I have a tendency to agree with whatever the last thing I read was, but I think this was a very good article. Ten years ago, when I would have arguments about Brexit with my friends, it was always astonishing to me how often they turned the conversation immediately to the economy, as though that were the only thing that mattered. I suspect this was why they thought all Brexiteers were a bit thick, since leaving the EU was almost certainly going to make us poorer, at least in the short term. But some of us were less bothered about the economy than about how our communities had disintegrated. I think we hoped that by getting our sovereignty back we might also get back some of those local 'platoons' that had given our lives meaning.
That aside, I think the author is right in thinking that to understand what humans really want you need to ask a series of 'but why?' questions. This way, I think, you end up with a more accurate and complete understanding than economics ever can of what motivates us, what gives our lives meaning and what fulfills us.
If you're talking evolution, you can't avoid talking about competition; namely competition between societies.
Whatever the "optimal" internal ecological approach to a certain technology (or economics) might be, if another state/culture (say China) takes a very different one, your strategy may end up self-defeating when applied in competition.
Hence, sure, we should care about human "flourishing," but in a realistic global context, not an imaginary insulated one.
Thankfully, competition actually can be quite meaningful... at least to some.
The author makes good points, but he is wrong in thinking that economics unlike evolutionary psychology does not provide meaning to life and solutions to deep issues of social welfare. They both do not provide meaning to life and solutions to deep issues of social welfare. Economics is fairly upfront about this and so has an internally consistent logic. Evolutionary psychology is also "meaningless" on that deeper level of the ultimate purposes of human life and society. This is not to detract from his thoughtful essay. He is correct that economic based analysis in advanced societies becomes increasingly pointless as the allocation of scarce resources becomes less important. Evolutionary psychology is also "pointless" since it is just a collection of predictive relationships between observables and does not say anything deep about society and it meaning.
I consider what we perceive as meaningful part of the study of evolutionary biology (or psychology, in any case). Merely as a description, obviously not prescription.
Frankly, I disliked this article. (But, I appreciate it being presented in "the marketplace of ideas".)
I'm NO fan of the methodologies of Economics, whether orthodox or heterodox, but the author's vision has so much authoritarian percolations: even if that's unintentional.
For instance, of course watching porn in lieu of having coitus is "evolutionary maladaptive" – doing anything to "correct" it, however, ALWAYS risks unintended consequences of every kind; specifically, the idea that leaders have a "mandate": the mere existence of such "mandate" is pernicious in itself – even if every try is in good-faith; it could, in theory, be captured by bad-faith actors, hence NOT allowing the "loophole"/"precedent" to emerge in the first place is the most sensible and prudent choice.
I'm NOT suggest being cautious to the point of apathy – but, USUALLY doing as little as possible (or so-called "freedom", in US-style libertarian thought) is the way to go.
The author talked about "survival and flourishing": of course, survival precedes freedom – if you don't exist, there's NO point to freedom. But, in theory, there could be envisaged an existence so horrible being dead is preferable...
Anyhow,
I'm NOT worried about low birth rates per se, for example. It is going to correct itself, in time: people who are high(er) in anti-natalism are simply, by definition, being selected out. The "worry" is that anti-natalists are smarter (and, on average, more "liberal"), since I think both low-IQ and conservatism (religiosity, as well) are antithetical to Western-style Civilisation I am, in fact, "worried".
So yeah, if one's thinking my philosophy is marked by strict "laissez-faire" – here's something to actually do: increase the birth rates of blue-haired, septum-pierced women! :-)
I actually argue for decentralized solutions wherever possible. But decentralized means decentralized economy and decentralized authority, a wholly different idea from the so-called free market that only exists precisely because the state is powerful and centralized.
The economy doesn’t have to look like anything. You deal with scarcity the way you see fit, I do the same, prices indicate how to best allocate our individual utility stack.
A group can likewise deal with it how it sees fit and allocate the resources in a way they're more likely to benefit the group as a whole than if left up to the incentives of individuals.
