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Should the world adopt a Darwinist policy?
Should the world and it's inhabitants begin to fend for it's self such as the way of nature, or should we nurture the and care for everything just out of human kindness.
I support nature. Nature's cycles gives everyone a chance. After Spring, with all of its bright, cheerful, colors, nature gives Goth kids a chance in the Fall.
If the weak are allowed to die off, nature would eventually give them a chance. If the strong are too stupid to keep at least a few nerds alive to solve problems, they will eventually die off and nerds would get their day in the sun. If the nerds don't keep enough cheerleaders around, then the geeks will take over. ;)
Nature doesn't let the weak flourish during good times. The kind chieftain would attract the most fertile women. Only the strongest could afford to be kind, so the weak and cruel get less offspring. Kindness goes hand in hand with strength. It is a driving force in development.
Well sure be kind. I'm not some heartless bastard saying go around and steal wheelchairs, bully nerds, and shoot all the deaf people.
I'm mostly saying that we shouldn't be kind to a fault. That fault would be as little as spending a cent that could go to better advancements in the society that does't need help.
Things "don't need help" merely because they give you something in return, but there are others with more pressing demands than your own. Malaria has killed approximately half of all humans who ever lived. Charities stopping malaria are effective, but "need help".
The problem is that you indeed can steal wheelchairs and shoot deaf people, but by not helping those charities you are doing worse.
Sure, you can be selfish, enlightened self-interest alone would carry the world a long way, but the moment you apply a higher standard (such as proposing a policy for the world) you run into problems.
In the society where people fend for themselves Malaria would be an example of something it's socially acceptable to help out in. This would be to prevent the whole population from dying of a diseases that could eventually reach the individual.
Nature produces adaptations that look to the best possible result despite rationality or sacrifice. Sometimes we are kind despite rational self-interest, because it is the way we can best spread and maintain our population in this specific environment.
The fly that distributes malaria depends on a warm environment and can't reach north America or Europe, places that would have the best resources to stop it.
By supporting the weak, we allow it to flourish and grow weaker as a society. If we let it die on it's own or thrive on it's own we will grow stronger as a society.
Says the person who copies Adolf Hitler. Why don't you get a gun and kill these weaker elements of society if they are such a bother? What's that? It is not legal? Case closed. People have rights including the disabled.
The point I'm trying to argue is that it shouldn't be legal to let our weaknesses thrive.
I wouldn't kill the weak people, they would die of their own weaknesses and the next generation would lack those weaknesses.
I'm not bothered by people with diseases and ailments, that are suffering but I imagine how much better off we'd be as a whole if that diseases that they have had already died off.
True. They do have rights. Their rights shouldn't be that we have to aid them. If a mother knows she has Fatal Familial Insomnia we should not try help her get to a point where she can give birth to more people who will have it.
Rights also go two directions. She has the right to try, we have the right to not help her.
I'm not saying make helping people illegal, that's barbaric. I'm saying stop struggling to keep these unfit people alive, when if they'd simply go the next generation wouldn't have to deal with those issues.
So I should die because I am disabled? I have agreed to be sterilized and not pass on my genetics, so what is the problem? Be careful who you say that shit to. You just may be calling for their death. Answer both of my questions.
You continue to twist my words. I never say kill. I say let be killed.
The problem would be that you'll be taking up space in a society of scarcity if you're not contributing. I don't know what's wrong with you, I don't know if you help or not. But I believe that whatever your issue is that the public should not be forced to help you.
Same fucking difference you fascist piece of shit. To allow the death of is to kill by omission. Now send me a gun so I can kill myself since disabled people do not have the right to live.
Okay Ismalila let me draw the line here. You wrongfully insult me again. You twist my words again. I will ban you from every debate I make.
I'm here to have civil arguments with people, not read the whines of some little girl who can't handle other opinions. I initially thought you to be passionate. I then thought you were either a troll or really an idiot. I am beginning not to care. I tried to simply leave your arguments be, knowing you'd whine, I tried to be civil with you and discourage name calling. All vain attempts. I won't put up with the abuse.
As for the argument. Killing by omission. I think not, allowing a person that is doomed anyway to die seems completely morally sound to me.
In regards to you killing yourself or your right to live. I continually say, in at least three other posts, that you have your right to life. We just have our right to not help you, and that you should be treated just like all the able bodied people with no special treatments. Anything you need to survive you can do it on your own.
I recently began reading a book about Frederick Douglas. As you probably know, he was an ex slave, who got as far as he did in life on his own merits completely.Without the right to read, he learned, without the time to write he learned, with every odd against him. he is a person I would say is truly Darwinesque. he had the biggest disabilities of the time. He was Black, he was a slave, and he in the south for a while. he over came all of that not only with no help, but with people seeking his demise.
