Climate Koch up.

[pErvinalia]

Seth, no one (other than you, it seems) takes social Darwinism seriously. Stop proffering it like it is an intelligent thing to say.

[Seth]

Seth, no one (other than you, it seems) takes social Darwinism seriously. Stop proffering it like it is an intelligent thing to say.

The only pertinent question is whether or not social Darwinism takes YOU seriously.

Adapt or die.

[Animavore]

Seth, no one (other than you, it seems) takes social Darwinism seriously. Stop proffering it like it is an intelligent thing to say.

The only pertinent question is whether or not social Darwinism takes YOU seriously.

Adapt or die.

That's not social Darwinism. That's just Darwinism. Social Darwinism is the idea of deliberately engineering society based on perceived Darwinian principles, actually artificial selection for humans.

[Blind groper]

Human evolution is not based on cut throat Darwinism, anyway. Our success is partly due to technology and partly due to social cooperation. The social side is very important. Social cooperation includes caring for weaker members of the tribe, which is the opposite of cut throat Darwinism. Such caring is vital to our continued success as a species.

[Seth]

Human evolution is not based on cut throat Darwinism, anyway. Our success is partly due to technology and partly due to social cooperation. The social side is very important. Social cooperation includes caring for weaker members of the tribe, which is the opposite of cut throat Darwinism. Such caring is vital to our continued success as a species.

Why? Please submit your evidence that "caring" for the weaker members of society is "vital" to our success as a species.

I'd say the opposite is true. When you allow the weak to survive and breed, you compromise the Darwinian future of the species.

[klr]

Human evolution is not based on cut throat Darwinism, anyway. Our success is partly due to technology and partly due to social cooperation. The social side is very important. Social cooperation includes caring for weaker members of the tribe, which is the opposite of cut throat Darwinism. Such caring is vital to our continued success as a species.

Why? Please submit your evidence that "caring" for the weaker members of society is "vital" to our success as a species.

I'd say the opposite is true. When you allow the weak to survive and breed, you compromise the Darwinian future of the species.

Who says the future has to be "Darwinian" then? Are you a Social Darwinist?

[Seth]

Human evolution is not based on cut throat Darwinism, anyway. Our success is partly due to technology and partly due to social cooperation. The social side is very important. Social cooperation includes caring for weaker members of the tribe, which is the opposite of cut throat Darwinism. Such caring is vital to our continued success as a species.

Why? Please submit your evidence that "caring" for the weaker members of society is "vital" to our success as a species.

I'd say the opposite is true. When you allow the weak to survive and breed, you compromise the Darwinian future of the species.

Who says the future has to be "Darwinian" then?

Natural selection says so.

Are you a Social Darwinist?

Sure. Adapt or die.

[Blind groper]

Seth

If you check early human history, or else various human societies in the modern world, you will quickly see that we live in social groups, and our methods of developing food and other goods require social cooperation.

You can make a case for eugenics, or for other barbaric practices, as a form of Darwinism. But that is not the way most of us operate. Most of us care for other people. This is good, because most people at some stage become sick, or otherwise helpless, and need other people to carry them for a time. When they are healthy again, and strong, they do their share of helping others who need help.

Look at someone like Stephen Hawking, who is confined to a wheelchair, and needs waiting on hand and foot just to survive. Yet he is someone who contributes to our species most powerfully. Allowing the helpless to die is not the human way, and it is definitely not the best way.

[JimC]

Seth

If you check early human history, or else various human societies in the modern world, you will quickly see that we live in social groups, and our methods of developing food and other goods require social cooperation.

You can make a case for eugenics, or for other barbaric practices, as a form of Darwinism. But that is not the way most of us operate. Most of us care for other people. This is good, because most people at some stage become sick, or otherwise helpless, and need other people to carry them for a time. When they are healthy again, and strong, they do their share of helping others who need help.

Look at someone like Stephen Hawking, who is confined to a wheelchair, and needs waiting on hand and foot just to survive. Yet he is someone who contributes to our species most powerfully. Allowing the helpless to die is not the human way, and it is definitely not the best way.

[macdoc]

tis a feature of big brains and carried on knowledge like most higher primates. We have to care for our young for a long period as they develop and knowledge is passed forward.

there are always freeloaders...

they are always voted off the lifeboat first.

[Jason]

tis a feature of big brains and carried on knowledge like most higher primates. We have to care for our young for a long period as they develop and knowledge is passed forward.

there are always freeloaders...

they are always voted off the lifeboat first.

Exactly. Once the genes and the knowledge base is passed on you're only worth something, in a Darwinian sense, while you can still hunt and gather for the tribe.

[JimC]

tis a feature of big brains and carried on knowledge like most higher primates. We have to care for our young for a long period as they develop and knowledge is passed forward.

there are always freeloaders...

they are always voted off the lifeboat first.

Exactly. Once the genes and the knowledge base is passed on you're only worth something, in a Darwinian sense, while you can still hunt and gather for the tribe.

Or teach the young ones how to nap flints, which is the ancient equivalent of teaching how to solve quadratic equations...

[Jason]

I thought I included that? The parents do that. Even so, the usefulness of someone over, say, 40 would be reduced to 10 years, perhaps 12, before the children are apprenticed.

[pErvinalia]

They should grind the old people up as food for the young people.


definition: "old" is way older than me....

[Jason]

I made a suicide pact that comes to term when I'm 50, so I'm not worried.