Reddit reviews Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Edition
We found 7 Reddit comments about Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Edition. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
you of course can't say with absolute certainty that this is how your ancestors lived, sure. despite using evolutionary theory, archaeology and anthropology to assist, it is on some level conjecture, that is true.
unlike the just-so posited by religions, feminists and indeed the majority of the field of sociology however, evolutionary psychology has its background in real science. it is a sort of unifying theory and is by and large based in the scientific method. there are quite a few interesting reads out there, one being "sociobiology" by edward o. wilson
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0674002350/epubelectronpubl
Please read. In this book, E.O. Wilson (is he a good enough source?) says that human females tend to be higher than males in empathy, verbal skills, social skills and security-seeking, among other things.
Throwing some more biology at ya
http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/content/18/3/534.full
So does that help? Or by me saying that women are more emotionally invested than men just another misogynistic generalization?
He should read this book.
> The fact that you refuse to acknowledge that the Imperialist expansion was a direct consequence of Capitalism
And the deaths caused by imperialist Islam, imperialist communism and imperialist Rome (Everything else which was 'imperialist' too) were caused by capitalism as well? Oh yeah, 80,000,000 Hindu's dying off was all those capitalist Muslim pigs, right? The violent purges of Kulaks and opposition in the USSR under Stalin was all capitalism's fault, right guys? (Marxist bullshit #1.)
> You are not only a libtard apologist for Capitalism but also an incredibly big Islamophobe (Leftist bullshit #1.)
From what I've read of the last paragraph, for example: 'what are you, a fucking Neo-Nazi?', you're starting to make this seem more and more like it is actually used. There is nothing wrong with being against Islam, and that certainly doesn't make me scared (phobia) of Islam.
> It would've happened anyway! Just a coincidence that it was the Capitalists who started the colonization
It wasn't a coincidence, it was the fact that The West (And it wasn't even capitalist at the time, it was dominantly feudalistic, capitalism being a huge minority in places such as Venice and The Hanseatic League) was much more technologically ahead of everyone else, primarily due to Orthodox scholars after the expulsion of Constantinople and the end of the ERE. If Asia had have managed to be this 'enlightened', they would've colonized first, and considering the brutal nature of their culture in regards to honor (Especially for Japan), a lot more would've died. Not saying I dislike the Japanese though, that's just the facts. Christianity and European culture did spare a lot of people, although definitely not everyone just as no-one else would've.
> Socialism seeks to eliminate such problems. Capitalism does not. More food is being produced now than the number of consumers of the same, yet millions are still dying of starvation. (Marxist bullshit #2. Not even one-million Westerners die each year of starvation.)
Capitalism seeks to give people economic liberty as I said before, socialism seeks to take it away and give all economic power to the state. If we don't have freedom, what do we have? Oh, nice living conditions for everyone, but is it really worth it? Not everything in life is about pleasure, there are always the downtrodden and there are always the successful, this doesn't even only apply to humans, look at ape species for example.
> Case in point, the Irish potato famine. (Marxist bullshit #3)
How do you expect a new administrative body to get absolutely everything correct when the previous one was a disaster? "a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien Church, and in addition the weakest executive in the world." As Disraeli said. There were also plenty of inquisition which forecast this sort of disaster occurring due to a rapidly increasing population, etc.
> Cipla, an Indian pharmaceutical firm, once offered to sell HIV/AIDS drugs at dirt cheap rates to Africa, where the HIV virus is rampant. [etc]
I can't speak for corporations and never said they were in the right. There are laws that you can implement within a capitalist economy to limit these sorts of things. America is pretty rampant with corruption though.
> This is Capitalism; no regard to human life over profit. (Marxist bullshit #4.)
Why did George Bush pledge, what was it, something like $60billion USD to attempt to help cure aids in Africa then? I don't support him generally, but he's not all-bad as a lot of people like to make him out.
> The FDI you talk of is no more than that; that is, stagnant firms looking out for new avenues to increase their profit margins, and in the process creating a global hegemony.
Just as what people thought was occurring in Europe in the 19th century, and look what actually happened.
> It seems you have no idea of how these things work. The major corporations who outsource their production units are not angels. Where I live, the corporations buy off the land of the farmers by offering them minuscule compensation, and then force them to work in the factory. [etc]
First of all, I never claimed they were angels, or even good for that matter. And are the families really forced to sell their land by foreign entities? That sounds like a breaching of state-sovereignty to me.
Secondly, isn't this the road to industrialisation and modernisation as it was in Europe? To properly develop an economy you need people working in factories to get it off the ground. Seeing as the majority are peasants and farmers, you get them to the factories to speed this process up. With colonies too now you hopefully have a large source of grain in-case you need it, just as in today's developing economies they import from already modernised nations which have excess grain they need to sell.
> Economic liberty is not the same as economic equality. There are bound to be losers and winners in such a system. [and it doesn't have to be this way] (Marxist bullshit #5. Arguing against biology, Marxism's fundamental contradiction and enemy.)
