A top-down implementation of a cultural overhaul that violates the basic norms and values of Western culture (eg freedom, dignity) will not “save” the culture. Maybe something survives into the future, but it will be something other than Western culture. Better to go down fighting for the values we hold dear.
Maybe that makes sense if what you are trying to preserve is solely material advancement like GDP growth and technological progress. But in my view even those things ultimately rest on the philosophical and moral foundation of the West.
>What, after all, have we to show for non-scientific or pre-scientific good judgement, or common sense, or the insights gained through personal experience?
> Skinner sees his main obstacle as our fetishes for freedom and dignity, which make us shrink from strong central controls
Strong central control would be good if we could trust that the controller is seeking an outcome best for all.
As opposed to, say, spending most of their energy consolidating their power, punishing their opposition, lying to promote themselves, or unifying their base with constant war or warlike ideology.
Or sucking the resources out of the organization to enrich themselves and their inner circle.
Freedom and dignity are important because authorities cannot be trusted not to be corrupt. Corrupt people frequently seek power for the purpose of abusing it. We ought to be suspicious of anyone seeking or attaining power, and institute strong checks and balances against them. Some of those checks and balances include a strongly protected right to criticize the leaders, and the right of the public to get rid of them if they take unpopular action.
> shows a clear understanding of cultural evolution, correctly comparing cultures to species.
Debatable.
Cultures are crystallized output of successful pattern recognition. Local and specific within ecosystem/agencies.
With understanding as the process of building and refining predictive models by grasping relationships, causality, and meaning within a context... "Correctly" is incorrect.
Should use human capacity for pattern recognition (intelligence) to identify superior cultural implementations from others (with scope beyond human cultures to all other intelligences), and consciously integrate them into own societies to improve their adaptive effectiveness.
Nope, thanks for clarifying question, updated the quote of debatable part for clearer message.
Small scope pilot experimentation within the local environment/agencies is mandatory for implementation of observed successful cultural patterns before wide scale introduction or system/high level push
I will note that patriotism/nationalism, while it has other flaws, does in fact embody pretty well “a central task of culture design is to get the culture to value doing culture design”.
Left elites, of course, in service to the many other things they value, have trashed this.
Perhaps you have talked about the adaptive value of patriotism + nationalism in maintaining culture, but if so I don’t recall reading it. If not, perhaps a subject worthy of your exploration.
What's wrong with just leaving people alone (and forcing others to leave you alone)? There is no monolithic collective morality or value hierarchy. Local collective systems don't scale. This fantasy of some greater good or common welfare will continue to plague humanity until the authoritarian impulse dies out. Academicians are betas vying for alpha status via collective authoritarianism.
A top-down implementation of a cultural overhaul that violates the basic norms and values of Western culture (eg freedom, dignity) will not “save” the culture. Maybe something survives into the future, but it will be something other than Western culture. Better to go down fighting for the values we hold dear.
Robin seems more and more open to authoritarianism because he believes the problems he identifies are so important.
Maybe that makes sense if what you are trying to preserve is solely material advancement like GDP growth and technological progress. But in my view even those things ultimately rest on the philosophical and moral foundation of the West.
>What, after all, have we to show for non-scientific or pre-scientific good judgement, or common sense, or the insights gained through personal experience?
Beauty. Art. Music. Theater. Literature. Cuisine. Love. Friendship. Care. Generosity. Virtue.
It's plausible that Skinner didn't care about any of that, but in that case his culture-savior qualifications are woefully lacking.
> Skinner sees his main obstacle as our fetishes for freedom and dignity, which make us shrink from strong central controls
Strong central control would be good if we could trust that the controller is seeking an outcome best for all.
As opposed to, say, spending most of their energy consolidating their power, punishing their opposition, lying to promote themselves, or unifying their base with constant war or warlike ideology.
Or sucking the resources out of the organization to enrich themselves and their inner circle.
Freedom and dignity are important because authorities cannot be trusted not to be corrupt. Corrupt people frequently seek power for the purpose of abusing it. We ought to be suspicious of anyone seeking or attaining power, and institute strong checks and balances against them. Some of those checks and balances include a strongly protected right to criticize the leaders, and the right of the public to get rid of them if they take unpopular action.
Plus, you know, freedom (not so sure re dignity) seems to be a large part of what makes cultures adaptive.
> shows a clear understanding of cultural evolution, correctly comparing cultures to species.
Debatable.
Cultures are crystallized output of successful pattern recognition. Local and specific within ecosystem/agencies.
With understanding as the process of building and refining predictive models by grasping relationships, causality, and meaning within a context... "Correctly" is incorrect.
Should use human capacity for pattern recognition (intelligence) to identify superior cultural implementations from others (with scope beyond human cultures to all other intelligences), and consciously integrate them into own societies to improve their adaptive effectiveness.
You are claiming that experimentation isn't needed to find adaptive cultures?
Nope, thanks for clarifying question, updated the quote of debatable part for clearer message.
Small scope pilot experimentation within the local environment/agencies is mandatory for implementation of observed successful cultural patterns before wide scale introduction or system/high level push
I will note that patriotism/nationalism, while it has other flaws, does in fact embody pretty well “a central task of culture design is to get the culture to value doing culture design”.
Left elites, of course, in service to the many other things they value, have trashed this.
Perhaps you have talked about the adaptive value of patriotism + nationalism in maintaining culture, but if so I don’t recall reading it. If not, perhaps a subject worthy of your exploration.
“Skinner sees his main obstacle as our fetishes for freedom and dignity”
Lol, if only the leftists who dominate global elites still had these fetishes.
This point is basically just the benevolent dictator argument redux.
In my lifetime, it seems to me the set of such people would be [Lee Kuan Yew]. Seems hardly a promising hope/theory for our much larger world.
You made the point about the politicization of science so I need not do so.
Really great.
What's wrong with just leaving people alone (and forcing others to leave you alone)? There is no monolithic collective morality or value hierarchy. Local collective systems don't scale. This fantasy of some greater good or common welfare will continue to plague humanity until the authoritarian impulse dies out. Academicians are betas vying for alpha status via collective authoritarianism.