Perfectly true. No one in this world should be able to tell you otherwise, but we shouldn't have to help you. I don't think you're reading this part. The government shouldn't make special devices for disabled people, devices that'll cost money. They should be birthed, and allowed to live as normally a life as they can without tons of assistance and all sorts of costing aids.
Well if the people who go over reports checks all arguments between both parties, I'd advise against it seeing as how your comments are pretty negative but in any regard I can't stop you so, good luck.
The average strength of the individuals in the group is far from the strength of the group. Only by having others to rely on can obstacles be overcome.
Furthermore, a weak society is better than an extinct society. Would you rather have Africa be a free breeding ground for viruses? Would you salute a nuclear first strike?
Consider a genetically fat person, can't run as fast as a skinny person, so they might be seen as weak in a situation where they need to run, such as in Africa with lions. Up north where it's cold however, blubber is a nice thing to have.
Evolutionary Strength is the ability to adapt to changing conditions, if you eliminate the weak in a particular situation, you reduce the ability to adapt to new situations, which damages strength of society. Weak individuals in a society, are actually essential to it's long term strength.
Thats the thing through, a fat person in Africa would be an excellent trader to the north. They would know the people of Africa, and can travel well to the northern areas, hence despite needing extra protection against lions, he might be invaluable to society because of what would other wise be his weakness.
A skinny person in Antarctica might need society to make him more clothes or better ones, but he might be able to delivered messages better than anyone else. Diversity allows for specialization, which improves productivity and individual well being.
Also, if africa becomes cold, or the antarctic gets snow lions, who do you think is more likly to survive? By maintaining diversity, you maintain a greater robustness against changing conditions.
I am just about ready to give in. I won't be swayed. I still think, despite your feasible logic, that a world where people were more independent and if the people who needed others were left to die, that we'd grow stronger. But you win mostly because of your resolve.
Not to mention, I was practically alone over here, i probably account for 30 or so of these comments.
Morally we should help and care for others. In our life only the strongest will survive. By science the strongest animal survives. Stalin, Hitler, Napoleon, etc. They became strong by pushing past the weak. Helping the weak can hinder your chance to dominate or control territory. Great Britain was excellent at doing this. They were all around the world proving to the world that they are they strongest. Modern America is a good example. We are strong because of our feared military power. We became an imperial power and stepped on the weak to take the throne. I think we should care for others but science successfully proves me wrong.
Hey thanks. I came off as harsh in my opinion that the weaker people should not be aided, but I feel virtually the same as you on this topic.
If the strong get to be their strong selves and the weak make way, the strong will go on to get stronger and the weak will become less of a issue in the future.
No science doesn't prove you wrong, what allowed Brits and Americans to become empires?
The mere fact that they were a group which had mechanisms to care for the their own people allowed them to grow. Consider America, well we might of stomped on the native Americans, that would of been impossible if it wasn't for the medics which helped maintain a fighting force, the supply lines that moved resources around for those that might of been otherwise screwed, and so on. Empire requires a level of altruism of individuals, at least for the in-group.
Those counties when starting out, cared for their people, but other nations were either insignificant or targets. The nation grew stronger because they trampled others, not because they cared so much for the people in their own country. The civil was caused the stronger side to flourish and the weaker side to die out making the country stronger a as whole ultimately also.
They were only able to trample on others because they cared for their own.
Its not so much a question of aggression vs cooperation, but what mixture allows for the most well being. As the world moves from band societies, to tribes to kingdoms to nation-states, we have seen a complimentary altruism for the in group grow along side aggression or apathy for the out-group. However, as we move beyond nation states, we are finding that there is no out group.
So called "darwinist" policies are for the "other" and when applied internally to different segments of a interdependent people, the people as a whole suffer. It is only in the acquirement of others resources and those segments deemed to be one and the same with the others that it has ever shown itself beneficial to the ingroup.
What the countries did within themselves had nothing to do with how they trampled others. if they were caring to others, or fending for themselves, they were attacking another country so they couldn't do anything to the people in their country.
they were attacking the out group to defend the in group, why would an individual that has no problem with the out group do that? For example, my life didn't change when the twin towers fell, no one I personally knew died, why then would many people in a similar situation suddenly want to go to war? Altruism is a potential answer right? They felt empathy with those that lost their lives and their families which lost them, and thus decided to sacrifice for a war effort and risk their own lives, son's and daughters to the war.
Hmmm...., I see your point. I have confused weakness with useless. I do not mean physically weak. I mean useless people. People who prefer to sit on their ass waiting for a handout. I mean people who are a drain on society.