I never said it was. Economic equality is not the base state of a nation though. There are bound to be losers and winners in any situation when there is no force applied. I feel like I'm using sociobiology a lot, but in the wild some hunters are more skilled than others and are able to survive where others are not. Being successful and passing your genetics on is what really matters, despite the fact that it's very shrouded in our advanced minds behind many things, and prone to outside corruption. You can be envious of those who are better off than yourself (Which is mostly what socialism/Marxism is) or you can embrace it and attempt to do better yourself. I assure you the feeling of achievement is much, much more satisfying than living in a cesspit of degeneracy, hedonism and pleasure that is communism's end belief.
> And, please for god's sake, don't delve into the human nature topic. There is nothing "basic" about human nature. The argument that the human beings are inherently greedy is just liberal horse shit (liberal bullshit instance #3) It's as dogmatic as the creationists' argument that human beings were created with a certain set of qualities. (Again, Marxist bullshit #5. Arguing against biology, Marxism's fundamental contradiction and enemy.) If we are the result of evolution then it's in no way possible for us to have a certain set of intrinsic qualities.
Well I would say arguing that human nature is fundamentally peaceful and good-intentioned is Marxist horse-shit number six. The one thing if anything that halts our violent intentions towards our own people somewhat is the advent of religion and morals. I would recommend reading this: http://www.amazon.com/Sociobiology-Synthesis-Twenty-Fifth-Anniversary-Edition/dp/0674002350
This is quite a bit more voluminous than the other things you sent me, but definitely worth the read even if you initially disagree with it. Marxism is fundamentally anti-science and anti-progression in this sense. I mean what would you have? Genetically engineer human brains so that everyone is equal just so that you don't feel left out?
> Why can't you believe in equality? Or is the supposed "basic" trait of humankind, "greed", very strong in you? [etc]
I don't believe in equality because, frankly, it's unrealistic. I don't think greed is very strong in me either, I know others that are very greedy who I've lived with for a long time and still don't know why, it's perhaps a genetic trait or social context thing from when they were younger. I can definitely agree with fraternity and cooperation (to some extent) though, that's one thing we have in common I suppose. That is one of capitalism's internal weak-points.
Social liberty just leads to the moral corruption that is viral in today's world, if people don't have a set of guidelines or a proper belief in something better to get them through life, most fall prey to vices around now-days.
> Yes, I hope you'd read ALL these texts before replying again. They're voluminous:
From looking at these I can say two of them have no sources whatsoever to back up their claims. Constant defensive statements such as: "It is interesting to see how Western propaganda, via Robert Conquest, has lied about the purges of the Red Army." simply have nothing to back them up. Text #2, 'Did Mao really kill millions', cites highly biased pro-Marxist sources almost exclusively. You can see today in China that the people are not treated nicely (to say the least) by the government and it is relatively highly developed, just imagine what would've been happening during the rapid push for modernization.
As for the table in the one about Stalin's apparent innocence: I doubt that includes simple execution without even being sent to gulags. I mean, where did they even get that table? I tried searching around the internet and couldn't find it anywhere. Are you sure it wasn't forged? That was about the only evidence they were using to back up their claims and I can't really see much truth in it.
> I believe people do act selflessly everyday but I don’t think I makes rational sense to live this way. Why would I ever serve anyone’s ends other than my own
To put it bluntly, this isn't what the word "rational" means. Rationality is about taking the optimal path to a specified goal. It doesn't say anything about what that goal is. And that goal is always subjective and arbitrary, regardless of whether you are rational about achieving it.
So, in economics, they often talk about the rational, profit-maximizing business strategy. But "rational" and "profit-maximizing" are totally different things - maximizing profit is a subjective goal, and there are less and more rational ways to achieve it. I could just as easily talk about the rational cost-minimizing business strategy, which is a different objective that recommends a different path. Or an irrational profit-maximizing strategy that is clearly inferior for that goal.
So I dismiss your implicit claim that you are being more "rational" than an altruist who gives away all his money to the poor, because that's conflating the objective idea of rational decision-making with a subjective goal.
As a result, there's not really much for us to argue about, because it's not clear exactly how you've gotten to your conclusion, besides a misunderstanding of the word rational.
If you want to get into an empirical argument about humans, I think there's plenty of evidence that can change your view.
It's no good to say people who jump on hand grenades or donate blood are "really" selfish because it makes them feel better or something, because you've essentially defined "selfish" to be "anything people do". If you take a stricter, more commonplace definition of selfish like "consistently chooses one's own material benefits at the expense of others'", then no, humans are exceptionally non-selfish among organisms on our planet.
I'm kind of amazed that with all the atheists on Reddit, there seems to be a lot more postulation than references. Origin of morality is something often discussed, and well covered, by many of the apparent favorite names in this community (Dawkins, Hitchens, Sagan). This debate isn't new.
E. O. Wilson's Sociobiology would be a great read for anyone here. Here's a link on Amazon, though I'm sure you can get it in any local library.
http://www.amazon.com/Sociobiology-New-Synthesis-Twenty-fifth-Anniversary/dp/0674002350
https://www.amazon.com/Human-Nature-new-Preface-Revised/dp/0674016386
https://www.amazon.com/Sociobiology-New-Synthesis-Twenty-Fifth-Anniversary/dp/0674002350
https://www.amazon.com/Blank-Slate-Modern-Denial-Nature/dp/1501264338
https://www.amazon.com/Open-Society-Its-Enemies/dp/0691158134
Here's a start. All these were instrumental in dismantling communist ideology.