumstance does change significantly if saving the life requires extraordinary efforts on my part--efforts which defy the limits of ordinary human compassion. In this case I am not an opportunist, but blessed with good fortune; I am not a blackmailer, but a bargainer for my efforts.)I fail to see how refusing the antidote is the same as poisoning somebody and refusing the antidote; I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree.

Ah, so you require 100% consensus for social decisions... I didn't know that. I thought you were some variety of majoritarian.No, just that particular one; it may be more convenient for a community to base land rights on something other than occupancy and use, but this is only justified if done by consensus; otherwise, someone has their right to occupy and use land taken away from them.

Of course, in this case no secession is necessary: if legitimate social decisions require 100% agreement, this is equivalent to saying that each may do as he pleases--for even if every single one of his compatriots disagree with him, they do not have the votes to constrain his behavior!

Now this is equivocal nonsense. Either you require consensus, or you do not. If you do, then your association is purely voluntary and I have no quarrel with it. If you do not, then your majority claims some sphere of sovereign authority within which your minority may not secede--this is the very definition of sovereign authority and political rule. They may, perhaps, attempt to find a place with a more agreeable majority, or some territory that has not already been claimed--but where will they find this, unless the world's population decreases dramatically AND political associations cease their habit of covering every available location with their influence?Soheran is answering these, and thusfar I don't see anything in his answers that I disagree with.

Yes, but in the theory of jurisprudence these are inevitably defined in terms of the right to self-defense, where the defender acts as a proxy for someone unable to exercise this right directly. This is because no one has been able to make a convincing case for an original right to "interfere."Yes, I can agree with this.

Naturally. I also need to exert force to demolish a building; I need not continue my exertion to keep the rubble from building itself up again.I'm not certain why the buildings would need to be demolished; they'd crumble eventually, anyway.

In the first case I may create a new necessity. Perhaps I freely (if stupidly) used up all my food last month--that means that I must conform to the necessity of scarcity the following month. In the present (the latter month) I am constrained not by another will, but by an unfortunate situation. (I think that a truly free and intelligent person would be smarter than this, but for the sake of argument...)

If I "give my word" to work for you a month from now, however, and I change my mind... then nothing binds me to this work besides a will that no longer exists (my own a month ago) and your insistence that we have a "contract." All other things being equal (I can support myself regardless), I am constrained by opinion, by this idea of contracts--by human wills, not nature's necessity.

These are very different situations indeed.

I see the distinction you're making, but it's not necessarily the one that's best applicable here. There are other things in which my resources can become scarce without it being natural necessity; I can waste my money, for example, or the child in the example you gave before can waste the goodwill of his parents before he asks for the cookie he desires. Like contracts, these are circumstances in which compliance is socially enforced rather than naturally enforced, but I am still entitled to make the choice; I garner the benefits from it and I suffer the losses, and thus there is no imposition.

They are all free choices. They are merely free choices with costs that are delayed, in part or in full.

It's human convention that adds caviats like "different enough." If I do not alienate myself in my own biography, then I am different as soon as I feel different, which may be tomorrow.

Yes and no. It's true that by the nature of law, human convention assigns measures to determine whether someone is "different enough" that may not be perfectly applicable to every case. But I would suggest that in the vast majority of circumstances that a person "feels" different a day after making her decision, she does not "feel" different because she wouldn't make the same choice again, but rather because she does not wish to pay the cost of the choice. This is not an expression of freedom, but rather a mere denial of responsibility; it is accepting whatever benefits from the deal that have already been garnered without accepting the costs that one does not wish to pay.

Until I can honestly say that I would not have made this deal were I able to make the choice again - either because my preferences have substantially changed, or my knowledge has - I am obligated to fulfill it, and this obligation only deprives me of the freedom to escape responsibility. As long as information is freely available and such deals do not have severe effects in the very long term, a society that permits such deals is not an unfree society (though as a consequence there may be a few examples of unfreedom, justifiable as a necessary cost of free association and exchange.)

I wasn't suggesting that you need to listen to what he says at all; simply engage his emotions and sense of justice.And my point is that a child's sense of justice is engaged only on his own behalf--he understands violation when he feels violated, not before.

I fail to see how refusing the antidote is the same as poisoning somebody and refusing the antidote; I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree.I suppose so. It seems to me that the root of our disagreement is that you think of ethics in rule-based terms, while mine is an ethics of character.

No, just that particular one; it may be more convenient for a community to base land rights on something other than occupancy and use, but this is only justified if done by consensus; otherwise, someone has their right to occupy and use land taken away from them.And would their decision obligate the next generation (their children) as well? Thomas Jefferson held that every law should expire at the end of 19 years (the span of a generation by his calculation). If law can be made sensible in anarchist terms, I think it would necessarily include such a provision.

I'm not certain why the buildings would need to be demolished; they'd crumble eventually, anyway.It was a metaphor.

I see the distinction you're making, but it's not necessarily the one that's best applicable here. There are other things in which my resources can become scarce without it being natural necessity; I can waste my money, for example, or the child in the example you gave before can waste the goodwill of his parents before he asks for the cookie he desires.It is natural necessity that I deal with the consequences of my action. If I spend my money, naturally I have less--and I must deal with that. If I rely too heavily on the goodwill of others, I expect that they will tire of helping me: human compassion is naturally limited. Likewise if I make a promise and fail to fulfill it, I may find that people naturally trust me less--they are no longer willing to accept my word.

One can tell the difference easily enough: social consequences consisting only in the reactions and attitudes of other human beings are natural enough; nature need not add to these social coercion, punishment, or compensation. The natural reaction to a contract breaker is distrust; the conventional reaction occurs in a court of law.

Like contracts, these are circumstances in which compliance is socially enforced rather than naturally enforced, but I am still entitled to make the choice; I garner the benefits from it and I suffer the losses, and thus there is no imposition.If "compliance" is "enforced," then this imposes on natural freedom. If "society" merely "reacts," this does not. There is a huge difference.

But I would suggest that in the vast majority of circumstances that a person "feels" different a day after making her decision, she does not "feel" different because she wouldn't make the same choice again, but rather because she does not wish to pay the cost of the choice.You keep talking about "costs"... costs are natural enough--I have no objection to them. If I lie, I pay a cost in public credit and esteem. If I squander my resources, I pay a cost in scarcity. Fine.

What I am concerned with, however, is not costs but coercion. If I make a contract today to do something tomorrow, when faced with the choice tomorrow I face inevitable costs: I can accept the costs, or I can fulfill my promise. But if you come along and say, "No! You promised to do it, you should be made to do it," then you deny this choice: you impose additional conventional costs in order to coercively exact completion of the contract. You may threaten to sue. If I do not pay the debt assessed by a judge, you may employ the apparatus of the state to compel payment. These are the measures that I oppose, not your natural refusal to engage in further contracts with me.

I do not mind paying the natural costs of my decisions. I do mind being coerced into actions that I no longer will.

This is not an expression of freedom, but rather a mere denial of responsibility; it is accepting whatever benefits from the deal that have already been garnered without accepting the costs that one does not wish to pay.I accept the natural costs, not the conventional ones.

Consider the case of a loan. Naturally there is risk involved for the lender: he takes a chance on my trustworthiness. Now the time comes when I agreed to pay the loan--for whatever reason, perhaps for unforeseen circumstances or possibly simply poor planning, I cannot (or will not) repay. The natural consequence of this is a loss in trust: not only will this lender refuse to offer further assistance, but probably others who associate with us will make similar refusals.

Now, the convention in many societies is to reduce, by legal protections, the risk of the lender: there are mechanisms by which the debtor may be forced to repay the debt. It is these that I oppose. I do not oppose contract-making, but contract law.

EDIT: Note in this example that the lender naturally accepts possible consequences of his action: the debtor may not repay. He may have made a bad assessment of the creditworthiness of his client. By bringing in the apparatus of the state, he seeks to avoid through legislation the personal responsibility for misjudgment.

And my point is that a child's sense of justice is engaged only on his own behalf--he understands violation when he feels violated, not before.I doubt that this is true, but I don't know enough about child psychology to prove it.

I suppose so. It seems to me that the root of our disagreement is that you think of ethics in rule-based terms, while mine is an ethics of character.Perhaps, though I would say that a person's who would poison someone and then coerce them to do something in exchange for the antidote has a different character than a person who would not poison someone but would coerce them into doing something in exchange for the antidote.

And would their decision obligate the next generation (their children) as well? Thomas Jefferson held that every law should expire at the end of 19 years (the span of a generation by his calculation). If law can be made sensible in anarchist terms, I think it would necessarily include such a provision.I can agree with this, I don't see why children should be obligated to the decisions of their parents more than need be.

It was a metaphor.That's fine, but I'm still trying to figure out why you feel that the use of force is necessary, and what type of force you would use.

You scored as Anarcho-Primitivist.

Anarcho-Primitivism questions not only the state and capitalism but all the institutions which make up 'civilisation' including technology. It is perhaps the most recent development within the anarchist movement and key thinkers include John Zerzan.

Anarcho-Primitivist

70%

Anarcho-Syndicalist

60%

Anarcho-Communist

55%

Anarcha-Feminist

45%

Christian Anarchist

20%

Anarcho-Capitalist

0%

Yes, but that says nothing of the naturalness of any particular meme. The primitive lifestyle itself involves the transmission of "memes" (defined broadly as they usually are)--including behaviors such as tool-making and tool use, hunting in groups, and so on. The future primitive would add a further meme, namely the conscious social/individual rejection of all forms of domination..

The only important improvement that comes from anarcho-primitivism is this, and like I was trying to explain to Soheran, this goal is no different from any other form of anarchism.

The naturalness of memes in the abstract is not at issue. The issue at hand is the naturalness of the division of labor. I maintain that it does not arise naturally, but is imposed on a resisting majority by the minorities that benefit directly from the system.

So you would say that it is not possible to improve the utility (and thereby the value) of your labor through specialisation?

I can't imagine that you would say that, nor do I think that you would say that people wouldn't naturally seek to gain greater utility from their work (since they are the leisurely creatures you say they are).

Because I do think that people could naturally want to maximize the utility of their labor, and because I think that specialisation is the best way to do that, I would argue that only those institutions that hinder the individual from enjoying the fruits of his/her specialisation should be removed.

EDIT: For a variety of reasons, I am no big fan of the "theory" of memes, as I do not think it constitutes a proper theory at all. The man who coined the term (Richard Dawkins, who also invented the gene-centric theory of evolution and ethology to which I have previously referred) happens to agree with me: he used it as a sort of "anti-gene" thought experiment designed to demonstrate that the theory of evolution requires a replicating mechanism, but not necessarily a biological one. He never intended it to serve as a "theory of culture," and he maintains that it cannot be defended as such.

I am merely using it as a term of convenience (I don't understand the concept enough to defend it).

It only helps me explain that what is biologically natural is not a true measure of what is actually "natural." That what is "natural" to us also adapts to our environment, namely our culture.

I guess I am accusing you of equivocation.

Based on your explanation, I don't see that. At any rate, he seems to be clinging unnecessarily to the view that the organism's survival mechanism precludes the possibility of genuinely altruistic behavior--a view popular among Hobbesian/Lockean political theorists, but no longer popular among evolutionary ethicists. Even if the best way for the individual to "appear" good is to "be" good, this is hardly the same thing: it is not genuine altruism, but bad faith altruism.

My poor explanation of Dennett's ideas is increasingly irrelevant, however, can you provide some information that shows an altruistic species doesn't need some sort of genetic signifier that allows the altruistic members of the species to segregate themselves?

It also notes that these are gatherer-hunter groups who attempted an agricultural "experiment" which failed. Not only had they already subjected their culture to the deformities of technological existence, but they probably faced population pressures (due to their previous state) that natural gatherer-hunters do not. This proves very little indeed.

It states that violence is not inherent in agricultural communities or hunter-gatherer tribes (I still believe that inter-tribal violence in the paleolithic happened, I just can't find any good on-line sources), rather it is a result of population effects.

So two questions:

1. Do you claim that population density could not rise so far to create the scarcity needed to create violence within this primitive lifestyle? It seems that wild populations have a much greater volatility of population than those civilized populations.

2. Do you wish to argue this as a practical "pro vs. con"? The limiting of population densities is a practical benefit of anarcho-primitivism, and not some moral reduction to what is biologically natural.

Ever seen puppies at play?

I can't imagine what is going through their "mind" at the time.

From what I have read about him, Dennett would seemingly agree to a "scale" of sentience among animals (with humans, of course, at the "top"). Enjoyment and feeling require neither intellect nor technology. Indeed, among humans the most free and playful are the children: precisely the people with the least intellect or technological understanding!!

Of course it could be the reverse of what you are saying, that the adult members of the species are generally more industrious (in providing for their offspring) than the youth, and thereby are more inclined to be intellectual and technological.

Does it take so much technology to hit someone over the head with a rock? I may be preventing corporate fraud through lack of opportunity... but I'm sure we can imagine countless hideous crimes that are possible even without the invention of money and property.

Murder for murder's sake is an extremely rare occurrence in modern times as well.

You scored as Anarcho-Syndicalist.

Anarcho-Syndicalism is the anarchist wing of the labour movement. Syndicalists believe in workers' solidarity, self-management and direct action. This movement is most commonly associated with France and key thinkers include Rudolf Rocker.

Anarcho-Syndicalist 70%
Anarcha-Feminist 60%
Anarcho-Capitalist 60%
Anarcho-Communist 55%
Anarcho-Primitivist 50%
Christian Anarchist 20%

100% anarcho-capitalist.

After all, we're the only real anarchists. The rest are collectivist, which require a government, or chaos, which is what "anarcho-primitivism" is.

(knows how that will make all the collectivists go rabid-foaming, but doesn't care)

Take the fricking test, will you. I know you'd like to consider yourself 100% Anarcho capitalist, but I don't really think you'd score that way.-

Perhaps, though I would say that a person's who would poison someone and then coerce them to do something in exchange for the antidote has a different character than a person who would not poison someone but would coerce them into doing something in exchange for the antidote.Yes, the latter is depraved but weak-willed, the former is merely depraved. In certain ways, I prefer the poisoner--at least his evil is more straightforward.

.So you would say that it is not possible to improve the utility (and thereby the value) of your labor through specialisation?More or less. While it is inarguable that specialized labor is more productive, this productivity inevitably occurs at the cost of leisure and freedom.

I can't imagine that you would say that, nor do I think that you would say that people wouldn't naturally seek to gain greater utility from their work (since they are the leisurely creatures you say they are).If you can convince me that specialization increases leisure, perhaps I will have a reason to agree. To date, however, even the most egalitarian agrarian societies work considerably more than gatherer-hunters.

It only helps me explain that what is biologically natural is not a true measure of what is actually "natural." That what is "natural" to us also adapts to our environment, namely our culture.

I guess I am accusing you of equivocation.When have I insisted that only the biologically natural is truly natural? Gatherer-hunter existence, as I have stated already, is a particular cultural form. I regard it as natural because it occurs through the free natural choices of individuals taken together. What makes other forms unnatural is that they must be imposed on some individuals through the will of others.

As I stated very early in the thread, if you start from a free gatherer-hunter society, and this society freely (without coercion) develops agriculture and industry, then I will have no argument against these--but I do expect that they would be radically different than the forms we know today; perhaps so different that our alienated minds can hardly imagine them.