I'm not speaking about diseases that are airborne and we can't help getting, like the plague, measles and the like. I am speaking generally of letting people with hereditary ailments that hinder them, to die rather than helping them to procreate and pass on their ailment.
Okay I can agree with eugenics, but not letting them die. Everyone has the right to lie that is already born. Just sterilize the people who can pass on bad stuff. My main reason for refusing to have children is genetics.
Charity begins at home and should not go past the group of people that know you. If your church group knows you and they are willing to take care of you..., fine. But if not..., well then..., you're fucked ;)
The reason that works is because the people that know you know if you just hit a rough spot and need a helping hand or if you are just a lazy, leeching, good for nothing ;)
Caring for each other, working together, helping each other out is part of our way of survival. We work on a much more complex level than any other species but we are essentially the more intelligent ant. Who's to say that a dog feed dog society doesn't fit in the nature of the world? It is arguably the most efficient means of survival in effect on this planet.
Granted. All true, but we strive to keep people alive by paying for expensive medicines when if they would just die their ailment would begin to die with them.
People with Parkinson disease, they go on to have children with Parkinson keeping the disease present in humanity.
The only way to become more advanced medically is to essentially find cures for different diseases. We all benefit from cure for diseases because any of us can be exposed to disease, we all have an equal chance of doing so, and the more people survive, the more that live the better off our species. We do have the issue of over population but all methods of solving that dillema are all equally on the same footing of justification. I want us to work to curing diseases because if I were exposed or born with a disease I'd want to be cured, and if my son/daughter or family were exposed or born to disease id want to cure them. We strive as a species, the pointo of evolution is for the greater good of our species and we have evolved to such a level where nobody has to be left behind for our species to be better off. This appeals to empathy I realize this but our emotions as flawed as they are were naturally obtained to help our species, and as much as emotion can cloud our judgement, the logic that parallels empathy in this case only helps our species. If we reach a point of advancement in medical technology where we become immune to disease the stronger we are as a species benefitting our evolution.
Obviously. They are here let them stay, we shouldn't try so hard to keep them alive. People with retardation is an example. They are 'messed up' for lack of better words. Why struggle to keep them alive? When letting them go would be easier and better for the next generation. Not killing them, just letting them get killed.
You are fucking disgusting. People with retardation have the right to live. This is exactly how Nazi Germany began. Wow, I mean what the actual fuck? So are you saying that I should kill myself because I am disabled. Should AngieTheAntiTheist kill herself because she is disabled? What about her little boy? What about Stephan Hawking, the scientist? Should we all die just to fit your bigot fascist view? Honestly, do not bother me with your shit. I believe in freedom. That is what liberalism is all about. I have more respect for Hitler than I do for you, because at least Hitler did not hide his hateful intentions. WOW. This day and age, in a modern world.
The benefit of medical advancement these people offer to the whole of society outweighs whatever drain they might appear to be. Consider HIV, we can now kill that virus using nano-tubes and bee venom, and that is actually one step towards genetic engineering and cybernetics that needs to be made. Nano-particles and similar find their testing grounds in the sick, and do you really want to test that stuff out yourself?
I think the more proper question is why someone has to be dependent on others to survive, and if they have to be then why can't people do what they want in such a way that they provide for others without having to seek the permission of others.
The benefit of medical advancement these people offer to the whole of society outweighs whatever drain they might appear to be. Consider HIV, we can now kill that virus using nano-tubes and bee venom, and that is actually one step towards genetic engineering and cybernetics that needs to be made.
That would be best for diseases like malaria that can be uncontrollably contracted and we can't stop without eliminating another animal. But for H.I.V. if the 1st carries were not aloud to procreate and were not fostered we wouldn't need the medical advancements to be able to cure it.
I also want to add. I may be on the losing side, and being served up something fierce. But I finally got a debate on here that was very hot, and i got the controversy I seek. that said i actually do believe in my side, it's not just a publicity stunt.
The logistics of what you are proposing would very difficult, and would put more restrictions on those without diseases. A disease can spread undetected for a long time, and a policy would would effectively make the disease illegal would simply spurn an underground market. In order to actually implement such policy you would need a large budget(possibly more than the medical budget to care for those infected) and would also need to make despotic inroads on individual and collective rights.
We make pills to aid those who have H.I.V. What i meant is this. Forgot making the pills, and let those with the disease, mostly the 1st ones, die. The population would choose to get them selves and their partners tested, and would not have sex with anyone who has the disease. In letting the people stay alive we are letting the disease stay alive. Those people go on to then have children. I read recently that they can cure HIV in newborns or people who contracted it recently, but if they had never helped them to live, then they would have already burned out already.