No. That is fallacy of language. A group doesn’t decide anything, a few people decide for the group. There is always a decider. For groups that fall within Dunbar’s limit this can work reasonably well because a) it is easy to poll the individual members and their preferences and b) it is easy to keep dissidents under social control. As an aside that’s why I think a preference for socialism is evolutionary hard-coded, because it kinda works on the level of the group.
When groups get larger you still have decisions made by a small subset but with reduced information flow and reduced disincentives for dissidents. That’s why you need ever more drastic punishments to enforce the orders of the deciders.
It's not a fallacy anymore than it would be to say individual has decided something while ignoring the underlying process in his brain and its internal hierarchy. Yes, there'd obviously be some authority that decided for the group. There always is, and is worse when we pretend the groups is over a need for authority. A group with legitimate authority can solve coordination problems that groups without one cannot.
I'm no scientist, but I gotta ask: does that -- egalitarian allocation of resources per the dictates of a politically powerful ingroup -- not impair a society's long-run evolutionary fitness? In a society where theft and fraud is largely deterred by punitive measures but people are otherwise free to acquire goods as best they can through labor, invention, and voluntary exchange those who are most adept in such endeavor will tend to be more successful in mating and producing progeny, will they not?
I don't advocate for egalitarianism of any sort, including for the sort of egalitarianism that necessary for for the so-called free market. People by and large need to be told what to do. Where progeny is concerned, giving women entirely free choice in mating has been a catastrophe.
To the contrary, is it not likely that female hypergamy was the principal mechanism of progressive evolution in hominid cranial capacity and general intelligence?
I have a tendency to agree with whatever the last thing I read was, but I think this was a very good article. Ten years ago, when I would have arguments about Brexit with my friends, it was always astonishing to me how often they turned the conversation immediately to the economy, as though that were the only thing that mattered. I suspect this was why they thought all Brexiteers were a bit thick, since leaving the EU was almost certainly going to make us poorer, at least in the short term. But some of us were less bothered about the economy than about how our communities had disintegrated. I think we hoped that by getting our sovereignty back we might also get back some of those local 'platoons' that had given our lives meaning.
That aside, I think the author is right in thinking that to understand what humans really want you need to ask a series of 'but why?' questions. This way, I think, you end up with a more accurate and complete understanding than economics ever can of what motivates us, what gives our lives meaning and what fulfills us.
Great article.
Our society has gone from tribal influence to large-scale national manipulation.
If you're talking evolution, you can't avoid talking about competition; namely competition between societies.
Whatever the "optimal" internal ecological approach to a certain technology (or economics) might be, if another state/culture (say China) takes a very different one, your strategy may end up self-defeating when applied in competition.
Hence, sure, we should care about human "flourishing," but in a realistic global context, not an imaginary insulated one.
Thankfully, competition actually can be quite meaningful... at least to some.
The author might like the first sixteen pages of this book, which are free on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U0C9HKW
The author makes good points, but he is wrong in thinking that economics unlike evolutionary psychology does not provide meaning to life and solutions to deep issues of social welfare. They both do not provide meaning to life and solutions to deep issues of social welfare. Economics is fairly upfront about this and so has an internally consistent logic. Evolutionary psychology is also "meaningless" on that deeper level of the ultimate purposes of human life and society. This is not to detract from his thoughtful essay. He is correct that economic based analysis in advanced societies becomes increasingly pointless as the allocation of scarce resources becomes less important. Evolutionary psychology is also "pointless" since it is just a collection of predictive relationships between observables and does not say anything deep about society and it meaning.
I consider what we perceive as meaningful part of the study of evolutionary biology (or psychology, in any case). Merely as a description, obviously not prescription.
Frankly, I disliked this article. (But, I appreciate it being presented in "the marketplace of ideas".)
I'm NO fan of the methodologies of Economics, whether orthodox or heterodox, but the author's vision has so much authoritarian percolations: even if that's unintentional.