You scored as Anarcho-Capitalist.

Anarcho-capitalism is perhaps more closely linked the libertarian tradition than anarchism as it favours a free market and a stateless society. Private businesses would replace the functions of the state. This form of anarchism is largely an American phenomenon and first emerged in the 1950s (although it arguably has its roots in 19th century individualist anarchism and classical liberalism). Key thinkers include Murray Rothbard.

Anarcho-Capitalist
80%

Anarcha-Feminist
40%

Anarcho-Communist
20%

Anarcho-Primitivist
20%

Christian Anarchist
0%

Anarcho-Syndicalist
0%
There was one question that caught my eye:

Specialisation of labour is the first step towards hierachy and inequality.

I'll concede that, but I don't see it as a bad thing. I don't object to hierarchy and inequality if they're arrived at through voluntary exchange.

My poor explanation of Dennett's ideas is increasingly irrelevant, however, can you provide some information that shows an altruistic species doesn't need some sort of genetic signifier that allows the altruistic members of the species to segregate themselves?If altruistic behavior evolves species-wide by way of natural selection, as modern ethology suggests, then there should be little reason to believe that the altruistic gene is rare in such species--it should rather be as widespread as such useful adaptations as eyes and ears.

This does not mean, of course, that no one will be born without the moral sense--any more than adapting eyes and ears means that no one will be born deaf or blind! (Jefferson actually said precisely this with respect to his notion of the moral sense.)

The only reason that certain "civilized" cultures need to "segregate" people is that they make demands on the individual that are greater than the simple moral sense can accomodate: they ask that people respect property, for example, even in the face of dire need. In an egalitarian community of reasonably self-sufficient individuals characterized by a gift/sharing economy, the demands on the moral sense of the human being are no greater than the demands on the moral sense of the elephant. (There is good evidence, by the way, that elephants are surprisingly moral animals. Not only must their young undergo a sort of moral education, but elephants are apparently so altruistic that they will leap to defend other species--hippos, specifically--from attack by lions, even when the elephants themselves are in no immediate danger!)

It states that violence is not inherent in agricultural communities or hunter-gatherer tribes (I still believe that inter-tribal violence in the paleolithic happened, I just can't find any good on-line sources), rather it is a result of population effects.Right, and population growth is an effect of agriculture.

1. Do you claim that population density could not rise so far to create the scarcity needed to create violence within this primitive lifestyle? It seems that wild populations have a much greater volatility of population than those civilized populations.Do you have a reason for this belief? From what I have read it seems that the gatherer-hunter lifestyle maintains a relatively constant population over time.

2. Do you wish to argue this as a practical "pro vs. con"? The limiting of population densities is a practical benefit of anarcho-primitivism, and not some moral reduction to what is biologically natural.A little of both, although I have no reason to restrict what is natural to the merely biological.

I can't imagine what is going through their [puppies]"mind" at the time.I doubt the proper adjective is really "can't"--it seems more like "won't." Much of the same evidence is available regarding their emotional states as is available for that of humans--especially young humans, and especially infants. When a baby giggles and smiles, will we not presume that he is "happy," even if he cannot tell us so? When his eyes are bright and active, can we not infer joy? Puppies give us the same, and more. It takes the worst kind of arrogance to insist that non-human animals have no emotions--or even that we are somehow blind to their expressions because they lack the ability to speak. Indeed, I think facial and bodily expressions are usually far more emotive than words.

More or less. While it is inarguable that specialized labor is more productive, this productivity inevitably occurs at the cost of leisure and freedom.

Why do you say that?

It seems very obvious that, if our labor is more productive, we should be able to work fewer hours.

Even beyond that you have agreed that specialisation is not unnatural to hunter-gatherers.

When have I insisted that only the biologically natural is truly natural? Gatherer-hunter existence, as I have stated already, is a particular cultural form. I regard it as natural because it occurs through the free natural choices of individuals taken together. What makes other forms unnatural is that they must be imposed on some individuals through the will of others.

Your test to find whether cultural traits are natural would imply that biological nature is the true judge, as those traits that children (those with only biological predilictions) attempt to reject are natural.

As I stated very early in the thread, if you start from a free gatherer-hunter society, and this society freely (without coercion) develops agriculture and industry, then I will have no argument against these--but I do expect that they would be radically different than the forms we know today; perhaps so different that our alienated minds can hardly imagine them.

What a horribly expensive experiment.

I understand the general concept of "alienation", but how far do you see it going in modern social climates?

And also, I find it ironic that I am arguing the primacy of society and culture in dictating an individual's nature to a self-professed Hegelian.

The only reason that certain "civilized" cultures need to "segregate" people is that they make demands on the individual that are greater than the simple moral sense can accomodate: they ask that people respect property, for example, even in the face of dire need. In an egalitarian community of reasonably self-sufficient individuals characterized by a gift/sharing economy, the demands on the moral sense of the human being are no greater than the demands on the moral sense of the elephant. (There is good evidence, by the way, that elephants are surprisingly moral animals. Not only must their young undergo a sort of moral education, but elephants are apparently so altruistic that they will leap to defend other species--hippos, specifically--from attack by lions, even when the elephants themselves are in no immediate danger!)

I was interested in altruism within a species, not simply a culture.

Altruistic species must have a genetic trait that tags along with the altruism so that the altruists can segregate themselves. If they are not able to segregate themselves, then those non-altruistic members of the species will gain the benefits of the altruism without the costs of providing the help. They will have a greater evolutionary fitness than the altruists and will shift the aggregate population.

Even though they do not understand the implications, all altruistic species must have the ability to "appear good" in order to be good.

Do you have a reason for this belief? From what I have read it seems that the gatherer-hunter lifestyle maintains a relatively constant population over time.

I imagine that this relatively constant population exists mainly because of its low scale.

But what stops a population of hunter-gatherers from continuing to grow until it has outdistanced its rather constant food supply?

Why do you say that [division of labor is bought at the expense of leisure and play]?Because it is both historically true, and logically evident...
It seems very obvious that, if our labor is more productive, we should be able to work fewer hours.Gatherer-hunters don't "work" at all: nature provides more than enough for a person to live in good health on nothing more than what they can find.

The division of labor was never introduced to produce food more efficiently, so that people could spend their time in leisure rather than food production. Rather, the division of labor was introduced so that people could produce things other than food. In addition they could produce permanent housing, and sculptures; they could write and perform ritual songs and dances; and so on.

The productivity of labor has never had anything to do with working less, but with producing more. If the goal were less work, we never would have divided labor at all.

Even beyond that you have agreed that specialisation is not unnatural to hunter-gatherers.I don't remember saying any such thing. I admit that I cannot rule out the possibility that truly free gatherer-hunters would freely will a division of labor on egalitarian principles--but this would almost necessarily entail a deviation from gatherer-hunter lifestyle. I am not convinced that it is compatible with divided labor in any form.

Your test to find whether cultural traits are natural would imply that biological nature is the true judge, as those traits that children (those with only biological predilictions) attempt to reject are [not] natural.Yes, those cultural forms that compel the individual to combat her/his own biological/psychological imperatives are unnatural.

This does NOT entail that there is a uniquely "natural" set of cultural forms--there may be many, in fact, which need not violate this principle.

What a horribly expensive experiment.Hasn't this one been? Thousands of years of labor, of hardship, of slavery; thousands of years of misery... and for what? I say that "civilization" is the greatest--and most expensive--failed experiment of all time!!

I understand the general concept of "alienation", but how far do you see it going in modern social climates?I'm not sure what you mean. People have never been more alienated than they are in modern social "climates."

And also, I find it ironic that I am arguing the primacy of society and culture in dictating an individual's nature to a self-professed Hegelian.Who is a self-professed Hegelian?

I was interested in altruism within a species, not simply a culture.

Altruistic species must have a genetic trait that tags along with the altruism so that the altruists can segregate themselves. If they are not able to segregate themselves, then those non-altruistic members of the species will gain the benefits of the altruism without the costs of providing the help. They will have a greater evolutionary fitness than the altruists and will shift the aggregate population.And you completely missed my point. *sigh*

To reiterate, the "altruistic" members only need to segregate themselves from the "non-altruistic" members when society institutes rules that demand more "altruism" than a member of the species can expect to inherit due to the evolution of the species itself. In other words, evolution has selected for a degree of "altruism" in human beings--and so long as society does not demand more of the individual than this biologically coded imperative can provide, there is no need for "segregation."

Think of it this way: evolution has selected for a certain running speed in modern humans. So long as society does not demand that "good" people run faster than the biologically determined norm, there is no need for fast runners to segregate themselves from slow runners--we all run about fast enough (some better, some worse).

Secondly, your evolutionary logic is clearly flawed: you assume that in this "segregation," the altruistic reproduce and the defectors do not... yet precisely the opposite seems to be true!! The upper classes within human societies (presumably those who have segregated themselves?) consistently reproduce at a much lower rate than the lower classes (for a variety of cultural reasons). Indeed, there are hardly any significant barriers to the reproduction of criminals!

So, I'm not sure that this "segregation" theory has anything to do with evolution. It seems (again) more like an excuse for some people to hoard the produce of others' labor.

Even though they do not understand the implications, all altruistic species must have the ability to "appear good" in order to be good.I'm pretty sure only humans even have a concept of "appearance" vs. "reality," as this division is itself a symptom of alienation. Moreover, I do not see at all why you think that altruistic species must seek to "appear good." Have not the most exemplary altruists throughout human history insisted that anonymous giving is superior to public giving? Have they not attempted to avoid admiration, seeking only the satisfaction of doing good?

It would seem to me that a species that selects for genuine altruists would be the more likely to survive.

I imagine that this relatively constant population exists mainly because of its low scale.Sure!

But what stops a population of hunter-gatherers from continuing to grow until it has outdistanced its rather constant food supply?Simple: it doesn't grow. Gatherer-hunters are a) well aware of their own bodies, a knowledge that helps them avoid pregnanchy; b) fully capable of using a wide range of natural birth-controlling and abortifacient herbs; c) not so alienated from their own sexuality that they 1) fetishize intercourse over the many varieties of sexual contact, 2) seek constant validation in sexual contact, or 3) cannot satisfy themselves with members of the same sex.

Because it is both historically true, and logically evident...

That is a rather thin answer.

Gatherer-hunters don't "work" at all: nature provides more than enough for a person to live in good health on nothing more than what they can find.

They must hunt, they must gather. I may be alienated, but hunting a moose with a spear sounds like work.

The division of labor was never introduced to produce food more efficiently, so that people could spend their time in leisure rather than food production. Rather, the division of labor was introduced so that people could produce things other than food. In addition they could produce permanent housing, and sculptures; they could write and perform ritual songs and dances; and so on.

The productivity of labor has never had anything to do with working less, but with producing more. If the goal were less work, we never would have divided labor at all.

But you cannot deny that "producing more" opens the opportunity for working less, if those institutions that forces one to work more are not in place.

I don't remember saying any such thing. I admit that I cannot rule out the possibility that truly free gatherer-hunters would freely will a division of labor on egalitarian principles--but this would almost necessarily entail a deviation from gatherer-hunter lifestyle. I am not convinced that it is compatible with divided labor in any form.

Did you not admit that those who were better at certain tasks would perform those tasks?

Is it not true that hunter-gatherer clans generally had the hunting duties fulfilled by the men and domestic duties fulfilled by the women.

This does NOT entail that there is a uniquely "natural" set of cultural forms--there may be many, in fact, which need not violate this principle.

But they are judged on how they conflict with our biological nature.

Hasn't this one been? Thousands of years of labor, of hardship, of slavery; thousands of years of misery... and for what? I say that "civilization" is the greatest--and most expensive--failed experiment of all time!!

This hasn't been an experiment.

Who is a self-professed Hegelian?

You have in the past refered to yourself as being Hegelian.

To reiterate, the "altruistic" members only need to segregate themselves from the "non-altruistic" members when society institutes rules that demand more "altruism" than a member of the species can expect to inherit due to the evolution of the species itself. In other words, evolution has selected for a degree of "altruism" in human beings--and so long as society does not demand more of the individual than this biologically coded imperative can provide, there is no need for "segregation."

Think of it this way: evolution has selected for a certain running speed in modern humans. So long as society does not demand that "good" people run faster than the biologically determined norm, there is no need for fast runners to segregate themselves from slow runners--we all run about fast enough (some better, some worse).

The segregation I am talking about has nothing to do with culture.

As for your point, I think it has more to do with unequal altruism than added altruism. Altruists must separate themselves with those who skew the payoff of altruism in their own favor.

Secondly, your evolutionary logic is clearly flawed: you assume that in this "segregation," the altruistic reproduce and the defectors do not... yet precisely the opposite seems to be true!! The upper classes within human societies (presumably those who have segregated themselves?) consistently reproduce at a much lower rate than the lower classes (for a variety of cultural reasons). Indeed, there are hardly any significant barriers to the reproduction of criminals!

So, I'm not sure that this "segregation" theory has anything to do with evolution. It seems (again) more like an excuse for some people to hoard the produce of others' labor.

This segregation theory has neither anything to do with evolution or anything to do with what I am refering to. In fact, your description here goes much farther to show that cultural memes do recur and spread in an evolutionary manner. Which is another irrelevant point that we have argued.

I am simply trying to show that all species must first appear to be good, then they can truly be good.

I'm pretty sure only humans even have a concept of "appearance" vs. "reality," as this division is itself a symptom of alienation. Moreover, I do not see at all why you think that altruistic species must seek to "appear good." Have not the most exemplary altruists throughout human history insisted that anonymous giving is superior to public giving? Have they not attempted to avoid admiration, seeking only the satisfaction of doing good?

For a species to maintain itself altruistically, those altruistic members (you said that not all would be altruistic) must be more evolutionary fit than the non-altruists. We can certainly imagine a mutual benefit between two altruists, both are equally fit, there is no shift in the genetic make up of the population. In a relationship between two non-altruists, there is no mutual benefit, both are equally fit, there is no shift in the genetic make-up of the population. In a relationship between an altruist and a non-altruist, the non-altruist recieves a benefit, the altruist recieves none. There is an imbalance in evolutionary fitness, and the allele frequency of the population shifts.

An altruistic species must be able to segregate between altruists and non-altruists, or it will immediately begin to shift away from altruism.

However, once this segregation occurs, it is important that those who appear good are actually good, or the segregation falls apart and the payoff is once again skewed.

So altruistic species must both be good and appear good, or they will be neither.

I am also not in a position to claim that this geniune altruism in people is biological or cultural in nature. I have known children to be extremely selfish in their behavior. They learn the word "mine" rather quickly without any resistance.

Simple: it doesn't grow. Gatherer-hunters are a) well aware of their own bodies, a knowledge that helps them avoid pregnanchy; b) fully capable of using a wide range of natural birth-controlling and abortifacient herbs; c) not so alienated from their own sexuality that they 1) fetishize intercourse over the many varieties of sexual contact, 2) seek constant validation in sexual contact, or 3) cannot satisfy themselves with members of the same sex.

I don't agree, but am too tired to get into it. I will respond to this next time.

There was one question that caught my eye:

Specialisation of labour is the first step towards hierachy and inequality.

I'll concede that, but I don't see it as a bad thing. I don't object to hierarchy and inequality if they're arrived at through voluntary exchange.What about hierarchy and inequality that people are born into (happening involuntarily)?