Why would people become tested if they couldn't get pills if they are not getting tested already?
Is HIV not a deterrent enough?
Also, a person with HIV survives for years, more than enough time to spread it. Simply neglecting their needs rather than repressing them or maintaining them would increase reckless behavior, why not do drugs and possibly have someone steal your needle for their high if you can't get the pills you need to survive, might as well party till you drop, put yourself in situations with potential rapists, and so on.
I guess that they'd get tested to know. It's like getting tested for Fatal Familial Insomnia, we don't have a cure for it but it's kind of better to know. All of that about the rapists and the people doing bad behaviour. They would fit my weak profile and would be in the same category. If all of the people who do things that lead to HIV got HIV and died, their'd be less people who do those things.
The thing through is that through such reckless behavior it puts others at risk, for example lets say a woman contracts HIV and thus feels like she doesn't need to take the same percautions against rapists as normal, since who would want to rape an HIV positive women, she thus meets new people in private places and so on against normal protocal, one night she is knocked out or rupheed and raped, the rapist gets the disease and goes on to rape more people, spreading the disease. The victims resulting from her rapist could do everything they can to avoid such a thing, but through no fault of their own they might get it. Would such people be considered to have a weak profile?
Providing a choice to everyone, game theory shows that a cooperative approach leads to a situation that benefits all more than that for an individual party. However, if one party chooses to be deceptive, then all parties lose relative to the optimal. If a non-Darwinist policy is imposed (no choice), then the optimal policy is regained, everyone benefits and a solution closest to optimal is reached.
Game theory also assumes an aggressor, as with the prisoner's dilemma (the aggressor being the state.)
When it comes to the tragedy of the commons, it doesn't account for the idea that people, cooperatively, can do just as much or even more damage (as history has shown with tyrants eliminating buffalo in order to kill off the native Americans.)
Game Theory is what it is, a theory. When applied to reality it seems almost like a coping mechanism for living under authoritarianism.
Science and math, a coping mechanism for living under authoritarianism.
You do realize that not all games assume an aggressor, and that the particular form of the prisoner's dilimina can be replaced with another situation without an human or human like agent acting as the authoritarian. How desperate do you have to be?
Science and math, a coping mechanism for living under authoritarianism.
Nein. I was explaining the statist apologists whom use game theory to defend restrictions and regulations, comrade. Although, I may not have been clear enough.
You do realize that not all games assume an aggressor
Game theory as a general concept (and not the politicized "competition doesn't work" concept) doesn't say that cooperation is the only way. It merely describes life as a game that can be mathematically reduced to an advantage. Entrepreneurs study game theory.
However, while Game Theory continues to evolve and be added to by more research, it has a strong basis in zero-sum principles. Example: The world is static. In reality, in order for a game to be static, there would have to be rules. Often in game theory the rules are NEVER as broad as the laws of physics. They assume various aspects of human nature. In zero-sum, if one's profits leads to another's loss it is usually because of a static, laboratory setting. We can look to the Federal Reserve and the Wealth Gap as a perfect example. Competition leads to the wealth gap because of the Federal Reserve creating a static system of wealth distribution. Of course, there's a lot more to it, but that is my point.
In reality, however, Game Theory does not help enough if we wanted to ask "Darwinism vs. Cooperation." There's enough problems with this question (including the fact that cooperation, sometimes, is advantageous towards natural selection, while sometimes it is disadvantageous.)
Maybe the question restricts our imaginations too much.
Can you make another debate on wealth distribution and the fed making it static, seems like a creative way to put the blame on the government for capitalism's inadequacies I would like to understand it more and debate it :)
Caring for others is a Darwinian idea. Instead of just competing endlessly with each other, members of the same species help each other in a pack. Humans also have adopted altruistic behavior. The idea that war and conquest are natural and that peace is incompatible with the ontological nature of our reality is just plain incoherent.
You would expect things like charity and workers rights instead of conquest and domination. The latter has so far caused over 100 nuclear launches stopped by human intervention at the last minute, the former has stopped polio and established relative peace and freedom.
Caring for others is a Darwinian idea. Instead of just competing endlessly with each other, members of the same species help each other in a pack.
Yes, in a grand scheme. But how about for Darwinism in species. If a wolf is a bad hunter, it will eventually be left out of the pack hunt. It must contribute if it isn't it must die.
The same is to be said about herds. They care for one another, but only to a degree that isn't damaging to the other members. The slower members of the herd get eaten when the pressure is on.