For instance, of course watching porn in lieu of having coitus is "evolutionary maladaptive" – doing anything to "correct" it, however, ALWAYS risks unintended consequences of every kind; specifically, the idea that leaders have a "mandate": the mere existence of such "mandate" is pernicious in itself – even if every try is in good-faith; it could, in theory, be captured by bad-faith actors, hence NOT allowing the "loophole"/"precedent" to emerge in the first place is the most sensible and prudent choice.
I'm NOT suggest being cautious to the point of apathy – but, USUALLY doing as little as possible (or so-called "freedom", in US-style libertarian thought) is the way to go.
The author talked about "survival and flourishing": of course, survival precedes freedom – if you don't exist, there's NO point to freedom. But, in theory, there could be envisaged an existence so horrible being dead is preferable...
Anyhow,
I'm NOT worried about low birth rates per se, for example. It is going to correct itself, in time: people who are high(er) in anti-natalism are simply, by definition, being selected out. The "worry" is that anti-natalists are smarter (and, on average, more "liberal"), since I think both low-IQ and conservatism (religiosity, as well) are antithetical to Western-style Civilisation I am, in fact, "worried".
So yeah, if one's thinking my philosophy is marked by strict "laissez-faire" – here's something to actually do: increase the birth rates of blue-haired, septum-pierced women! :-)
I actually argue for decentralized solutions wherever possible. But decentralized means decentralized economy and decentralized authority, a wholly different idea from the so-called free market that only exists precisely because the state is powerful and centralized.
An economy exists because scarcity exists. The end.
That in itself says nothing about what that economy has to look like.
The economy doesn’t have to look like anything. You deal with scarcity the way you see fit, I do the same, prices indicate how to best allocate our individual utility stack.
A group can likewise deal with it how it sees fit and allocate the resources in a way they're more likely to benefit the group as a whole than if left up to the incentives of individuals.
No. That is fallacy of language. A group doesn’t decide anything, a few people decide for the group. There is always a decider. For groups that fall within Dunbar’s limit this can work reasonably well because a) it is easy to poll the individual members and their preferences and b) it is easy to keep dissidents under social control. As an aside that’s why I think a preference for socialism is evolutionary hard-coded, because it kinda works on the level of the group.
When groups get larger you still have decisions made by a small subset but with reduced information flow and reduced disincentives for dissidents. That’s why you need ever more drastic punishments to enforce the orders of the deciders.
It's not a fallacy anymore than it would be to say individual has decided something while ignoring the underlying process in his brain and its internal hierarchy. Yes, there'd obviously be some authority that decided for the group. There always is, and is worse when we pretend the groups is over a need for authority. A group with legitimate authority can solve coordination problems that groups without one cannot.
I'm no scientist, but I gotta ask: does that -- egalitarian allocation of resources per the dictates of a politically powerful ingroup -- not impair a society's long-run evolutionary fitness? In a society where theft and fraud is largely deterred by punitive measures but people are otherwise free to acquire goods as best they can through labor, invention, and voluntary exchange those who are most adept in such endeavor will tend to be more successful in mating and producing progeny, will they not?
I don't advocate for egalitarianism of any sort, including for the sort of egalitarianism that necessary for for the so-called free market. People by and large need to be told what to do. Where progeny is concerned, giving women entirely free choice in mating has been a catastrophe.
To the contrary, is it not likely that female hypergamy was the principal mechanism of progressive evolution in hominid cranial capacity and general intelligence?
Time preference is a real thing and anyone who refuses to acknowledge it is NOT an economist.
Asking “ what is the economy actually for?” is a nonsensical question.
That is like asking “ what is the Earth actually for?”
The economy evolved. No human imagined it and created it. Nor is anyone in enough control over it that we can change what the economy is for.
If you are interested in ecology, you should understand that.
What of the evolutionary purpose of the natural affinity now commonly condemned as "racism" by the bien pensant?
If you go to my last article (one of the sources for this one), I address ingroup preference as well.