They must hunt, they must gather. I may be alienated, but hunting a moose with a spear sounds like work.Any idea how long the meat from a moose will feed you? (Besides which, gatherer-hunter is usually a more appropriate term precisely because it turns out that the lifestyle involves more casual gathering than coordinated hunting.)

But you cannot deny that "producing more" opens the opportunity for working less, if those institutions that forces one to work more are not in place.Yes, I can deny it--and I do. "Producing more" is about trading freedom for things. If you can subsist on gathering and hunting, why adopt the backbreaking methods of agriculture? Why plant, why tend, why harvest and store?

Did you not admit that those who were better at certain tasks would perform those tasks?No, I didn't.

I did admit that perhaps under special circumstances they might volunteer--as when, being stronger, I offer to carry what my girlfriend cannot. As a matter of course, however, we both carry our own things. This is not the same as divided labor, as specialization.

Is it not true that hunter-gatherer clans generally had the hunting duties fulfilled by the men and domestic duties fulfilled by the women.First, there was very little hunting... which makes it especially hard to judge with respect to ancient gatherer-hunters. It is apparent, however, that both men and women gathered food. As for modern gatherer-hunters, practices vary... and the results with respect to those showing gender divisions have been challenged on the grounds that these gatherer-hunters have not continuously practiced this lifestyle--rather, they returned to this state from some time in an agricultural "experiment."

This is important because there are good reasons to believe that gendered work appears for the first time with agriculture. Prior to agriculture, an individual woman was unlikely to bear more than one or two children in her lifetime (a situation to which some modern women are returning). Thus, while she obviously needed to take a "break" from hunting during her late pregnancy and probably during breastfeeding, not much of her life was devoted to childcare--she could still, for the most part, live the same life as a man.

Agrarian societies, however, discover that there are certain tasks to which children are well-suited--getting on the ground and weeding, for instance. Such societies, moreover, are beginning to divide labor to achieve greater material wealth, and they begin to feel the need for more laborers in the new variety of jobs: they need more people to farm so they can feed more people, so that more can build, and so on. Thus agrarian societies feel pressures that did not previously exist: women are pressured to bear more and more children, sacrificing more and more of their lives to "domestic" concerns.

But they are judged on how they conflict with our biological nature.Yes. But that does not mean that our biological nature "programs" a unique cultural form. There may be a great variety of cultural innovations that do not put us into conflict with ourselves.

You have in the past refered to yourself as being Hegelian.Hmm... I guess I'll take your word for it, although I'm not accustomed to applying that kind of "label" to myself. It seems more likely that I expressed an intellectual debt to Hegel on some point or other--certainly there are many for which I owe such a debt! More to the point, "Hegelian" is a very contextually defined term. I might be a "Hegelian" in my ontology but not my social theory. While he certainly thought that his was an "all or nothing" system, I do not believe that to be the case.

Of course, it's also possible that I considered myself a "Hegelian" on some point on which I have since changed my mind. That does happen. ;)

The segregation I am talking about has nothing to do with culture.Then I'll have to ask you to do a better job of explaining it, as I am thoroughly confused.

I am simply trying to show that all species must first appear to be good, then they can truly be good.If you have presented evidence to "show" this point, I must apologize for having missed it.

Let me restate the point from evolutionary ethics that I have made before. Perhaps I will perform better this time.

We need to take a gene-centered view of evolution. Thus, the survival of any given individual may not matter as much as the survival of the group of which that individual is a member, provided members of that group share many of the same genes as the individual in question.

The first altruistic adaptations might include, for instance, a tendency to help weaker members of the group to survive: rather than leaving the person with a broken leg to fend for themselves, some members of the group may protect and feed her. Thus, this person recovers and goes on to produce offspring (or to otherwise help the group). Note that in order for this mechanism to operate, there need not be any reciprocity. The whole point is that the altruistic gene serves to save lives that might otherwise be lost: it benefits the group whether or not these people happen to do anything altruistic themselves.

You may respond, "but if they don't do anything altruistic, then they don't have the gene and it is not transferred any better!" This is to confound a gene that favors altruism with a gene that compels it. It may well be that we all have the gene (or genes) for altruistic behavior--which is, in short, merely to say that for the most part all people are capable of compassion, pity, and love. Whether or not they actually act on these may depend on a wide range of other factors including opportunity, stakes, and "nurture." The gene survives so long as it has a general effect--it need not have particular effects in any given individual.

There is no need for segregation. Nor is there a need for altruistic members to "appear" altruistic--the fact that they help members who might not otherwise have had a chance to pass on the gene is enough.

For a species to maintain itself altruistically, those altruistic members (you said that not all would be altruistic) must be more evolutionary fit than the non-altruists.Ah, now I see where our confusion arises!! The theory does not state that altruists have the gene and non-altruists do not. It states that most members of a group have it, whether or not it succeeds in producing results. (Nature must, after all, always contend with "nurture.")

In a relationship between an altruist and a non-altruist, the non-altruist recieves a benefit, the altruist recieves none.While this objection is answered by my previous answer, I would also point out that the altruist may need no benefit. The first appearance of altruism is, again, altruism toward the weak--specifically the unfit. They are not any more fit for survival than the altruist as a result; rather, the "transaction" merely serves to bring them back up to par.

An altruistic species must be able to segregate between altruists and non-altruists, or it will immediately begin to shift away from altruism.Only if one presumes that the altruistic gene is remarkably less common among non-altruists than among altruists. As long as it is fairly frequent among both (as long as everyone has a moral sense, even if they ignore it), the gene survives.

I am also not in a position to claim that this geniune altruism in people is biological or cultural in nature. I have known children to be extremely selfish in their behavior. They learn the word "mine" rather quickly without any resistance.I would never claim that there is an altruistic instinct but NOT a purely self-preservative one!! In many cases they contend with one another, and most often one should expect the self-preservative to win. This is especially true for children, who are rarely in a position to help anyone other than themselves.

Altruism should take precedence most commonly among people who are already better off than others. It should manifest with the most difficulty among people who have yet to fully care for themselves.

Yes, I can deny it--and I do. "Producing more" is about trading freedom for things. If you can subsist on gathering and hunting, why adopt the backbreaking methods of agriculture? Why plant, why tend, why harvest and store?

Because you plant and harvest far less when plant life is controlled than you do when you are constantly gathering.

Yes. But that does not mean that our biological nature "programs" a unique cultural form. There may be a great variety of cultural innovations that do not put us into conflict with ourselves.

Exactly, and the sedentary lifestyle is one of them.

If you have presented evidence to "show" this point, I must apologize for having missed

http://scienceblogs.com/strangerfruit/2006/05/green_beards_and_blue_throats.php

We need to take a gene-centered view of evolution. Thus, the survival of any given individual may not matter as much as the survival of the group of which that individual is a member, provided members of that group share many of the same genes as the individual in question.

The first altruistic adaptations might include, for instance, a tendency to help weaker members of the group to survive: rather than leaving the person with a broken leg to fend for themselves, some members of the group may protect and feed her. Thus, this person recovers and goes on to produce offspring (or to otherwise help the group). Note that in order for this mechanism to operate, there need not be any reciprocity. The whole point is that the altruistic gene serves to save lives that might otherwise be lost: it benefits the group whether or not these people happen to do anything altruistic themselves.

You may respond, "but if they don't do anything altruistic, then they don't have the gene and it is not transferred any better!" This is to confound a gene that favors altruism with a gene that compels it. It may well be that we all have the gene (or genes) for altruistic behavior--which is, in short, merely to say that for the most part all people are capable of compassion, pity, and love. Whether or not they actually act on these may depend on a wide range of other factors including opportunity, stakes, and "nurture." The gene survives so long as it has a general effect--it need not have particular effects in any given individual.

There is no need for segregation. Nor is there a need for altruistic members to "appear" altruistic--the fact that they help members who might not otherwise have had a chance to pass on the gene is enough.

I still don't understand how those that are not altruistic will have a higher evolutionary fitness than those that are within that group. Even if the altruist sees to it that genes very similar to his (1/2, 1/4) pass on by enabling the survival of his kin, the same effect causes that genetic lineage to lose the altruistic gene. If there are four siblings, one of which is not an altruist, the non-altruist will have the distinctive advantage of being helped by three others without cost. Sure, most of the shared traits will be passed on, but altruism will suffer.

And sure, a group with altruists will experience a benefit, but it will always come at an expense to the altruists, and while the group may prosper, the proportion of altruists will decline.

While this objection is answered by my previous answer, I would also point out that the altruist may need no benefit. The first appearance of altruism is, again, altruism toward the weak--specifically the unfit. They are not any more fit for survival than the altruist as a result; rather, the "transaction" merely serves to bring them back up to par.

Meanwhile the animal that was in no way compelled to help either is more fit than both.

Only if one presumes that the altruistic gene is remarkably less common among non-altruists than among altruists. As long as it is fairly frequent among both (as long as everyone has a moral sense, even if they ignore it), the gene survives.

I tend to believe that humans are the only species that are well inclined to ignore their genetic make-up (that freedom from genetic determinism has been one of my central points in denying primitivism).

If there is any difference in the proportion of the altruism gene between the two groups, then there will be a shift.

Altruism should take precedence most commonly among people who are already better off than others. It should manifest with the most difficulty among people who have yet to fully care for themselves.

Unfortunately, neither reciprocal altruism or kin selection (both of which require segregation, dammit) are going to truly serve that purpose. We need to transcend our nature to gain that end.

"You Dont Know Me"...

I think we may have reached an impasse. I admit that I do not have completely satisfactory answers to your objections, and I lack the time at present to fully research them. You know I love to present a citation-rich post when I have the chance!! It leaves a sour taste in my mouth to post messages that cannot live up to my own standards.

Therefore I will likely set this subject aside shortly. I will attempt to answer, perhaps, any remaining questions you have to the best of my present ability... but I tire of going in circles.

I hope you don't think I'm being unfair to your objections because I find them uninteresting--quite the contrary! It's just that I start teaching three sections of "Law & Politics" tomorrow, and I just think I'm going to be swamped for a while!!

Thanks for providing me with much food for thought. I'm sure we'll be seeing each other again somewhere. ;)

OOPS!! I thought I made a triple post back there, but apparently it was only double... I had actually responded to your last post, but lost it! Damn!!

In (very) short: the only "segregation" that "kin selection" requires (if you prefer that term) is segregation by kinship not according to "selectors and non-selectors." It can tolerate non-altruistic kin. There is no reason, in fact, to "appear good."

Since 99.99% of human genes appeared before the invention of agriculture, and before that time human beings lived in rather small kinship groups of about fifty people, it seems more likely that our altruism has its basis in genetic relationships rather than purely reciprocal ones--these are culturally imposed.

In (very) short: the only "segregation" that "kin selection" requires (if you prefer that term) is segregation by kinship not according to "selectors and non-selectors." It can tolerate non-altruistic kin. There is no reason, in fact, to "appear good."

If I recall correctly, your point in this regard was very effectively illustrated by an example, approximately along the following lines. A group of siblings, Group A, has three altruists and one non-altruist; another group of siblings, Group B, has one altruist and three non-altruists. If an injury or similar impediment occurs to a member of Group A, they will most likely receive care, and will be able to reproduce. If such an impediment occurs to a member of Group B, their chance of being cared for is lowered; very likely, they will die and will thus not pass on their genes.

In (very) short: the only "segregation" that "kin selection" requires (if you prefer that term) is segregation by kinship not according to "selectors and non-selectors." It can tolerate non-altruistic kin. There is no reason, in fact, to "appear good."

I simply cannot fathom how kin selection can maintain altruism. I can certainly see how kin selection can maintain the passage of other shared traits, but the cost/benefit relationship of altruism simply cannot allow the possessors of the altruistic gene to help the non-possessors.

If you get the chance, how do you deny my conclusion to the situation of the four siblings. Three possess the altruistic gene, the fourth does not. Let us assume that all four separately have a fitness value (completely arbitrary) of 50. The additional support of another adds 10 points to this value, and every additional another 10 points. The costs to ones health and energy subtracts 5 from this value.

If there were just the three altruists operating seperately, you would see that each would recieve 20 points to their fitness value from the support of the two siblings at the cost of 10 points. Each would be more fit, with a total fitness value of 60.

However, if we add in the fourth sibling, the non-altruist, we see that the three altruists continue to recieve the 20 points of support from the other two altruist siblings. However, they are now supporting a fourth, and therefore each now suffers the cost of 15 points. They now have a fitness value of 55. The non-altruistic sibling is living well, however, as he recieves 30 points of support, from the three altruist siblings, while sustaining absolutely no cost of helping them. His fitness is now a whopping 80 points.

Like I said, all of these values are completely arbitrary, however, the effect will always be the same. If a group of altruists gains a non-altruist, the non-altruist will gain a boost, while the altruists will gain a lesser boost from their altruism.

Therefore there are going to be two evolutionary pressures brought on by increased fitness:

1: The proportion of non-altruists will continuously grow amongst a population divided between altruists and non-altruists.

2. The proportion amongst the altruist population will continuously develop better and better ways to avoid helping non-altruists.

Since 99.99% of human genes appeared before the invention of agriculture, and before that time human beings lived in rather small kinship groups of about fifty people, it seems more likely that our altruism has its basis in genetic relationships rather than purely reciprocal ones--these are culturally imposed.

This is a non-sequitor. The size of social group does not mean that reciprocal altruism would not be as or more beneficial as kinship selection.

"You Dont Know Me"...

I think we may have reached an impasse. I admit that I do not have completely satisfactory answers to your objections, and I lack the time at present to fully research them. You know I love to present a citation-rich post when I have the chance!! It leaves a sour taste in my mouth to post messages that cannot live up to my own standards.

Therefore I will likely set this subject aside shortly. I will attempt to answer, perhaps, any remaining questions you have to the best of my present ability... but I tire of going in circles.

I hope you don't think I'm being unfair to your objections because I find them uninteresting--quite the contrary! It's just that I start teaching three sections of "Law & Politics" tomorrow, and I just think I'm going to be swamped for a while!!

Thanks for providing me with much food for thought. I'm sure we'll be seeing each other again somewhere. ;)

We have traded posts for about 15 pages and gotten very little change out of it, even though it certainly hasn't been a waste. Good luck with your classes.

If I recall correctly, your point in this regard was very effectively illustrated by an example, approximately along the following lines. A group of siblings, Group A, has three altruists and one non-altruist; another group of siblings, Group B, has one altruist and three non-altruists. If an injury or similar impediment occurs to a member of Group A, they will most likely receive care, and will be able to reproduce. If such an impediment occurs to a member of Group B, their chance of being cared for is lowered; very likely, they will die and will thus not pass on their genes.

Of course, in group A, the non-altruist is far more likely to survive than the altruists, meaning that group A will soon enough have only one altruist to three non-altruists. In both groups the gene most likely to be passed on would be the non-altruistic gene.

I simply cannot fathom how kin selection can maintain altruism. I can certainly see how kin selection can maintain the passage of other shared traits, but the cost/benefit relationship of altruism simply cannot allow the possessors of the altruistic gene to help the non-possessors.Very briefly, you make two unnecessary assumptions: first, that each member begins with the same fitness value, and second that each provides the same help to all.

Descending from such abstractions into the hard facts of the real world, one finds people of varying degrees of fitness--and one finds that the altruist is most likely to help those who are worse off than he, much less likely to help those who are as well off as he, and extremely unlikely to provide "free" support to those who are better off than he.