Arguing against helping the poor is like asking an indian peafowl to cut off it's useless feathers. If you can't see the beauty of a kind person, no one can tell you why you should. Even if there is no utility in altruism, your aesthetic goes against human nature.
Going against that which has developed naturally shouldn't be called Darwinism in the first place. Oh, and when it comes to utility, you don't mess with mother nature.
They care for one another, but only to a degree that isn't damaging to the other members.
Even the encumbering feathers of the peafowl are of remarkable utility. Due to kindness, the strongest tribe would carry the biggest number useless members. The capable members had to get more food as the sassy cavewoman wouldn't stand a selfish mate. The cruel would get less offspring.
It must contribute if it isn't it must die.
In some civilizations for instance, the elderly leave community themselves. Your argument is this altruism: "we should accept the consequences for the development of humanity". Should the weak then be heralded?
There is no better model for the development of humanity than kindness. It is of remarkable utility, and suggesting otherwise is a misreading of evolution.
The peafowl doesn't die off due to its feathers, on the contrary, it ensures that inefficient individuals won't flourish when food is plenty. During rough times, the trait deteriorates as fast as it flourished, leaving a more efficient peafowl.
How so? By fostering the weak we spend money on them leaving less to spend on advancements for the people who don't suffer whatever their source of weakness is.
By not fostering their faults we make the next generation less likely to have those faults.
If I were in the postion of the weak obviously I wouldn't want to die, but if society had resolved not to foster the weakness then I'd be left to my own devices like the people who aren't weak.
I mean if I was born as a paraplegic and society decided that that's an unfavorable condition, one that they don't want to aid so as to prevent it from happening again, then I'd be left to get around as best as I could without the government giving me things. My family could help me, like one debater said about human's Knack for kindness, but it wouldn't be frowned upon or illegal for them not to.
At that point I'd begin looking for ways to get around my handicap, like to make a wheelchair by myself somehow or I'd get stronger arms as a means to walk.
At that point I'd begin looking for ways to get around my handicap, like to make a wheelchair by myself somehow or I'd get stronger arms as a means to walk
You can't be serious?
Disabled people have just as much a right to a bearable life as you do. When assistance is render tho those with disabilities, they can contribute to society more effectively.
Disabled people have just as much a right to a bearable life as you do.
Of course they do. They should try to find ways to cope on their own though without mandatory assistance. It'd be a tough life if everyone had to fend for themselves, but the tough life would make the people tough.
Much like the Spartan lifestyle.
When assistance is render tho those with disabilities, they can contribute to society more effectively.
Some can. Using the wheel chair example, there are some scientists finding cures for diseases that also need wheelchairs, but their are some people who take their disability as a free pass to be a dick to everyone. The person who'd be a dick, would not have amounted to anything just as he didn't while the person who became a scientist would have discovered a way to cope, probably being the 1st person to create a wheelchair.
some people who take their disability as a free pass to be a dick to everyone
hat about the part I said where some become scientists? What about the use of the word some?
A tough life doesn't necessarily make people tough, it just imparts un-necessary suffering.
It will either make the people fit to live in a Darwinian society tougher, or it will weed out those who can't.Either way, the nation as a whole benefits by loosing one more hindrance to the system that would cost money or it gains another individual who can help the system by working.
hat about the part I said where some become scientists? What about the use of the word some?
It's all about the overall connotation of the paragraph, not a few words.
On your second point: it's conform or die essentially...
Where would that stop? That sounds totalitarian...
Furthermore, you are overlooking one critical detail. When people with disabilities are looked after, the benefits are two fold. Firstly, the live a better, happier life, and secondly, they contribute more to society.
It's all about the overall connotation of the paragraph, not a few words.
The words all play a part in the meaning of the paragraph if i had simply said "They are dicks because they use their disability to get sympathy"
it'd be a different meaning that if I had said "Some are dicks who use their disability to get sympathy"
it's conform or die essentially*
Fending for yourself would be the opposite of conformity.
they contribute more to society.
My turn to call out a generalization. Some don't, some do. But if that particular disability had not been fostered it would begin to become weeded out. There would be no need to care for the disabled because the disabled would cease to exist.
In this case no. If you are out of the ordinary, you die.
What? No! if everyone is fending for them self and one person wants to try to mooch, or help people and that results in him having a harder life that sure he'll die, but it's not like die is his only other options. he can help people, or hold his hand out hoping someone will help, but if everyone had adopted that moral to let everyone fend for them self then he'd go without until he was ready to fend for himself.
Someone with help can contribute to society, a dead person cannot.
Sure they can but they just as equally might not. And as I said in my other comment, if that condition they were dealing with had died out from lack of fostering it they would not need to be helped out.