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'Master' and 'slave': Tech terms face scrutiny amid anti-racism efforts

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SilverSolder:

--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on June 26, 2020, 08:01:46 am ---Intersectional feminism is just a tribalist, classist political view that denounces individual responsibility or agency, replacing it with The Group.


--- Quote from: magic on June 26, 2020, 07:15:52 am ---It's quite miraculous that thousands of societies exist or existed which scaled beyond the alleged 150 heads "monkey limit" and didn't turn into absolute shitshow
--- End quote ---
No, it isn't.  All this is very well known in anthropology.

To simplify a bit, if you have a group of humans isolated from other humans, they will become like a large family; sort of anarchistically self-organize.  They'll develop their own moral codes, and assuming food and shelter is available, tend to prosper.  Around 100-200 people you start getting conflicts that require some sort of a legal system, plus organized governance, often around the eldest.  (One way we differ from apes and monkeys is that intelligence and complex communication gave us a way to overcome the 150 head limit; something other apes and monkeys do not have.) Around 1500-2000 people you start seeing an increase in crime.  Not just in absolute numbers, but in relative terms; meaning that the probability of a random person to be a victim of crime increases.  The typical way of describing this is "people start to lurk in between the cracks of the society", sheltered by the anonymity provided by a larger society.

The reason this is well known in anthropology is that this has repeated all over the world for thousands of times.  Pick a human society today or in history, and you can describe how it behaves/works based on the above.

Commerce, religion, and co-operating but separate cultures (like agricultural societies doing commerce with nomads or migratory herders) add some very interesting wrinkles, making the situations even more interesting (for example, how you can have two separate cultures coexist without merging, even though you no longer can tell from an individuals' DNA which one they belong to), but does not really change the overall picture.

--- End quote ---

You could see it as a bunch of survival strategy "memes" competing...   and some strategies work better in larger groups, others in smaller ones.  Typically as humans we have to master strategies for both, in order to do well.  Not easy, and not all of us make it.

Simon:

--- Quote from: tggzzz on June 25, 2020, 03:10:44 pm ---
--- Quote from: wilfred on June 25, 2020, 02:05:41 pm ---
--- Quote from: tggzzz on June 25, 2020, 12:23:27 pm --- It is an extremely effective technique for diluting the value of a forum, and for sucking up a lot of the moderators' valuable time.

--- End quote ---

Moderators made over 10% of the posts in this thread. You might value their time more than they do.

--- End quote ---

Oh, I value their time at zero :)

More relevantly, ISTR most of those moderators' posts have been about the subject, not time spent on moderation activities. In other words, ordinary people commenting on subjects that interest them.

--- End quote ---

Quite

Nominal Animal:

--- Quote from: SilverSolder on June 26, 2020, 12:02:54 pm ---You could see it as a bunch of survival strategy "memes" competing...   and some strategies work better in larger groups, others in smaller ones.  Typically as humans we have to master strategies for both, in order to do well.  Not easy, and not all of us make it.
--- End quote ---
Or, you could see as I do, a strong evolutionary path to becoming an eusocial species.

Do not forget that certain ant species are agricultural, exclusively subsisting on farmed fungi.  There is ample evidence in the animal kingdom that the kind of tight-knit inwards-turning urban environments humans now build, has lead to eusocialization.  (Consider macrotermes termite nests, and compare to an utopian human self-sustaining arcology.) Will human intelligence counter that?  Observation says no; there is evidence that human mean intelligence is actually dropping, although bringing this up is considered racist and offensive (and therefore you won't see a peer reviewed article saying it outright; only old retired profs saying so, and explaining why they think so).

It also brings an interesting interpretation for the fc term of the Drake equation: eusocial intelligent beings have no reason to communicate with anything or anyone external.

I don't dare say if I believe there are signs the r/K selection theory applies to humans too, because that sort of thing gets one completely shut outside the academic world.. but an alien might make some very interesting parallels about r-strategy and communism/socialism, I bet.

There could be literally hundreds if not thousands of eusocial intelligent non-human species all over the Milky Way, none communicating with anyone else, all arguing amongst themselves which words and concepts are to be considered offensive.  You know, pondering the truly important stuff.

Simon:

--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on June 26, 2020, 12:55:19 pm --- there is evidence that human mean intelligence is actually dropping, although bringing this up is considered racist and offensive (and therefore you won't see a peer reviewed article saying it outright; only old retired profs saying so, and explaining why they think so).


--- End quote ---

Of course it is, we live in a society that does not require too much of it to survive and have kids. There is no more natural selection between intelligent and average to below average. Even what little selection society can offer in thick people can't afford kids because they are generally less financially successful is not a thing.

SilverSolder:

--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on June 26, 2020, 12:55:19 pm ---
--- Quote from: SilverSolder on June 26, 2020, 12:02:54 pm ---You could see it as a bunch of survival strategy "memes" competing...   and some strategies work better in larger groups, others in smaller ones.  Typically as humans we have to master strategies for both, in order to do well.  Not easy, and not all of us make it.
--- End quote ---
Or, you could see as I do, a strong evolutionary path to becoming an eusocial species.

Do not forget that certain ant species are agricultural, exclusively subsisting on farmed fungi.  There is ample evidence in the animal kingdom that the kind of tight-knit inwards-turning urban environments humans now build, has lead to eusocialization.  (Consider macrotermes termite nests, and compare to an utopian human self-sustaining arcology.) Will human intelligence counter that?  Observation says no; there is evidence that human mean intelligence is actually dropping, although bringing this up is considered racist and offensive (and therefore you won't see a peer reviewed article saying it outright; only old retired profs saying so, and explaining why they think so).

It also brings an interesting interpretation for the fc term of the Drake equation: eusocial intelligent beings have no reason to communicate with anything or anyone external.

I don't dare say if I believe there are signs the r/K selection theory applies to humans too, because that sort of thing gets one completely shut outside the academic world.. but an alien might make some very interesting parallels about r-strategy and communism/socialism, I bet.

There could be literally hundreds if not thousands of eusocial intelligent non-human species all over the Milky Way, none communicating with anyone else, all arguing amongst themselves which words and concepts are to be considered offensive.  You know, pondering the truly important stuff.

--- End quote ---

If nothing else, there is a great insult in there, in calling someone r-selected!  :D

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