In other words, we give charitably to the poor; we enter into exchange (which requires no altruism, merely accountability) with our peers; we may also perhaps beg the assistance of those more fortunate than we.

When we give to the poor, it is irrelevant to us whether they return the favor--this is, after all, the point of calling it altruism. We do, as you would say, improve their "fitness"--and to some extent we may diminish ours (although I'm not convinced that the economic analogy works so nicely here). But rarely (if ever) do our efforts result in such an improvement to their lot (and such costs to ours) that they become more "fit" than we are as a result.

Of course, much of the time we may encounter fellow altruists who will return the favor if/when they have the chance--and so much the better! But if they do not (or cannot) there is little reason to believe that the poor (or the disabled or the sick) will outperform the wealthy (or the able-bodied or the healthy) as a result of the latter's charity.

If you get the chance, how do you deny my conclusion to the situation of the four siblings. Three possess the altruistic gene, the fourth does not. Could it be a recessive gene, one that the fourth doesn't manifest, but the children of the fourth might? If this were the case, then saving the life of the fourth would lead to an increase of altruism if the fourth had children.

Very briefly, you make two unnecessary assumptions: first, that each member begins with the same fitness value, and second that each provides the same help to all.

I only make one assumption, that there is no correlation between the altruistic gene and the individuals basic evolutionary fitness. Otherwise, to show my point I can use a arbitrary average.

Descending from such abstractions into the hard facts of the real world, one finds people of varying degrees of fitness--and one finds that the altruist is most likely to help those who are worse off than he, much less likely to help those who are as well off as he, and extremely unlikely to provide "free" support to those who are better off than he.

It does not matter, in all cases there will be a greater advantage to the non-altruists.

In other words, we give charitably to the poor; we enter into exchange (which requires no altruism, merely accountability) with our peers; we may also perhaps beg the assistance of those more fortunate than we.

All of those are representative of whatever altruism our culture has endowed upon us, not evolutionary altruism.

When we give to the poor, it is irrelevant to us whether they return the favor--this is, after all, the point of calling it altruism. We do, as you would say, improve their "fitness"--and to some extent we may diminish ours (although I'm not convinced that the economic analogy works so nicely here). But rarely (if ever) do our efforts result in such an improvement to their lot (and such costs to ours) that they become more "fit" than we are as a result.

This does not fit. If we assume that we were to lose fitness and they were to gain, then we must assume that there is no net gain in altruism and there would be no evolutionary impulse towards it. If altruism is a zero-sum game, then there would be no altruism. For altruism to exist abiding by evolutionary pressures, there must be mutual gain.

Could it be a recessive gene, one that the fourth doesn't manifest, but the children of the fourth might? If this were the case, then saving the life of the fourth would lead to an increase of altruism if the fourth had children.

That could certainly be the case in the subsequent generation, however, evolutionary pressures would still shift allele proportions away from altruism.

Could it be a recessive gene, one that the fourth doesn't manifest, but the children of the fourth might? If this were the case, then saving the life of the fourth would lead to an increase of altruism if the fourth had children.That is closer to how the theory works, although it's usually not considered "recessive" so much as "ineffective" in the fourth.

The idea is not really that there is a genetic formula that "programs" some individuals for compassionate action. Rather, there is a genetic formula that provides all (most) individuals with a moral sense--which they may nevertheless ignore. Physiologically speaking, this "moral sense" is simply the feeling of commiseration that one has when one sees another feeling being suffer. It should not be this hard to convince someone that most of us have at least had this experience, whether or not we did anything about it.

This moral sense became so pervasive because groups containing more individuals that had it in evolutionary history--the groups most willing to help those among them least able to help themselves--were able to thrive.

I don't mind anarchy as long as it happens in an orderly fashion.

I only make one assumption, that there is no correlation between the altruistic gene and the individuals basic evolutionary fitness.I can accept that assumption quite readily. It changes nothing. Otherwise, to show my point I can use a arbitrary average.But you do use an arbitrary average!! (You set them all the same, which amounts to the same thing!) The problem is precisely that "averages" are useless here. You need to look at the actual direction of altruism, not its "net" effects.

It does not matter, in all cases there will be a greater advantage to the non-altruists.Now you're being glib.

All of those are representative of whatever altruism our culture has endowed upon us, not evolutionary altruism.This is not an argument.

I contend that all genuine altruism, cultural or otherwise, depends on the individual's feeling compassion. Cultural norms may be able to get me to give for precisely the reason you state--to appear good--but they cannot so easily get me to give because I feel the pain of another person simply by looking at them. This is a reaction as natural to us as physical attraction. It is physiological, not sociological.

This does not fit. If we assume that we were to lose fitness and they were to gain, then we must assume that there is no net gain in altruism and there would be no evolutionary impulse towards it.Now you're assuming again that there is some correlation between the altruist and recipient of aid. I thought you promised not to do that?

If altruism is a zero-sum game, then there would be no altruism. For altruism to exist abiding by evolutionary pressures, there must be mutual gain.You're taking an individual-centered notion of evolution again. You also maintain (for no apparent reason) that there is a 1-1 correlation between the altruistic gene and altruistic behavior, as if it "programs" certain people to be altruists.

Think about it in terms of the closest of social bonds, that between parents and children. There is nothing innately special here--considering all of animal life, probably more species than not never know their children. Of those that do, probably more species than not never "help" their children at all--they live or they die according to their own devices.

Yet their is something about social animals that causes them to care about the welfare of their needy offspring.

Now, consider three sets of parents. One set has no compassionate gene among them. The next has one gene for compassion, and in the third both parents have the gene.

Set One does not pass on the gene for compassion, so they have no concern for their children. They have four children, three of whom die.

Set Two passes on the gene, perhaps to two of their children. But only one of the parents' has any compassion for them, and with her efforts alone she can save only two of them--these may or may not have the gene, possibly endangering their own children.

Set Three passes on the gene to all four of their children AND with their combined efforts (they are both altruists) they manage to save all four.

Which is the most "fit" family? It should be obvious. This behavior, moreover, likely goes much farther back into our evolutionary history than even our Homo ancestry--indeed, it is probably one of the things that made Homo possible.

Larger social groupings, at least to a point, have obvious advantages. The development of these probably involves some combination of altruistic (giving) relationships and reciprocal (exchanging) relationships. I doubt they would get very far with only the one or the other, so to the extent that these groups provide an advantage they would create pressure for "more" altruistic genes--ones that expand compassion beyond the range of the immediate family.

Around and around we go!

:headbang:

EDIT: For the purpose of the argument, I adopted above the same 1-1 correspondence between the gene and the behavior for which I criticized you earlier: there is no clear reason to assume that in Family Three above both parents behave altruistically simply because they both have the relevant genetic material. However, the argument is valid if one replaces that correspondence with an increased probability.

one with a firearm

http://www.cornbread.com/~jhinkle/guns/ecsa/missgeorgiabeltfed.JPG

I can accept that assumption quite readily. It changes nothing. But you do use an arbitrary average!! (You set them all the same, which amounts to the same thing!) The problem is precisely that "averages" are useless here. You need to look at the actual direction of altruism, not its "net" effects.

The net effects are what propagates genetic traits.

This is not an argument.

I contend that all genuine altruism, cultural or otherwise, depends on the individual's feeling compassion. Cultural norms may be able to get me to give for precisely the reason you state--to appear good--but they cannot so easily get me to give because I feel the pain of another person simply by looking at them. This is a reaction as natural to us as physical attraction. It is physiological, not sociological.

Compassion is a much more complex mental function than is needed for altruism. Altruism can exist on its own. This is shown by the many species that have not developed near the mental faculties of humans yet still maintain altruistic social structures.

It is far more likely that compassion arose much after altruistic behavior in the evolutionary descent of humans. It is possible that compassion arose completely seperately from other altruistic compulsions.

Now you're assuming again that there is some correlation between the altruist and recipient of aid. I thought you promised not to do that?

I am not assuming that an altruist will always focus its help upon one other individual. It is even more helpful to my argument that the altruist helps the group as a whole, donating its food to the community, or whatnot. I only wish to make my examples simplistic.

But perhaps I don't understand what you mean.

You're taking an individual-centered notion of evolution again. You also maintain (for no apparent reason) that there is a 1-1 correlation between the altruistic gene and altruistic behavior, as if it "programs" certain people to be altruists.

Some animals are more genetically determined than others. I have said that our culture frees us from our genetics and any schism between culture and genes should not be looked at as unnatural.

Think about it in terms of the closest of social bonds, that between parents and children. There is nothing innately special here--considering all of animal life, probably more species than not never know their children. Of those that do, probably more species than not never "help" their children at all--they live or they die according to their own devices.

Yet their is something about social animals that causes them to care about the welfare of their needy offspring.

Now, consider three sets of parents. One set has no compassionate gene among them. The next has one gene for compassion, and in the third both parents have the gene.

Set One does not pass on the gene for compassion, so they have no concern for their children. They have four children, three of whom die.

Set Two passes on the gene, perhaps to two of their children. But only one of the parents' has any compassion for them, and with her efforts alone she can save only two of them--these may or may not have the gene, possibly endangering their own children.

Set Three passes on the gene to all four of their children AND with their combined efforts (they are both altruists) they manage to save all four.

Which is the most "fit" family? It should be obvious. This behavior, moreover, likely goes much farther back into our evolutionary history than even our Homo ancestry--indeed, it is probably one of the things that made Homo possible.

Larger social groupings, at least to a point, have obvious advantages. The development of these probably involves some combination of altruistic (giving) relationships and reciprocal (exchanging) relationships. I doubt they would get very far with only the one or the other, so to the extent that these groups provide an advantage they would create pressure for "more" altruistic genes--ones that expand compassion beyond the range of the immediate family.

Around and around we go!

Here's the problem: You say that groups that are more altruistic will perpetuate themselves better than groups that are not altruistic, and I have never disagreed with that. I then reply that within unsegregated groups evolutionary pressures will always force the allele frequencies within the group away from altruism. You then take it back to the group level which I have already agreed with you. So.....

While the group may reproduce at a higher rate, the proportion of altruists will drop, and the group's advantage will shrink accordingly. Altruists who do segregate will not have this drop in proportion, and as such will outlast the nonsegregating altruists. Therefore, there is constant evolutionary pressure towards the segregation of these groups.

As the link I posted earlier showed, it is possible for coincidental traits amongst a species to serve as markers for altruists and non-altruists.

The net effects are what propagates genetic traits.Your "net effects" are mere abstractions. You need to study the actual process of the effects to figure out who wins and who loses.

Compassion is a much more complex mental function than is needed for altruism.Only in the same sense that human feelings of attraction are more complex than what is needed for sexual union to occur. In simpler species it is an unreflective drive: our "feelings" are just the names we give to those drives when they are experienced by sentient creatures.

This is shown by the many species that have not developed near the mental faculties of humans yet still maintain altruistic social structures.You seem unreasonably convinced that human beings are the only animals that feel compassion.

I am not assuming that an altruist will always focus its help upon one other individual. It is even more helpful to my argument that the altruist helps the group as a whole, donating its food to the community, or whatnot.The problem is that I don't consider that altruistic behavior, but a reciprocal engagement: when a person donates to the "whole," it is because helping their partners helps them in return. The person may not get a return on the investment, if others do not contribute--or the person may contribute to a public good that others enjoy without paying, the classic free-rider problem. To solve these problems, we may (as you say) need to distinguish between those who contribute and those who do not--we must "segregate."

Altruistic behavior occurs, however, when the person gives without expecting any return--they expect the benefits to be obtained entirely by someone else. Yes, there may be cases in which one expects this when donating to the whole... but to the extent that each individual is a part of the whole, the general case is that some reciprocity is inevitable: not only the individuals who do not pay, but also the individuals who pay obtain some use out of the public good.

The truest examples of altruism are therefore always one-way: the altruist gives to an individual, or to some group or sub-group of which the altruist is not herself a member.

I only wish to make my examples simplistic.In doing so, you make them either unrealistic, or overbroad.

I have said that our culture frees us from our genetics and any schism between culture and genes should not be looked at as unnatural.Our opinions in this respect differ only with regard to that one word.

I see that you have ignored the simple example of the parent-child relationship. Even if "compassion" is not involved at the emotional level, parents who assist their children are altruists in the most essential sense: all the costs belong to the parent, and all the benefits accrue to the children. It should be clear, moreover, how this behavior provides an evolutionary benefit such that the most "caring" genes will outclass the less caring ones.

It is not unreasonable, moreover, that as families become clans and clans become tribes and tribes become nations, the scope of the altruistic gene can expand as well without losing its evolutionary advantage. Indeed, it is entirely plausible that altruistic hominids so outperformed their non-altruistic competitors in a particular evolutionary niche that this genetic material could be present in the entire species--like almost all of our genetic material. To the extent that this is true, evolution provides for "universal" compassion and altruism.

As I have stated before, however, I think that the evolutionary basis for altruism is one reason that it has natural limits--or at least, decreasing force with decreasing distance.

As the link I posted earlier showed, it is possible for coincidental traits amongst a species to serve as markers for altruists and non-altruists.Earlier I conceded that this was a variety of altruism. After further thought, I take this back: the authors of the article mistake reciprocal generosity for true altruism. The lizard's behavior should produce mutual gain; it is only when the lizard makes a "mistake" and teams up with the wrong kind of partner that its behavior appears altruistic.

In fact, this actually disproves your point: to the extent that creatures segregate the cooperators from the defectors, none of them is an altruist at all!!

If there is any altruism in the lizard's behavior, it is that it defends its eggs at all. But that is precisely my point: there is no "mystery" in altruism. As soon as species developed such that their young could not immediately provide for themselves, altruistic behavior became a necessary tool in the genetic arsenal. (Or rather, altruism can only have developed in conjunction with such species.)

Your "net effects" are mere abstractions. You need to study the actual process of the effects to figure out who wins and who loses.

Explain.

You seem unreasonably convinced that human beings are the only animals that feel compassion.

I never said that. Animals of more complex social structures, dolphins, primates, elephants, all display behaviors that denote something similar to what we call compassion.

The problem is that I don't consider that altruistic behavior, but a reciprocal engagement: when a person donates to the "whole," it is because helping their partners helps them in return. The person may not get a return on the investment, if others do not contribute--or the person may contribute to a public good that others enjoy without paying, the classic free-rider problem. To solve these problems, we may (as you say) need to distinguish between those who contribute and those who do not--we must "segregate."

I was merely trying to figure out what you meant when you said I assumed a "correlation between the altruist and recipient of aid." I thought maybe you meant that I believed altruism only expressed itself through direct help to another individual. I never mentioned reciprocity, as I agree that it is not always necessary to see evolutionary benefit.

By "altruism" I mean "behavior that benefits another at the cost of the actor." I do not consider what you are describing, contractural exchange, to be altruism either.

That contractural exchange and the functions that enable, by the way, are also key developments in our path to become moral beings, as the ability to lie and detect lies is quite an exclusive ability and key to moral judgements.

Our opinions in this respect differ only with regard to that one word.

If you were true to your test of what was natural, you would be adamantly opposed to the every sentiment suggested in that statement.

I see that you have ignored the simple example of the parent-child relationship.

