Correct in that ideologies do not change minds, but give them words to express their interests and organize to satisfy those interests. But, the post overstates the case.
(a) environment generates demand for means of status, means of organizing (demand) - yes it's mutational load. But it's also, in this case, the introducton of women (mostly) into biz and politics and the resulting law and legislation that privileges them against the evolutionary interests of the polity.
(b) some group contains a method of verbal suggestion, influence, baiting, persuasion, coercion (technology)
(c) members of this group adapt existing technology of suggestion+ to satisfy the market need
(d) some set of first movers DO manufacture and distribute this new conceptual product to the market
(e) The market develops memetic and metaphysical reductions of these insights as consumers put them into their own words or prioritize different concepts.
“Correct in that ideologies do not change minds, but give them words to express their interests and organize to satisfy those interests.”
Is it not also the case that people stumble upon various ideas and find them persuasive not merely because of their alleged interests but because they are impressed with the various oeuvres and initially too ignorant to figure out what is wrong with them and/or too passionate about their Utopian promises? Hence, the phenomenon of the ex-communist in the 50s. Even mutants with a solid brain can eventually figure stuff out and adopt better ideas (although it can be a slow process). It seems all too convenient to blame everything on deleterious mutations--this seems a bit like a right-wing version of Freudian “repression”.
Religion need not be a mind virus. Although it demands many costly behaviors, it provides two important things :
Meaning - A concept needed by many people to justify their life.
Cohesion- Basic social cohesion, especially in primitive communities. We can see the example of tribes in Papua new Guinea that, if I remember correctly, mentioned in the book "Guns, Germs and Steel" which stopped intra-tribe killing after the introduction of Christianity.
"We went for the deductive route. We asked, what must be true about human behavior under the idealist theory, and how does that differ from the Paretian theory? An answer popped out: if books can exert power, then they can get people to do things that they didn’t already want to do. In other words, if ideas are powerful, people should be able to be convinced to engage in costly behaviors because of those ideas, despite knowing intrinsically that the behaviors are obviously costly."
Ideologies do not need to make people engage in costly behavior in order to have significant effect on the world. People with power can engage in behavior that is not costly for themselves but is for others for ideological reasons. An example would be that many wealthy whites in the US advocating desegregation lived in neighborhoods with high enough property prices that there would be no chance of any significant numbers of blacks moving in. Advocating desegregation was thus of no cost to themselves but could still have an ideological motivation. What people are engaging in here is behavior that is neutral in terms of costs for themselves but costly for others.
It seems a bit contradictory to say that this is down to deleterious mutations but then argue that white wokels avoid blacks for self-interested reasons. Instead, I think that many woke whites believe blacks can be lifted up but believe it will take a while before mixing can be safe.
Correct in that ideologies do not change minds, but give them words to express their interests and organize to satisfy those interests. But, the post overstates the case.
(a) environment generates demand for means of status, means of organizing (demand) - yes it's mutational load. But it's also, in this case, the introducton of women (mostly) into biz and politics and the resulting law and legislation that privileges them against the evolutionary interests of the polity.
(b) some group contains a method of verbal suggestion, influence, baiting, persuasion, coercion (technology)
(c) members of this group adapt existing technology of suggestion+ to satisfy the market need
(d) some set of first movers DO manufacture and distribute this new conceptual product to the market
(e) The market develops memetic and metaphysical reductions of these insights as consumers put them into their own words or prioritize different concepts.
(f) the memes spread.
So you're overstating the case.
“Correct in that ideologies do not change minds, but give them words to express their interests and organize to satisfy those interests.”
Is it not also the case that people stumble upon various ideas and find them persuasive not merely because of their alleged interests but because they are impressed with the various oeuvres and initially too ignorant to figure out what is wrong with them and/or too passionate about their Utopian promises? Hence, the phenomenon of the ex-communist in the 50s. Even mutants with a solid brain can eventually figure stuff out and adopt better ideas (although it can be a slow process). It seems all too convenient to blame everything on deleterious mutations--this seems a bit like a right-wing version of Freudian “repression”.
What is religion if not a mind virus?
Religion need not be a mind virus. Although it demands many costly behaviors, it provides two important things :
Meaning - A concept needed by many people to justify their life.
Cohesion- Basic social cohesion, especially in primitive communities. We can see the example of tribes in Papua new Guinea that, if I remember correctly, mentioned in the book "Guns, Germs and Steel" which stopped intra-tribe killing after the introduction of Christianity.
Also look at the works of Tim Urban.
I think there is a flaw in the following quote
"We went for the deductive route. We asked, what must be true about human behavior under the idealist theory, and how does that differ from the Paretian theory? An answer popped out: if books can exert power, then they can get people to do things that they didn’t already want to do. In other words, if ideas are powerful, people should be able to be convinced to engage in costly behaviors because of those ideas, despite knowing intrinsically that the behaviors are obviously costly."
Ideologies do not need to make people engage in costly behavior in order to have significant effect on the world. People with power can engage in behavior that is not costly for themselves but is for others for ideological reasons. An example would be that many wealthy whites in the US advocating desegregation lived in neighborhoods with high enough property prices that there would be no chance of any significant numbers of blacks moving in. Advocating desegregation was thus of no cost to themselves but could still have an ideological motivation. What people are engaging in here is behavior that is neutral in terms of costs for themselves but costly for others.
It seems a bit contradictory to say that this is down to deleterious mutations but then argue that white wokels avoid blacks for self-interested reasons. Instead, I think that many woke whites believe blacks can be lifted up but believe it will take a while before mixing can be safe.
"Luxury Beliefs" https://www.robkhenderson.com/