We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Hard cash David Friedman has some thoughts on the whole business of human mating and money. I suppose I will be deemed incorrigibly flippant, but I could not help but immediately think of this crackerjack of a funny post on such matters by the one and only Harry Hutton.
Deplorable, obviously.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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“In a very poor society, the short term strategy is not viable because a woman cannot afford to bring up a child by herself–it’s long term or nothing. So we would expect that rising incomes would be associated with an increasing number of women choosing the short term strategy. That, allowing for substantial time lags in social institutions, might help explain the large changes in observed behavior in developed societies over the past fifty years ago.” David Friedman
“…(A)llowing for substantial time lags in social institutions…” explains quite a bit, but doesn’t go far enough. All human behavioral traits are heritable. The value humans place on human life has a genetic component.
Voluntary programs for population control selectively breed non-compliant individuals. In the absence of compulsory measures, given a minimally supportive environment, the negative correlation between wealth of society and rate of natural increase cannot last. Think otherwise? Salmon are your cousins. Try talk them out of reproducing.
Humans who can reproduce at high densitiy have a selective advantage over humans who require lots of open space.
Fascist crap as usual Malcolm. I am happy to pass my ideas on to those who want to breed. I do not give a damn about my genes, I care only about my memes. That is how I will ‘reproduce’, thanks.
Well I dont know where all the people who need a lot of space to reproduce are.Hiding in the bushes awaiting their opportunity probably.
I’ve done it in the back of a Mini!
Well including the front, and with the front window wound down and a foot sticking out. Well I am 6′ 2″ !
So you’re telling me that if I had a Roller that had a switch that converted the back seats into a jacuzzi with a floating bar, I would get laid less??
I dont think so.
One of us is off the “Scent” that’s for sure!
(malcolm): “Humans who can reproduce at high densitiy have a selective advantage over humans who require lots of open space. ”
(RAB): “Well I dont know where all the people who need a lot of space to reproduce are…One of us is off the “Scent” that’s for sure!”
See Wrigley, Population and Histroy. Cities historically have been population sinks, growing by immigration from the countryside but not by reproduction of their populations. This is the current experience in Hawaii, where the least densely populatd county (Hawaii) has the highest birth rate. I suggest that, for evolutionary reasons, this cannot continue to be the case.
(Perry): ” Fascist crap as usual Malcolm. ”
(Samizdata): “Have fun but please be civil and succinct.”
66.66%
Perry finds “have fun” and “be civil” incompatible, at least when his tidy ideology yields uncomfortable conclusions. Note that there’s no attempt to dispute any assertion as to fact in my post. As usual.
Because it is like arguing with a flat-earther, that is why: pointless. That is why I usually just ban people like you because I have very low tolerance for fascists and debating them just dignified their position when rolled eyes is actually a more appropriate response… so banned.
“All human behavioral traits are heritable. The value humans place on human life has a genetic component.”
I guess we are hardwired by evolution to value children – women have a maternal instinct and men, or at least most of them, have a paternal one. But not all behaviours are inherted – nature does not always trump nuture.
The thing I don’t get about genetic determinists is that they are often very moralistic, and yet genetic determinists, who would have us believe that we are puppets on Darwinian string, must recognise that determinism is the antithesis of the idea that humans have free will. It also ignores the importance of incentives in changing and encouraging forms of behaviour. Even Steven Pinker, for example, who wrote the Blank Slate, does not play down the importance of volition, ethics and the choices that people make.
I think the trouble with a lot of these “genetic realist” types is that they think they have unlocked the keys to the kingdom of knowledge, and of course in all too many cases, they are incorrigible race pessmists who want to use the mantle of science to legitimise their views.
All human behavioral traits are heritable
So if I have kids they will have a natural tendancy to play flight sims, listen to Blondie and cultivate cactuses? Because clearly all of those things are in my genes.
You are suggesting talking to fish about sex. Who do you think you are, Troy McClure?
Malcolm – you sound increasingly like a certain character played by the late Peter Sellers. And no, not a French detective.
And the “house rules” don’t exactly apply to Perry because it’s his house.
Blondie??? We need to have a talk, young man!
Who the hell cares about where people in Hawaii do and don’t reproduce? I’m sure the individual Hawaiians in question are perfectly capable of having sex and either using a party balloon or waiting nine months without your help.
I think it’s worth noting that, once immigration is removed from the discussion, virtually the entire Western world is either static or shrinking in population. Therefore, I would question the need for coercive population control measures on the basis that the “problem” (if it actually is a problem) is already solving itself.
To be sure, I would also question the need on the basis that forced contraception/abortion/etc. is also an intolerable intrusion into private life that cannot be justified under any circumstances at all, but…
BTW, is it actually uncivil to refer to fascist crap as fascist crap? Would it have been more civil if Perry had referred to Malcolm’s spewings as “Collectivist-with-a-nationalistic-ethnic-militaristic-flair fecal material?”
Hutton’s a Very Great Man, but that piece isn’t his best, even on that topic.
Furthermore, there’s prior art on that gag: On the US TV program “Married with Children” back in the 1990s, the teenage boy character once tied a $5 bill around his neck and claimed that the smell of the bill would attract women. I doubt very much that Hutton caught that episode. I can’t believe that Hutton would deliberately plagiarize anybody, except for Walter Pater.
“compulsory measures” enough (more than enough) said.