Once again, I did not ignore this example. I simply do not wish to argue with the idea that the more altruistic a group is, the more evolutionary benefit the members recieve.

I only argue that, if the altruistic members of the group do not segregate themselves, the altruistic allele will become diluted.

You have accused me of being individual-centric, and not gene-centric. The way I see it, individuals are the unit of selection, and genes are the unit of evolution. Only genes are stable enough to show evolution, but they only evolve by exploiting natural selection amongst the phenotypes displayed by individuals.

But to try a different tact, I will attempt to explain my point without referring to individual fitness in any way.

We can assume that there are two competing genes (there may be many more, as with humans there are many biological factors that compel altruism), one that compels altruism, one that doesn't. We can also assume that no group can possess one gene exclusively for a sustained period of time. From these assumptions we can conclude that there will be direct competition between two conflicting genes.

However, one of the genes doesn't even know that it is competing, as it promotes the passage of all genes within the group, including the one that it is in conflict with. The other gene not only casts all of its phenotypic efforts to itself, it also gains the phenotypic benefits of the altruistic gene.

In other words there is a competition between a gene that supports only itself, and a gene that supports itself and its competitor. The altruistic gene will not let the selfish gene die, and as such selfish gene will always be at an advantage.

I would like to see you explain your scenarios in relation to the competition between genes.

Earlier I conceded that this was a variety of altruism. After further thought, I take this back: the authors of the article mistake reciprocal generosity for true altruism. The lizard's behavior should produce mutual gain; it is only when the lizard makes a "mistake" and teams up with the wrong kind of partner that its behavior appears altruistic.

From the article:

Under some circumstances, however, one male in the pair may have few or no offspring as a result of protecting its partner from the aggressive intrusions of other lizards.

I agreed with you, helping others with the expectation of reciprocal benefit is not altruism.

In fact, this actually disproves your point: to the extent that creatures segregate the cooperators from the defectors, none of them is an altruist at all!!

This is a non-sequitor. Segregation is not solely a matter of relying on mutual benefit (I may actually be crossing up earlier statements, I can do that at times), nor does altruism require an individual to be indeterminate in who recieves its help.

In other words there is a competition between a gene that supports only itself, and a gene that supports itself and its competitor. The altruistic gene will not let the selfish gene die, and as such selfish gene will always be at an advantage.

I would like to see you explain your scenarios in relation to the competition between genes.I think our disagreement boils down to this:

We agree that altruistic gene-holders must segregate themselves from non-altruistic gene-holders in order for the altruistic gene to outperform non-altruistic genes.

Because you assume, however, that the altruistic gene compels altruistic behavior, it follows for you that if an individual does not behave altruistically, that individual cannot carry the altruistic gene. Therefore, altruists must only behave altruistically toward other individuals who behave altruistically.

I disagree with your assumption: I think that the altruistic gene favors altruistic behavior without compelling it. There may be many carriers of the gene who do not actually behave altruistically (for any variety of reasons, including inability). Therefore, altruists should behave altruistically toward other individuals who are most likely to carry the altruistic gene (whether or not they behave altruistically themselves). Since the altruist herself carries the gene, the most sensible kind of segregation is the kinship relation: she should prefer to behave altruistically toward those most closely related to her because these are the people most likely to carry the gene.

This is especially important with respect to parents and children, because children are unable to demonstrate their altruistic behavior--and unless you can tell me what physical characteristic identifies the altruist babies, I will have to assume that they cannot be identified. Thus, the altruist gene gets its payoff based on the assumption that children of its carrier are likely to carry the gene.

Consider in this context that your own version of gene segregation according to those individuals who "appear" good also amounts to a "bet": It is always possible that an individual appears good without being good. Indeed, it would apparently be a very effective adaptation to grow a green beard without becoming good!! To this extent, the kinship relation is actually a better bet: rather than relying on an external correlation between a segregating characteristic and the altruistic gene, the kinship relation is determined on an internal or causal correlation--the children of altruists are likely to have the altruistic gene because they are the children of altruists. This seems like a much better bet than assuming that they are altruists because they "look" like altruists!!

As kinship groups expand, altruistic genes can make "safer" bets on individuals more distantly related to their carrier.

You scored as Anarcho-Capitalist.



Anarcho-capitalism is perhaps more closely linked the libertarian tradition than anarchism as it favours a free market and a stateless society. Private businesses would replace the functions of the state. This form of anarchism is largely an American phenomenon and first emerged in the 1950s (although it arguably has its roots in 19th century individualist anarchism and classical liberalism). Key thinkers include Murray Rothbard.

Anarcho-Capitalist

80%

Anarcho-Primitivist

30%

Anarcho-Communist

25%

Anarcho-Syndicalist

20%

Anarcha-Feminist

20%

Christian Anarchist

15%

I think our disagreement boils down to this:

We agree that altruistic gene-holders must segregate themselves from non-altruistic gene-holders in order for the altruistic gene to outperform non-altruistic genes.

Because you assume, however, that the altruistic gene compels altruistic behavior, it follows for you that if an individual does not behave altruistically, that individual cannot carry the altruistic gene. Therefore, altruists must only behave altruistically toward other individuals who behave altruistically.

I disagree with your assumption: I think that the altruistic gene favors altruistic behavior without compelling it. There may be many carriers of the gene who do not actually behave altruistically (for any variety of reasons, including inability). Therefore, altruists should behave altruistically toward other individuals who are most likely to carry the altruistic gene (whether or not they behave altruistically themselves). Since the altruist herself carries the gene, the most sensible kind of segregation is the kinship relation: she should prefer to behave altruistically toward those most closely related to her because these are the people most likely to carry the gene.

This is especially important with respect to parents and children, because children are unable to demonstrate their altruistic behavior--and unless you can tell me what physical characteristic identifies the altruist babies, I will have to assume that they cannot be identified. Thus, the altruist gene gets its payoff based on the assumption that children of its carrier are likely to carry the gene.

Consider in this context that your own version of gene segregation according to those individuals who "appear" good also amounts to a "bet": It is always possible that an individual appears good without being good. Indeed, it would apparently be a very effective adaptation to grow a green beard without becoming good!! To this extent, the kinship relation is actually a better bet: rather than relying on an external correlation between a segregating characteristic and the altruistic gene, the kinship relation is determined on an internal or causal correlation--the children of altruists are likely to have the altruistic gene because they are the children of altruists. This seems like a much better bet than assuming that they are altruists because they "look" like altruists!!

As kinship groups expand, altruistic genes can make "safer" bets on individuals more distantly related to their carrier.

OK, let me try and boil the difference down.

First, I do not deny kinship selection as a form of segregation that promotes altruism, to an extent. Your example of the parent-offspring relationship is good enough to show that it exists. However, the parent-offspring relationship is certainly a break from the norm. It is a form of altruism that almost must exist in some species. The gene for altruism is maintained by the most powerful benefit we can imagine, as the competing gene is almost certain to die off. The selfish gene may be supported by the altruistic gene for one generation, but will then die from its own devices. In other words, while there may be no cost to the selfish behavior, there is absolutely no benefit. I am most concerned with situations where there is also a benefit in selfish behavior. In those situations a gene for selfish behavior will recieve the benefit of their selfish behavior, while gaining the benefit from others.

Secondly, I am perfectly willing to admit that greenbeard selection is not foolproof. There will always be non-altruists who just manage to carry the selection tag, as it is a very, very beneficial genetic makeup to have. Greenbeard selection is little different from kinship selection in this way. The difference lies, however, in the machinery in place to allow for the differing types of segregation to maintain the high level of segregation to maintain that the gene continues to benefit itself.

Within a greenbeard group, the same evolutionary forces that promotes the existence of non-altruistic greenbeards provides the altruists with the machinery to "learn" to discover the imposters, and there continues an evolutionary ebb and flow that maintains a certain level of segregation.

Regarding kin selection, as long as there is some benefit to non-altruistic behavior, there will be an increase in the allele frequency of the non-altruistic gene thanks to the help of the altruistic gene (this is true in greenbeards, as well). However, when segregation is based on genetic similarity, there is no evolutionary machinery to improve segregation techniques, other than shrinking the extent of the altruism.

So I arrive at an opposite conclusion regarding kin selection, as I see evolutionary force as a constant pressure to shrink the scope of the altruistic help, not as an expansionary force.

So my question to you is this: How does an altruistic gene maintain the high probability of helping itself needed to expand when it is segregated by genetic similarity?

So I arrive at an opposite conclusion regarding kin selection, as I see evolutionary force as a constant pressure to shrink the scope of the altruistic help, not as an expansionary force.We don't exactly disagree here. It has been my contention all along that because human altruism has its roots in the kinship relation, it has natural limits beyond which it can be pressed only by social pressures that have nothing to do with biological evolution. Whether or not these pressures directly conflict with natural instinct is another question: I would say that the burden of proof is on their side. Motivations such as "because God wants me to" or "because I wish to appear good simply to earn the esteem of others" are clearly alienating and suspect. Motivations such as "through the work of my imagination I identify with all human beings" are less suspect because they involve the work of the imagination in extending the natural instinct.

I think the best evidence that human altruism has its origins in the kinship relation rather than altruist segregation is precisely this: that it seems so capable of extending itself--by an imaginative leap the nature of which is to consider all people as related in the fact of their humanity (or even all sentient creatures as relatives in that fact alone). In actual practice our conception of altruism has nothing to do with segregation: we do not give to the altruistic poor and not to the non-altruistic poor. (Yes, we may treat the "criminal" poor differently, but clearly crime and non-altruism are not the same. Often enough the non-altruist will be self-serving but not criminal--indeed, in at least some cases crime may be motivated altruistically: stealing bread to feed starving children.)

What you need to demonstrate is how the human conception of altruism requires that the altruist help only other altruists. Until you can identify the greenbeard behavior in the human species, I do not see why I should be convinced that human altruism derives from some such behavior rather than the kinship relation--which continues today and structures our altruistic emotions such that we generally feel most benevolent toward those who are close to us.

So my question to you is this: How does an altruistic gene maintain the high probability of helping itself needed to expand when it is segregated by genetic similarity?

We don't exactly disagree here. It has been my contention all along that because human altruism has its roots in the kinship relation, it has natural limits beyond which it can be pressed only by social pressures that have nothing to do with biological evolution. Whether or not these pressures directly conflict with natural instinct is another question: I would say that the burden of proof is on their side. Motivations such as "because God wants me to" or "because I wish to appear good simply to earn the esteem of others" are clearly alienating and suspect. Motivations such as "through the work of my imagination I identify with all human beings" are less suspect because they involve the work of the imagination in extending the natural instinct.

I was trying to remember how we got on this tangent and this is it. I wanted to show that simply conforming to social norms in the attempt to "appear to be good" is not unnatural. I still hold the opinion that the drive can be natural, but that it can be manipulated to conflict with other natural behaviors. I have lessened my stance on close relational altruism, as I see it as a factor, but I still don't see it as an explanation for high cost altruism (which we see in many species, including humans), as it simply wouldn't abide evolutionary forces.

I would also use imagination as an extension of the "greenbeard" affect, as it allows people to more effectively destinguish detractors from cooperators.

I think the best evidence that human altruism has its origins in the kinship relation rather than altruist segregation is precisely this: that it seems so capable of extending itself--by an imaginative leap the nature of which is to consider all people as related in the fact of their humanity (or even all sentient creatures as relatives in that fact alone). In actual practice our conception of altruism has nothing to do with segregation: we do not give to the altruistic poor and not to the non-altruistic poor. (Yes, we may treat the "criminal" poor differently, but clearly crime and non-altruism are not the same. Often enough the non-altruist will be self-serving but not criminal--indeed, in at least some cases crime may be motivated altruistically: stealing bread to feed starving children.)

What you need to demonstrate is how the human conception of altruism requires that the altruist help only other altruists. Until you can identify the greenbeard behavior in the human species, I do not see why I should be convinced that human altruism derives from some such behavior rather than the kinship relation--which continues today and structures our altruistic emotions such that we generally feel most benevolent toward those who are close to us.

I have tried a number of times to show that, as we widen the scope of altruism without increased segregation we further weaken the affects of altruism. While we may, through our empathy, identify with all humans, that simplistic level of discernment will obviously lead to an increased number of assisted non-altruists. For such a wide scope, even if it is driven by empathy and a sense of relationship, there must be some temperence in the assistance given, it cannot be universal.

I think we have shown a great deal of moral segregation within human society. We often do not tolerate and resist helping liars. We have long resisted assisting people if they will not utilize the assistence in ways that we or society would approve of. How often do you hear someone say, "I would have given the bum money, but he would have just spent it on alcohol." That is an obvious example segregated altruism, only with a far more complex tag than a simple "green beard". It is so complex that it is almost certainly what you consider to be the measure of kinship. What we use as our "greenbeard" tags of segregation are indications of behaviors and beliefs that we approve of, in other words, we identify and segregate ourselves with those that resemble us. There are multiple examples of genes whose phenotype is determinate on its environment, hunting techniques, habitat choices, etc. In our case, the genetic input and the environmental factors are so completely meshed that genes are nearly useless without environmental input.

When altruistic behavior is as simple and automatic as attacking an intruder, genetic tags can be simple, when it entails all the emotions, motives, and behaviors of human friendship, the tag is immensely more complex.


We may be at an impasse, as we both identify the same factors and results but see different processes at work.

I was trying to remember how we got on this tangent and this is it. I wanted to show that simply conforming to social norms in the attempt to "appear to be good" is not unnatural. I still hold the opinion that the drive can be natural, but that it can be manipulated to conflict with other natural behaviors. I have lessened my stance on close relational altruism, as I see it as a factor, but I still don't see it as an explanation for high cost altruism (which we see in many species, including humans), as it simply wouldn't abide evolutionary forces.Why not? The highest cost of all would be death, and won't parents die for their children?

I would also use imagination as an extension of the "greenbeard" affect, as it allows people to more effectively destinguish detractors from cooperators.How? By seeing who cooperates? Then there is no "greenbeard," there is merely a behavior--and one that is important for reciprocal exchange relations, not altruistic ones.

I have tried a number of times to show that, as we widen the scope of altruism without increased segregation we further weaken the affects of altruism. While we may, through our empathy, identify with all humans, that simplistic level of discernment will obviously lead to an increased number of assisted non-altruists. For such a wide scope, even if it is driven by empathy and a sense of relationship, there must be some temperence in the assistance given, it cannot be universal.That's what I've been saying: biological evolution cannot support universal altruism, especially in the human case in which we have no "greenbeard" genes.

I think we have shown a great deal of moral segregation within human society.Yes, for the purposes of exchange relations--not altruistic ones.

We have long resisted assisting people if they will not utilize the assistence in ways that we or society would approve of. How often do you hear someone say, "I would have given the bum money, but he would have just spent it on alcohol." That is an obvious example segregated altruism, only with a far more complex tag than a simple "green beard".No, it is a recognition that giving money to this particular person would not be helpful. In other words, the person who does this does not restrict the scope of his altruistic sentiment; rather, he merely indicates that he did not perform an action that would be altruistic under other circumstances because under these circumstances it is not!

Note that even in this example the altruist does not segregate according to altruistic behavior: she does not refuse her help to the homeless person because she believes this person will not help others, but because she believes he will not help himself!! She refuses to help him not because he appears to be a poor altruist, but because he appears to be a poor non-altruist!!

:)

I was trying to remember how we got on this tangent and this is it. I wanted to show that simply conforming to social norms in the attempt to "appear to be good" is not unnatural.Actually, if I recall correctly you wanted to show that in order for a creature to be "good," it must first "appear" to be good so as to enter into relations of goodness with others without suffering any net loss in fitness.

Thus, even if humans do engage in some reciprocal form of altruism (which still seems a contradiction in terms to me, since it is more natural to describe reciprocal relations in terms of exchange), to the extent that altruism can be predicated on the kinship relation it should be evident that my case is proved: human ancestors need not have appeared to be good in order to be good, since the fitness of the kin-relations altruistic gene does not depend on appearances.

FWIW my results: late to the party and all that, I know, I'll have a read through here and see what I make of the thread tomorrow:

Anarcho-Communist 75%
Anarcha-Feminist 65%
Anarcho-Syndicalist 60%
Anarcho-Primitivist 60%
Christian Anarchist 60%
Anarcho-Capitalist 45%

Hmmm. Not bad. I would general describe myself as holding anarcho-communist ideals, and having read Kierkegaard probably skewed the Christian Anarchist percentage upwards a tad.

Why not? The highest cost of all would be death, and won't parents die for their children?

Reapproach that from a gene-view. The altruistic gene only helps itself while providing no benefit to the non-altruistic gene. There is relatively no cost to the altruistic gene.

How? By seeing who cooperates? Then there is no "greenbeard," there is merely a behavior--and one that is important for reciprocal exchange relations, not altruistic ones.

Why couldn't behavior be a tag?

No, it is a recognition that giving money to this particular person would not be helpful.

By who's judgement?

Note that even in this example the altruist does not segregate according to altruistic behavior: she does not refuse her help to the homeless person because she believes this person will not help others, but because she believes he will not help himself!! She refuses to help him not because he appears to be a poor altruist, but because he appears to be a poor non-altruist!!

She refuses to help because he makes no attempt to fit into her view of how someone should behave. Is a true altruist concerned with how this person chooses to live his life?

Actually, if I recall correctly you wanted to show that in order for a creature to be "good," it must first "appear" to be good so as to enter into relations of goodness with others without suffering any net loss in fitness.

Yes, if appearing good is necessary for genetic altruism, then we can say that trying to appear good is natural.

As I said, I admit that kin selection is another method of altruism, but I don't believe it could support the widespread, high-cost altruism we see in humans.

Thus, even if humans do engage in some reciprocal form of altruism (which still seems a contradiction in terms to me, since it is more natural to describe reciprocal relations in terms of exchange), to the extent that altruism can be predicated on the kinship relation it should be evident that my case is proved: human ancestors need not have appeared to be good in order to be good, since the fitness of the kin-relations altruistic gene does not depend on appearances.

If I was muddled earlier, I apologize. It is not necessary for altruism to be reciprocal, it is only necessary that it benefits altruists more than non-altruists.

Reapproach that from a gene-view. The altruistic gene only helps itself while providing no benefit to the non-altruistic gene. There is relatively no cost to the altruistic gene.That's the point!!

I don't expect there to be an altruistic gene per se--that is, a gene that helps other genes. This contradicts the whole idea of natural selection!

Rather, the "altruistic" gene is a gene that serves its own interest by favoring altruistic behavior in the individual carrying it.

Altruism is about individuals helping other individuals. The gene-centered view of evolution helps to explain how evolution can favor such a thing by focusing our attention on the fact that the gene benefits even when the individual does not.

Why couldn't behavior be a tag?I never said it couldn't be. The statement "I'll help you if you _____" is certainly a sensible one. But when that statement is "I'll help you if you help me," it expresses an exchange--not altruism.

By who's judgement?By the judgment of the person making the statement. You said, correctly, that people often remark, "I would give money to the homeless, except that I'm sure they will only spend it on liquor." This is a judgment to the effect that while I would like to help the homeless, giving them money will not help them because they will not use it in a self-helpful way.

The very same person might follow that statement with, "Therefore, I donate to a shelter and soup kitchen instead. My money winds up benefiting the same homeless person on the street, but now I know that it's going to provide him food and shelter--things that actually help himself." At no point in my judgment does it matter whether the homeless person will ever help anyone else. It does not matter whether he behaves altruistically or not.

She refuses to help because he makes no attempt to fit into her view of how someone should behave.You're being overbroad. Her judgment is very specific: she does not refuse to help, she refuses to give money; and she refuses to give money because she does not believe this will help. She believes (whether she is right or wrong) that giving money is not the altruistic thing to do.

Moreover, her generosity itself is not conditional: she may give to a soup kitchen which will feed this very same alcoholic--he will, ultimately, benefit from her help. She does not say to him, "I do not help you because you refuse to live as I see fit." Rather she says, "I will not help you to do something that I believe is actually harmful to yourself. I will, however, provide assistance that I can honestly believe is helpful--what you do besides is your own business."

Is a true altruist concerned with how this person chooses to live his life?To trot out an old cliché, if my distraught and possibly suicidal friend asks me to give him my gun, shall I be considered generous for giving it to him?

If I was muddled earlier, I apologize. It is not necessary for altruism to be reciprocal, it is only necessary that it benefits altruists more than non-altruists.Right, and this is accomplished by the kinship relation.

Under this mechanism, the more closely related to an altruist I am, the more likely I am to benefit from her assistance.

By the very same token, the more closely related to an altruist I am, the more likely I am to carry the gene for altruism.

It is not a 1-1 correspondence, but in nature hardly anything is.

But your insistence on "segregation" of altruists from non-altruists turns altruism into a reciprocal relationship, which is nonsense. You try to conceive an altruism such that individuals give only if they expect to get back; they provide only if they expect to be provided for. I am perfectly happy to accept this kind of explanation for relations of exchange and even the human sense of justice--but it simply does not make sense as an explanation of altruism.

To return to your lizards, they only appear altruistic by accident--when the exchange does not work out in their favor. Either they accidentally choose a selfish partner, or they defend their partner only at a total loss to themselves... but not because they intended (or evolution "intended" for them) to benefit the other at a cost to themselves--this just happened to be the way things worked out.

Moreover, it should be obvious that evolution could not support that kind of selflessness if not based on the kinship relation: if lizards routinely (rather than only accidentally) supported other non-related lizards at their own expense, these altruists would not reproduce very well at all! Rather, only by restricting its focus (in the first place) to the immediate family can the altruistic gene assure its transmission to future generations.

The basic problem comes down to this:

Reciprocal relations require some form of behavioral segregation. But reciprocity by definition is not altruism. If behaviors such as your lizards' were translated into human terms, no one would ever help anyone without the expectation of being helped in return--and anyone who helped a person without return would be regarded as a fool, or at least unfortunate.

The primary form of altruism (unselfish regard for the welfare of others) must be parental altruism, the evolutionary advantage of which is all too obvious. This may extend in a genetic sense to broader kinship groupings--beyond that, the feeling associated with it is extended only by our imagination.

Just how that extension occurs is an important question about alienation: if individuals are made to consider altruism "good" despite themselves, then the extension is alienating and ultimately leads to the desire to "appear" good without being good; if, on the other hand, individuals come to extend themselves naturally, as the fruit of their own sentiments and reason, then their altruism is a wholesome sublimation of biological drives--and such individuals desire to be good without any particular concern for how they appear to others.

I don't expect there to be an altruistic gene per se--that is, a gene that helps other genes. This contradicts the whole idea of natural selection!

And a gene that promotes altruism without segregation does just that.

If we look at the parental relationship from the genes point of view, there is no cost, whatsoever. Why is there no cost? Because its competitive gene gains no advantage. The altruistic gene enjoys increased fitness in the individuals that possess it, while those that don't are doomed to fail to reproduce anyway.

However, what about genes whose phenotype do have a high cost to the gene, that do give non-altruistic genes an advantage (the case of the lizard who dies saving a non-altruistic lizard's nest)? There must be a high degree of segregation to promote this altruism and kin selection won't provide it.

I never said it couldn't be. The statement "I'll help you if you _____" is certainly a sensible one. But when that statement is "I'll help you if you help me," it expresses an exchange--not altruism.

And like I said, it doesn't have to be "I'll help you if you help me", it is more likely to be "I will help you if you help others like us." That is how the gene will perpetuate itself. It is central to the idea of kin selection as well. Kin selection, however, does not provide the machinery to determine, on a wide scope, who is "like us."

By the judgment of the person making the statement. You said, correctly, that people often remark, "I would give money to the homeless, except that I'm sure they will only spend it on liquor." This is a judgment to the effect that while I would like to help the homeless, giving them money will not help them because they will not use it in a self-helpful way.

The very same person might follow that statement with, "Therefore, I donate to a shelter and soup kitchen instead. My money winds up benefiting the same homeless person on the street, but now I know that it's going to provide him food and shelter--things that actually help himself." At no point in my judgment does it matter whether the homeless person will ever help anyone else. It does not matter whether he behaves altruistically or not.

Of course, this does force the homeless man to follow the very cultural traits that you are deeming unnatural to gain access to your help. Perform up to our accepted cultural standards, or you will not recieve help.

Could it not be that we observe alcoholic, homeless individuals as subversive to our society, rather than subversive to themselves? Do we know that sobriety and stable shelter is the path to happiness? As someone who has been promoting a society of blissfully ignorant nomads, I can't imagine you truly feel that way.

You're being overbroad. Her judgment is very specific: she does not refuse to help, she refuses to give money; and she refuses to give money because she does not believe this will help. She believes (whether she is right or wrong) that giving money is not the altruistic thing to do.

She does not believe it will help achieve her goals, not his.

I completely agree that she is capable of being altruistic while not helping him, but it is still segregation by cultural norms. He doesn't recieve help until he shows he wants to abide by her cultural norms.

Moreover, her generosity itself is not conditional: she may give to a soup kitchen which will feed this very same alcoholic--he will, ultimately, benefit from her help. She does not say to him, "I do not help you because you refuse to live as I see fit." Rather she says, "I will not help you to do something that I believe is actually harmful to yourself. I will, however, provide assistance that I can honestly believe is helpful--what you do besides is your own business."

And of course, what she believes is "harmful" is not based on his situation, but her subjective view upon what is the best way to live.

To trot out an old cliché, if my distraught and possibly suicidal friend asks me to give him my gun, shall I be considered generous for giving it to him?

Maybe a true friend wouldn't be so self-righteous as to dismiss the request offhand.

Right, and this is accomplished by the kinship relation.

Certainly on an incredibly small scope. Even extended families may lose the advantage if the cost to the individual is high.

But your insistence on "segregation" of altruists from non-altruists turns altruism into a reciprocal relationship, which is nonsense.

The individuals are completely oblivious to any reciprocal relationship, they act in complete altruism, only the gene is selfish in that it refuses to help its competitor.

To return to your lizards, they only appear altruistic by accident--when the exchange does not work out in their favor. Either they accidentally choose a selfish partner, or they defend their partner only at a total loss to themselves... but not because they intended (or evolution "intended" for them) to benefit the other at a cost to themselves--this just happened to be the way things worked out.

No, the phenotype is altruistic, as there is no expectation of return, they do it out of a natural compulsion to help. There is no requirement for mutual benefit, only a requirement for exclusive benefit.

Moreover, it should be obvious that evolution could not support that kind of selflessness if not based on the kinship relation: if lizards routinely (rather than only accidentally) supported other non-related lizards at their own expense, these altruists would not reproduce very well at all! Rather, only by restricting its focus (in the first place) to the immediate family can the altruistic gene assure its transmission to future generations.

"Sinervo emphasized that the cooperative blue males are not even remotely related to one another."

In all situations, the altruist will not reproduce well, that is the point of altruism. So far we have agreed on this, and we have also agreed that only by supporting others who (a vast majority of) share the gene, will the phenotype be at all sustainable. That is the point of the kinship relation as well, to attempt to limit help to fellow altruists by sticking to genetically similar individuals. I have agreed that kinship relation is feasible on small scopes, but as the scope widens the proportion of those helped that carry the altruistic gene will inevitably decrease, meaning that the phenotype is more and more costly to the gene, and the scope will shrink again.

The thing is that supporting related individuals will lead to routine support of non-altruists with no chance of evolutionary improvement. Greenbeard segregation, on the other hand, may lead to routine support of unrelated individuals, but will lead to a very exclusive support of the same gene. The latter form of support is all that evolution is concerned with.

Reciprocal relations require some form of behavioral segregation. But reciprocity by definition is not altruism.

For altruism to not counter natural selection, then segregation must also exist. Kinship selection is a form of segregation as well, but it doesn't support widespread altruism.

If we look at the parental relationship from the genes point of view, there is no cost, whatsoever.That's right. That's why it's such an efficient adaptation.

However, what about genes whose phenotype do have a high cost to the gene, that do give non-altruistic genes an advantage (the case of the lizard who dies saving a non-altruistic lizard's nest)? There must be a high degree of segregation to promote this altruism and kin selection won't provide it.We may as well end this.

I agree that this kind of behavior requires "segregation," but I disagree that it can be called "altruism." We both agree that for "high cost" interactions to be effective, the gene/individual must receive a "return" on the "investment." But this is not altruism. Nothing you can say will convince me that it is, because it is a simple matter of how I believe the term should be (and is generally) understood.

And like I said, it doesn't have to be "I'll help you if you help me", it is more likely to be "I will help you if you help others like us."Yes, but "I" am necessarily a member of the group "things like us." Reciprocity need not be strictly between A and B--it may also be between A, B, and the broader group of which A and B are parts. In other words, if both of our contributions add to a public good from which we both expect (generally) to benefit, the relation is essentially the same as if we make a simple exchange.

Think of it this way. All such relations produce a public good. In the simplest case, the "public" consists of exactly two individuals.

Kin selection, however, does not provide the machinery to determine, on a wide scope, who is "like us."Sure it does!

Surely you understand the principles of family resemblance? Of broader ethnic resemblance? Since you have been all too eager to include behaviors as "tags" before, I suppose you should also admit customs, manners, dialects, languages, no?

Of course, this does force the homeless man to follow the very cultural traits that you are deeming unnatural to gain access to your help. Perform up to our accepted cultural standards, or you will not recieve help.No, all he has to do is show up at a soup kitchen to receive help. What "cultural standards" are you talking about?

To reiterate, my altruist will not give him money because she believes that this will not benefit him. She wants to do him good--she is an altruist--so she chooses the means that she believes will actually do him good.

Could it not be that we observe alcoholic, homeless individuals as subversive to our society, rather than subversive to themselves?If our altruist felt that way, she would not donate money (or time) to the soup kitchen, either--because she would not care to provide for such a "subversive" at all! But the fact is that she does want to help him, she just does not believe that a direct handout will do that.

Do we know that sobriety and stable shelter is the path to happiness?No, "we" don't. We can only come to the best conclusion possible considering all of the available evidence, and act on that conclusion. Our altruist has concluded that a monetary handout is not likely to help the homeless--and what she wants to do is help. Therefore, she decides to do what she believes will help. That's what makes her an altruist, not some perverse habit to do what others ask of her.

We agree that parents behave altruistically toward their children. Does this mean that parents should cave to every demand their child makes? Or does it mean that parents should behave according to what they believe (in their sincere, if fallible, judgment) is "best" for the child?

As someone who has been promoting a society of blissfully ignorant nomads, I can't imagine you truly feel that way.Who said anything about "ignorant"? Many pages ago, I recall explaining that they should possess an intellect so sharp that we can hardly imagine it, and a knowledge of their world more complete and immediate than anything a "civilized" person has ever known.

She does not believe it will help achieve her goals, not his.

He doesn't recieve help until he shows he wants to abide by her cultural norms.Not at all. He can drink all he wants--she just doesn't want to give him alcohol. Rather, she wants to give him food--which, in her judgment, will be more helpful.

Perhaps she doesn't contribute to the shelter. Perhaps instead she buys him dinner.

Behaving altruistically does not mean doing "whatever someone asks." It means doing "something that will benefit another," and this requires the use of judgment.

And of course, what she believes is "harmful" is not based on his situation, but her subjective view upon what is the best way to live.All judgments are subjective. The best judgments make an attempt to also view things from the point of view of others affected. In any case, when deciding normative issues (about the "best" life or what is "harmful") one cannot avoid judgment.

She might decide differently. Indeed, I have known many people who, confronted with the same street person, hand him a dollar with a shrug and remark, "perhaps liquor is the only thing that makes him feel good in this situation, and perhaps that feeling is the best I can do for him right now." They choose to give the dollar because they judge that it will benefit him, just as our previous altruist buys him dinner instead because she judges that this provides the greater benefit.

Altruism is about doing "good"... and "good" is an unavoidably normative term.

Maybe a true friend wouldn't be so self-righteous as to dismiss the request offhand.Who said anything about "offhand"?

My point was merely to demonstrate that doing good for someone is not neatly equivalent to "doing what they ask."

Certainly on an incredibly small scope. Even extended families may lose the advantage if the cost to the individual is high.That's why I use the "betting" analogy. Individuals will be most willing to play high stakes for their immediate family (e.g. a parent dying to save a child) and lower stakes with extended family--certainly, at least, until the gene has had a chance to permeate the society (or even the species).

There is no particular reason to believe that it could not permeate the species, after all. Most of our genes do.

The individuals are completely oblivious to any reciprocal relationship, they act in complete altruism, only the gene is selfish in that it refuses to help its competitor.The effect is the same. It is an adaptation that instructs the individual to give only so that it may receive--regardless of whether it is "oblivious" to this instruction or not.

No doubt many species are "oblivious" to the fact that they make sacrifices for their young so that their genes may survive irrespective of any direct benefit to themselves. They do not "know" they are altruists, they just tend to behave altruistically. Similarly, your lizards do not "know" that they are engaged in exchange relations, they just tend to behave in a reciprocal fashion--that is, helping in exchange for help, rather than helping for its own sake. When they seem to help altruistically, it is because the exchange soured, not because the mechanism was at all altruistic.

No, the phenotype is altruistic, as there is no expectation of return, they do it out of a natural compulsion to help.Right, but this compulsion is designed (forgive casual use of the term) to operate through reciprocity, not through altruism. If it goes on under altruistic conditions for too long, it fails... whereas the kinship relation can maintain altruistic relations indefinitely, because this is inherent in their nature.

There is no requirement for mutual benefit, only a requirement for exclusive benefit.These are operationally identically when helpers only help other helpers.

I have agreed that kinship relation is feasible on small scopes, but as the scope widens the proportion of those helped that carry the altruistic gene will inevitably decrease, meaning that the phenotype is more and more costly to the gene, and the scope will shrink again.Not if the success of the kinship relation was directly related to the evolutionary break that describes the species--so that the "kinship" relation relevant to the altruistic gene is virtually universal within the species (if not even beyond).

If the kinship relation is the basis for social species (as it seems to be), then our species would not exist without it. In other words, because humans are universally social, we can conclude that we universally (or almost universally) carry the kinship/altruism gene. Just like we all contain the genes for walking on two feet.

This also provides a compelling explanation for the (fairly widespread) altruism that humans experience toward other mammals. The genetic shift favoring altruism may have happened long before Homo was even around, and it may still be willing to extend itself beyond species lines. What do genes care, after all, for species? At any rate, we know that we share upwards of 95% of our genetic material with most other mammals. Would it be so surprising if the kinship/altruistic gene were among them?

Indeed, it seems likely that at least some kinship material is common to mammals: at a minimum, mammals nurse their young, so that some parental altruism is necessarily present in mammalian species.

For the most part, we have again gone in circles. If this continues for another post, I am likely to suggest that we "agree to disagree" and wait for some other interesting topic to catch our mutual attention. ;)

We may as well end this.

I agree that this kind of behavior requires "segregation," but I disagree that it can be called "altruism." We both agree that for "high cost" interactions to be effective, the gene/individual must receive a "return" on the "investment." But this is not altruism. Nothing you can say will convince me that it is, because it is a simple matter of how I believe the term should be (and is generally) understood.

Of course the gene must recieve a return on the investment, that how you admitted it must be. The individual will have a phenotypic altruism, even though the gene will be selfish, otherwise natural selection would eliminate the gene and the individuals carrying nearly immediately.

We will never find altruism on the level of genes, but we will find that genes express altruistic phenotypes when placed in the right environment, and that is the only thing we can hope for in looking for biological altruism.

Yes, but "I" am necessarily a member of the group "things like us." Reciprocity need not be strictly between A and B--it may also be between A, B, and the broader group of which A and B are parts. In other words, if both of our contributions add to a public good from which we both expect (generally) to benefit, the relation is essentially the same as if we make a simple exchange.

Think of it this way. All such relations produce a public good. In the simplest case, the "public" consists of exactly two individuals.

I am speaking of all situations where the altruistic individual suffers a loss in fitness, not a gain. That which gains is the other individual or the outside group, however, if that individual is carries another competing gene, then the behavior was costly to both the altruistic individual and the underlying gene.

And that cannot happen.

Sure it does!

Surely you understand the principles of family resemblance? Of broader ethnic resemblance? Since you have been all too eager to include behaviors as "tags" before, I suppose you should also admit customs, manners, dialects, languages, no?

That is an obvious example segregated altruism, only with a far more complex tag than a simple "green beard". It is so complex that it is almost certainly what you consider to be the measure of kinship. What we use as our "greenbeard" tags of segregation are indications of behaviors and beliefs that we approve of, in other words, we identify and segregate ourselves with those that resemble us.

Like I said, what you are calling kinship relation, I am calling greenbeard segregation. The trouble is that, if we segregate based on kin because they have a strong possibility of genetic similarity, yet we use such broad behavioral traits, we will undoubtedly make constant errors and help others unrelated to us, and loose the segregation that is necessary.

However, if we "learn" to recognize some genetic expressions are markers for the gene, then there is no go between of looking for kin, and we are far less likely to make a mistake.

No, all he has to do is show up at a soup kitchen to receive help. What "cultural standards" are you talking about?

Our cultural standards as to what constitutes an upstanding contributing member of society. Why do most people shun the idea of euthenasia or suicide? Why won't people give money directly to bums? Why are the unemployed marginalized? Because we have been ingrained with cultural standards concerning how one should fit within society, and we are far less inclined to help someone who doesn't fulfill those standards.

We agree that parents behave altruistically toward their children. Does this mean that parents should cave to every demand their child makes? Or does it mean that parents should behave according to what they believe (in their sincere, if fallible, judgment) is "best" for the child?

If I remember correctly, you seem to believe that a great deal of parenting is the embedding of unnatural cultural baggage.

But I am not implying that children should be in charge of their own well-being, but I also think the raising of children is a very important part of their transition to an adult. I don't know what transition the bum is making.

allways thought I had a slight tendency towards anarcho-communism (communism led me to anarchism)

Anarcho-communists seek to build a society based upon a decentralised federation of autonomous communes and a moneyless 'gift economy'. The movement first emerged in the late 19th century and has had a large influence particularly in Spain, Italy and Russia. Key thikers include Peter Kropotkin and Errico Malatesta.

Anarcho-Communist

85%
Anarcha-Feminist

70%
Anarcho-Primitivist

55%
Anarcho-Syndicalist

50%
Christian Anarchist

30%
Anarcho-Capitalist

15%

Of course the gene must recieve a return on the investment, that how you admitted it must be. The individual will have a phenotypic altruism, even though the gene will be selfish, otherwise natural selection would eliminate the gene and the individuals carrying nearly immediately.I mispoke in saying "gene/individual" just now. What I should have said was "individual." The gene is always selfish. It favors "altruism" when it makes the individual behave altruistically in a systematic manner, not only by accident.

However, if we "learn" to recognize some genetic expressions are markers for the gene, then there is no go between of looking for kin, and we are far less likely to make a mistake.Except that we open up the possibility of "impostors" who develop the highly advantageous adaptation of growing a green beard without behaving altruistically. There is no "perfect" system, but the advantage of the kinship relation is (for the last time--seriously, circling again!) that the relationship between the altruistic gene and the kinship group is internal, not external.

Our cultural standards as to what constitutes an upstanding contributing member of society. Why do most people shun the idea of euthenasia or suicide?We're not talking about "most" people who "shun" the idea of euthanasia. We're talking about me, with a friend whom I know well, and whom in my best judgment is not in his right mind. If, under other circumstances, he were to make a rational decision about his life-prospects (as with a terminal disease), I would give him my assistance. But you cannot tell me that I am not an altruist when my refusing his request is based on my honest judgment about what is best for him read through my sincere concern for my friend.

You are trying to twist the meanings of words. Altruism has never meant "doing what others ask." It has always meant "doing good unselfishly," and "good" is an inevitably normative term.

As for everyone else and their feelings about euthanasia, these judgments are no doubt guided by a variety of prejudices and even psychological defenses. I do not on this basis alone, however, make a judgment as to the altruism of the people involved. Some of them, whose reasoning involves such prejudices as "God hates suicide and I must do God's work," do not behave altruistically--as you say, they merely attempt to impose their view of the world on other people. Others, whose honest (if mistaken) reasoning is that no one in her right mind would ever rationally choose suicide, behave altruistically: they want what is best for the person--they just happen to be mistaken (in my opinion and, I think, yours) as to what that "best" really is.

Why won't people give money directly to bums?I have explained this to death already. If you still don't get it, it can be through no fault of mine.

Why are the unemployed marginalized?Because most people are assholes. We have been talking here about an ideal type, however, in order to get a better idea of her character--that is, we have been describing the attitudes of an altruist, and I do not think that any altruist "marginalizes" the unemployed. She may still refuse direct handouts because she feels that these will not be helpful... but she may at the same time support food stamps and other programs that she feels will be helpful.

You seem to think that doing good requires no judgment. I cannot agree with that proposition.

Because we have been ingrained with cultural standards concerning how one should fit within society, and we are far less inclined to help someone who doesn't fulfill those standards.Maybe you are. I am not, and I suspect that anyone worthy of the name "altruist" is not either.

If I remember correctly, you seem to believe that a great deal of parenting is the embedding of unnatural cultural baggage.Today's parenting, to be sure! Proper parenting, certainly not.

I don't know what transition the bum is making.Does it matter? The altruist helps without conditions: while she may hope that her assistance will help an individual change his situation, she does not make her assistance conditional on any such change.

AnarchyeL, this is going nowhere (I admit that it has been stalled for about 10-12 posts).

Its seems that we are both describing the same thing, with you considering it complex kin relation, and me considering complex greenbeard selection.

I do think that you would be closer to agreeing that altruism, on a very wide scope, must depend on external phenotypes and our ability to distinguish those that are similar to us (whether it be motivated by discerning related individuals or discerning a particular genetic trait). In other words, in order for us to be good on a large scale, we have to be able to appear good and accurately percieve goodness in others, otherwise it would break down.

I do think that you would be closer to agreeing that altruism, on a very wide scope, must depend on external phenotypes and our ability to distinguish those that are similar to us (whether it be motivated by discerning related individuals or discerning a particular genetic trait).Yes.[/QUOTE]In other words, in order for us to be good on a large scale, we have to be able to appear good and accurately percieve goodness in others, otherwise it would break down.[/QUOTE]No.

Our difference boils down to the fact that you assume an "altruistic" gene compels altruistic behavior, while I think that it merely favors altruistic behavior without compelling it.

If you are right, and everyone who carries the altruistic gene is an altruist, then clearly it follows that we should only help those who appear good--because anyone who does not must not be an altruist.

If I am right, and the altruistic gene does NOT make everyone who carries it an altruist, then it performs LESS WELL THAN IT COULD if it only helps others who appear good: it misses a lot of gene-carriers who might have been helped.

Thus, the kinship relations is a MUCH MORE EFFICIENT version of altruism UNDER THE CONDITION that not all people who carry the gene actually behave altruistically. The question of "scope" is irrelevent, moreover, if the gene actually permeates the society--if, in other words, it is one of the defining characteristics of the species. (A point that you have totally ignored over the last several posts, so I don't suppose you'll pick it up now.)

If all humans (or even almost all humans) carry the gene for altruism (which may be as simple as the genes that promote feelings of compassion and pity--emotions that seem to be fairly universal)--then no further distinction is needed besides "is human." We don't need to tell some humans from other humans.

So this whole disagreement comes down to one question: do you think everyone who carries the altruistic gene is an altruist? Or, to put it another way, is altruistic behavior completely determined genetically?

The other question, following on the above, is this: are the altruistic drives, the emotional states favoring (but never compelling) altruism, present in only some people (like a blood type), or common in all people (like the sense of smell)?

How do you accept that we must discern phenotypic similarities, yet deny that we do not have to appear good or percieve goodness?

Our difference boils down to the fact that you assume an "altruistic" gene compels altruistic behavior, while I think that it merely favors altruistic behavior without compelling it.

I have said several times that we are not genetically determined, to say so would completely undermine my argument that the cultural, environmental factors that also govern our behaviors should not be dismissed.

However, if there is any correlation between a gene and an altruistic phenotype, evolution will exploit the correlation.

If you are right, and everyone who carries the altruistic gene is an altruist, then clearly it follows that we should only help those who appear good--because anyone who does not must not be an altruist.

Once again, evolution does not create completely universal behavior, it deals with proportions and frequencies.

If I am right, and the altruistic gene does NOT make everyone who carries it an altruist, then it performs LESS WELL THAN IT COULD if it only helps others who appear good: it misses a lot of gene-carriers who might have been helped.

Correct, no method of segregation would be perfect. However, it is not a matter of helping fellow gene-holders, that will happen even if it is not perfect, it is a matter of not helping the other gene.

Thus, the kinship relations is a MUCH MORE EFFICIENT version of altruism UNDER THE CONDITION that not all people who carry the gene actually behave altruistically. The question of "scope" is irrelevent, moreover, if the gene actually permeates the society--if, in other words, it is one of the defining characteristics of the species. (A point that you have totally ignored over the last several posts, so I don't suppose you'll pick it up now.)

I have ignored the point that the gene permeates the society because allele frequencies are subject to change over time. There was a point where the gene did not exist in a large proportion of our ancestors, and there is a potential point in the future where it does not exist in a large proportion of our ancestors. Evolution is a method of change, and if you only focus on one very minute point in time, you fail to study it in full. It has been my point all along that the gene would not have permeated the society, nor would it be maintained in the society if we had not developed the machinery to segregate ourselves.

As for your central point, how are you so sure that kinship selection would be any more accurate than greenbeard? Why do you assume that we would have any more ability in recognizing very distant relatives than recognizing specific genetic tags?

Why can't we assume that greenbeards (who look for specific phenotypic markers) would help a higher proportion of altruists than would kin selecting (who go by general phenotypic similarity) altruists?

If all humans (or even almost all humans) carry the gene for altruism (which may be as simple as the genes that promote feelings of compassion and pity--emotions that seem to be fairly universal)--then no further distinction is needed besides "is human." We don't need to tell some humans from other humans.

The key word in there is obviously "fairly." Anytime there is a proportion that possesses a specific allele and recieves an advantage from that allele, the proportion is going to grow. Since you said "fairly universal" we can assume that a proportion of the population has a particular allele, and gaining help simply because they are human, causes them to have an advantage because of that allele. Therefore their proportion of the aggregate population will grow and altruism would be unsustainable.

In order to counter this, there must be increasing ability to segregate, ie improved empathy, deduction, and communicative skills.

The other question, following on the above, is this: are the altruistic drives, the emotional states favoring (but never compelling) altruism, present in only some people (like a blood type), or common in all people (like the sense of smell)?

I am positive that there is a remote population that does not possess genetic tendencies towards compassion or empathy. However, I would say that it is our mental faculties of empathy, deduction, and communication (which are far more advanced than any other creature) that have allowed us, over tens of thousands of years to marginalize said individuals so greatly.

How do you accept that we must discern phenotypic similarities, yet deny that we do not have to appear good or percieve goodness?Because I think that the relevant similarities have nothing to do with being good.

Correct, no method of segregation would be perfect. However, it is not a matter of helping fellow gene-holders, that will happen even if it is not perfect, it is a matter of not helping the other gene.Right, which is accomplished by not helping creatures who are not related to me.

I have ignored the point that the gene permeates the society because allele frequencies are subject to change over time. There was a point where the gene did not exist in a large proportion of our ancestors, and there is a potential point in the future where it does not exist in a large proportion of our ancestors. Evolution is a method of change, and if you only focus on one very minute point in time, you fail to study it in full. It has been my point all along that the gene would not have permeated the society, nor would it be maintained in the society if we had not developed the machinery to segregate ourselves.Yes, but you have not answered why, in the ancient past, segregation by kinship group would not have been sufficient to create a new species that outperformed its competitors for a particular ecological niche.

Ordinarily, if one group (even if it starts out small) possesses a very highly successful adaptation, that group may outcompete others to the point that the others no longer exist: they become extinct. My argument has been simply this: that kinship altruism was such a successful adaptation that the non-altruistic ancestors of Homo sapiens are by now long extinct.

As for your central point, how are you so sure that kinship selection would be any more accurate than greenbeard? Why do you assume that we would have any more ability in recognizing very distant relatives than recognizing specific genetic tags?First, as I have said before, the kinship relation is a causal one: the beneficiaries of altruism are likely to carry the gene because they are related to altruists.

Secondly, it is very easy to recognize distant relatives if the adaptation permeates the species... or do you have trouble telling the difference between human beings and chimpanzees?

Why can't we assume that greenbeards (who look for specific phenotypic markers) would help a higher proportion of altruists than would kin selecting (who go by general phenotypic similarity) altruists?We might be able to, IF there is a very high correspondence between having a green beard and having the gene for altruism. In some species, this may be the case... I do not think it is the case for humans. I think that most people who carry the gene do not act on it (at least in our society)--and since you agree that among humans these actions should be the basis for segregation, we would be "segregating" a very lot of people who carry the gene.

The key word in there is obviously "fairly." Anytime there is a proportion that possesses a specific allele and recieves an advantage from that allele, the proportion is going to grow. Since you said "fairly universal" we can assume that a proportion of the population has a particular allele, and gaining help simply because they are human, causes them to have an advantage because of that allele. Therefore their proportion of the aggregate population will grow and altruism would be unsustainable.No, you're missing the point.

Even as you insist that you do not suppose a 1-1 correspondence between the gene and altruistic behavior, it constantly pops up as an unstated (but necessary) premise for your argument. I am arguing that most people who have the gene do not act on it, which means that most people who carry the gene are in the same position as those who do not: they receive benefits without benefiting anyone in return. Non-gene-carriers get no advantage over them. The only ones who "lose" are the actual altruists--and as long as their action has a better chance of helping a carrier than a non-carrier (which is satisfied so long as their are more carriers than non-carriers identified as "kin," a very likely hypothesis), the gene benefits.

If you drop your assumption that altruism-gene-carriers are actually altruists, maybe you will see what I mean.

I am positive that there is a remote population that does not possess genetic tendencies towards compassion or empathy.How can you be so "positive"?

However, I would say that it is our mental faculties of empathy, deduction, and communication (which are far more advanced than any other creature) that have allowed us, over tens of thousands of years to marginalize said individuals so greatly.Well, if that "distant population" does not possess empathy, then I suspect that they are not Homo sapiens at all. You are correct in stating that "we"--all humans--have a much more "advanced" sense of empathy than any other creature: it is precisely this sort of thing that defines us, that makes us all kin with respect to the genetic material favoring altruistic behavior.

Soheran, if you'd be interested in something of an attractive "compromise" position between our two, you should read the novel Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy. Her depiction of future society is considered among the most significant feminist utopias: roughly anarcho-communist, hers is a deeply democratic federation of villages that at first glance appears to live simplistically, close to the Earth--but which turns out to have developed technology in a radically different fashion than what we know today. People may study specialized occupations as scientists or artists--and they may change at any time--but everyone must participate in food production and defense, no matter how "important" or "brilliant" they may seem to be.

I have my students read it for a course in democratic political theory, and they usually find it quite interesting--although they inevitably resist some of the more radical proposals, such as men breast-feeding and babies being grown in a "brooder" rather than a womb.

You might like it. :)

You judged accurately.

You scored as Anarcho-Primitivist

Anarcho-Primitivism questions not only the state and capitalism but all the institutions which make up 'civilisation' including technology. It is perhaps the most recent development within the anarchist movement and key thinkers include John Zerzan.

Anarcho-Capitalist

90%
Anarcho-Primitivist

90%
Anarcho-Communist

70%
Anarcha-Feminist

70%
Anarcho-Syndicalist

55%
Christian Anarchist

0%

It hit me last night. I'm an anarcho-capitalis, not a libertarian. To be more accurate, I believe that it is the next logical step. All of those other ideas were quite elaborate and far fetched. All Anarcho-capitalism requires to occur is for people to realise that there is no difference between a really large corporation, and a country. There really is no difference between money, and shares. All that needs to happen is for a company to reward customers for buying things using their shares. Then people will realise that the government is just an innefficient company. Unfortunately for the government, thanks to democracy, it will have it's power reduced in proportion to the faith the people have in it's use. Soon corporations will probably offer 'citizenship' or the won't be such a notion, and the corporate land will be considered soveriegn. By that stage most people will probably abandon the governments of the world, unless the governments can compete economically with other economic entities (probably not). Those that adapt will probably go into insurance or banking.

I don't think that this will be an ideal world. I think in most ways it will be worse than this one. But I still believe that is how it will probably end up. At least progress will probably be accelerated. It'd be cool, in a 'cyberpunkish' way, I suppose. Probably get used to it.

Wewt for Anarcho-Capitalism.

Call me cynical, but I don't truly believe in 'dystopia' any more than I do 'utopia'. Everything is just a shitty grey which you have to learn to like, lest you remain in a permanent state of discontent. Actually, I look forward to AC, it'd be like playing Shadowrun in real life. I wonder if Orcs will mutate from the human gene strand and form an underground...?

Because I think that the relevant similarities have nothing to do with being good.

Then what do the similarities have to do with, remembering that distant relatives are nearly inseperable to non-relatives?

Yes, but you have not answered why, in the ancient past, segregation by kinship group would not have been sufficient to create a new species that outperformed its competitors for a particular ecological niche.

Ordinarily, if one group (even if it starts out small) possesses a very highly successful adaptation, that group may outcompete others to the point that the others no longer exist: they become extinct. My argument has been simply this: that kinship altruism was such a successful adaptation that the non-altruistic ancestors of Homo sapiens are by now long extinct.

Yes, I have answered why. I have said multiple times that the advantages to a particular gene of altruistic behavior is diminished and eventually reversed when segregation breaks down, and the ability to segregate distant relation is very shaky at best.

We might be able to, IF there is a very high correspondence between having a green beard and having the gene for altruism. In some species, this may be the case... I do not think it is the case for humans. I think that most people who carry the gene do not act on it (at least in our society)--and since you agree that among humans these actions should be the basis for segregation, we would be "segregating" a very lot of people who carry the gene.

You are half correct. We would be able to if there is a much higher correlation between the marker and the gene than the marker and the gene's competitor. It doesn't matter if many altruists are excluded from help, it only matters that the proportion of the benefit attributed to the phenotype that goes to fellow altruists outweighs the costs. In other words, as long as it is extremely likely that a fellow carrier of the gene recieves the benefit, high cost altruism can succeed.

Your conception of the altruism I am talking about is very narrow. I see our altruistic tendencies as much more a acceptance of environmental factors. We have genetic dispositions to identify and accept what is good behavior from experience, rather than formulating all from simple a priori emotions. In other words, racism could serve as a marker for altruism, if it was imprinted into a person's phenotype as such.

If you drop your assumption that altruism-gene-carriers are actually altruists, maybe you will see what I mean.

It is no more necessary that gene carriers exhibit the particular altruistic phenotype for the gene to succeed under greenbeard segregation than kin selection. The only necessary assumption is that the marker will enable altruists to further distinguish the carriers of the gene from the non-carriers.

Then what do the similarities have to do with, remembering that distant relatives are nearly inseperable to non-relatives?You're not paying attention.

When the gene first "appears," it only considers very near relatives. But this very consideration is part of becoming a new species: by developing kinship altruism, this group is able to outperform its competitors into existence.

Now it no longer needs to worry about "relatives" within the species, since the species is defined by its altruism. That is, I believe, approximately the position we are in today.

I have said multiple times that the advantages to a particular gene of altruistic behavior is diminished and eventually reversed when segregation breaks down, and the ability to segregate distant relation is very shaky at best.Okay, let's play this out.

Assume, for the moment, that the altruistic gene is so universal to the species that "segregation" is not necessary. Now suppose that by a further mutation, someone loses the gene: there are now non-altruists in our midst!!

It is possible, as you suppose, that this will be a particularly advantageous adaptation, because these people will gain without losing. (I don't agree, and I think that if you consider accurately the fact that altruists only help those who are worse off themselves and the fact that not all gene-carriers are altruists, you will see why.) For the moment, let us grant you this. The number of non-altruists increases.

At worst, we should arrive at some equilibrium between the two: if there are too many non-altruists, there will be too many claimants and not enough altruists to help them, and they will lose their advantage. Since they are non-altruists, we can safely assume that they will not care for their own children--and with no one else to do it for them, their children will perish. The numbers of non-altruists will necessarily diminish.

Think of it like any species that grows to the point that it cannot support itself on its food supply. Its population grows to that point, and then it shrinks... and the plants or animals upon which it preys contract and expand in inverse proportion.

We might expect the same with respect to altruism: it maintains an equilibrium with the non-altruistic gene, both of which survive. There is no particular reason to believe that the altruistic gene must develop a variety of segregation that would "improve" this situation. So long as the gene survives, its adaptations are sufficient to its environment--this is precisely the reason that we so frequently see equilibria rather than dominance in natural ecosystems. To argue that the species must "improve" when this is not necessary to its survival is to presume a teleology that evolution does not support.

In other words, as long as it is extremely likely that a fellow carrier of the gene recieves the benefit, high cost altruism can succeed.That is exactly what I said.

Have you guys ever stopped to consider whether there is even a gene that promotes altruism? Couldn't altruism be the result of natural human social development?

Have you guys ever stopped to consider whether there is even a gene that promotes altruism? Couldn't altruism be the result of natural human social development?Perhaps the only thing we agree on is that a social species as we know it depends in the first place on some kind of altruistic behavior--even if only that of parents toward children.

Of course, YDKM would probably allow that his version of "altruism"--people mutually helping each other--could develop by social rather than genetic mechanism. I would agree, except that I do not see this behavior as altruistic so much as reciprocal. Exchange relations probably do develop, in my opinion, more as an aspect of culture than genetics.

You're not paying attention.

When the gene first "appears," it only considers very near relatives. But this very consideration is part of becoming a new species: by developing kinship altruism, this group is able to outperform its competitors into existence.

Now it no longer needs to worry about "relatives" within the species, since the species is defined by its altruism. That is, I believe, approximately the position we are in today.

I am paying attention, and all that could be said for greenbeard selection. I just don't think that kin selection could account for the pervasiveness of altruism. The proportion of altruists would shrink once kinship selection reached a distance required to permit the pervasiveness of the altruistic gene.

We might expect the same with respect to altruism: it maintains an equilibrium with the non-altruistic gene, both of which survive. There is no particular reason to believe that the altruistic gene must develop a variety of segregation that would "improve" this situation. So long as the gene survives, its adaptations are sufficient to its environment--this is precisely the reason that we so frequently see equilibria rather than dominance in natural ecosystems. To argue that the species must "improve" when this is not necessary to its survival is to presume a teleology that evolution does not support.

I completely agree on everything you said here.

There is most likely an equilibrium between the altruistic gene and the non-altruistic gene, with a cycle depending on the effects of the phenotypes on the population as a whole.

Also evolution doesn't work on "must," there is no purpose to its actions. Evolution works by taking what happens by chance and taking the best results and running with them.

So the altruistic gene does not develop segregation because it must improve its situation, rather the altruistic gene develops segregation out of sheer luck and its situation improves as a result. Furthermore, the present equilibrium with a vast majority possessing altruistic traits would not be supported by a manner of segregation with no opportunity for evolutionary improvement.

That is exactly what I said.

Yes, and that is why it doesn't matter whether many altruists are left out.

Perhaps the only thing we agree on is that a social species as we know it depends in the first place on some kind of altruistic behavior--even if only that of parents toward children.

We now agree that segregation is necessary for the pervasiveness of a gene that manifests an altruistic phenotype.

We agree that cultural traits can serve as markers for segregation.

We agree that kinship relation can exist on small levels.

And yes, we agree that for social order to be beneficial to a species there must be a evolutionary advantage achieved through group behavior over individual behavior, and this is generally achieved through altruism.

Of course, YDKM would probably allow that his version of "altruism"--people mutually helping each other--could develop by social rather than genetic mechanism. I would agree, except that I do not see this behavior as altruistic so much as reciprocal. Exchange relations probably do develop, in my opinion, more as an aspect of culture than genetics.

I think exchange relations could be both cultural or genetic, but that it has nothing to do with altruism.

I just say that my "version" requires the gene to help itself, and this means not mutual help, but exclusive help. There is no mutual benefit in all cases, especially at the individual level, but there is a distinct advantage at the group level when non-altruists do not bog it down.

Have you guys ever stopped to consider whether there is even a gene that promotes altruism? Couldn't altruism be the result of natural human social development?

I don't think it is solely genetic or social.

I think that what we see of our cultural development is sort of a meshing of social and genetic factors. I believe that much of our genetic altruistic tendencies are "monkey see, monkey do" sort of things, where we are ingrained to recognize types of behaviors and adopt them as altruistic. So while the certain behaviors may be cultural phenomenon, I would say that there is a true altruistic drive behind it.