What binds people together (?)

[Jen'ari]

On 5/28/2018 at 5:03 AM, Darth Richard II said:

The Force.

Damn someone got there first .

[breathe.teardrops]

I believe that something that brings generations together is music. I really don't think that people forget the 'oldies' at least me and my friends didn't. Even into classical music. I love to chat about music and would love to try to play violin in the future. 

Something that brings people together in a small way is mediation, not meditation, but the act of calming down a fight. That is not exactly a right way of saying what I meant, or even anything was right in this whole post about anything the topic was. 

I'm going to roll with it anyway because I have free will. 

[Flightless bird]

The ability to empathise... 

I'm not looking at people but animals what brings herds, packs, prides, pods etc etc together, it's not religion... but the ability to feel empathy, to feel compassion for each other, to be able to communicate and have understanding.   It doesn't matter if it's religion, politics, sport, family these four topics are vital for every subject  

[Kalbear]

So from a biological standpoint I think this is an amusing place to start - the monkeysphere. It's based on a real study, so don't mind that it comes from Cracked - it's just funnier that way. 

But it's important, because so much of human morality comes from honest to goodness brain wiring and is not taught. There are limits to being able to deal with things like 'what binds us', and it also suggests the solution is far more about proximity to others rather than anything complicated. We've seen this in other studies - where people who are more inclined to be near different ethnicities tend to be significantly more welcoming.

But really, it comes down to how the brain groups people. If another person is not like the people you know, the brain falls back on generics, stereotypes. (It still does, mind you, but those can be overcome for specific individuals). And those stereotypes are easily changed and coerced into something bad. 

[Rippounet]

5 hours ago, Kalbear said:

So from a biological standpoint I think this is an amusing place to start - the monkeysphere. It's based on a real study, so don't mind that it comes from Cracked - it's just funnier that way.

Kalbear, this is a great article because it uses funnny concepts to describe very real and very serious stuff. I think the monkeysphere is actually useful to help us understand nationalism (or racism, or politics generally speaking).
Funnily enough I had something similar in mind because years ago I read something extremely similar about how many actual friends you can have on facebook, and the number was a bit over 100. Maybe this Cracked article and the article I read were both based on the same study in the first place.

[Knight Of Winter]

3 hours ago, Rippounet said:

think the monkeysphere is actually useful to help us understand nationalism (or racism, or politics generally speaking).

Is it? Monkeysphere (and in-group vs out-group distinction in general) is as old as humans - or even older - appearing in every person in every society ever made. Latter two are not: nationalism, as we now understand it - started to develop only in 19th century. Racism as well - it was fa(aa)r from norm in human history.

I've even heard Harari speak how nationalism could be considered as a step in tight direction. Before, people felt loyalty to their immediate family, friends and colleagues. Nationalism far broadened the scale, making people loyal to millions of strangers whom they've never met before. Next logical step would be to include not only one nation, but entire humanity into that circle of loyalty (as much as human nature allows, of course. People will always i.e. put interests of their kin ahead of interests of stranger; no matter how nationalistic or humanistic they are).

Speaking of which, I think he was on the right track when he wrote about the very issue this thread is about: what binds people together. For smaller numbers (up to Dunbar's number linked by Kalbear): it's informal stuff such as loyalty based of kinhsip or friendship, common goals, shared interests etc. The concept of monkeysphere refers to this type of relationships: always informal and always on personal level. For larger groups, on the other hand, it's always a shared belief in some abstract common myth, and this can be applied to nations, religions, money, political parties etc.

[sologdin]

 because so much of human morality comes from honest to goodness brain wiring and is not taught.

what experiment can authorize this conclusion, which strikes me as one of the most unwarranted inferences ever drawn?

[Knight Of Winter]

2 hours ago, sologdin said:

 because so much of human morality comes from honest to goodness brain wiring and is not taught.

what experiment can authorize this conclusion, which strikes me as one of the most unwarranted inferences ever drawn?

I'd honestly like to know what's so terrifying about the possibility the human morality comes in part from brain wiring, from nature as opposed to nurture? If it were indeed the case, how would it it any way diminish our morality or our striving to act in a moral manner?

As to your question - there's a relatively easy way to check this. If large multitude of people have moral reaction (positive or negative) to the same issue, we can pretty safely assume that their moral reaction is natural. For it's exceedingly unlikely that all of these subjects had exactly the same moral upbringing that lead them to execute exactly the same moral judgement. Or even better, check subjects cross-culturally to eliminate the influence of one particular culture.

Famous Ultimatum game is one such example. The experiment goes like this: person A is given 100 bucks, and must divide them in any way between himself and person B. If person B accepts A's suggestion - they both get what A proposed. If B rejects, nobody gets anything. Now, normally you could expect different reactions from different B's to various offers. For example, if offered some ridiculously small amount (like 5 or 10 dollars) - you'd expect that many of them would accept the offer: after all, getting 10 dollars is infinitely better then getting none. But no, all of them furiously rejected. And not only that, they were offended to be even offered such a small amount. Knowing that, A's would not propose such deals, offering either half or close-to-half split in most cases (like 50-50 or 60-40).

So this would suggest, for example, that people have some innate notion of fairness ingrained in them; some sense of fair play and reciprocity. Otherwise, they would not all feel cheated in experiment above. And indeed, if you asked random people about their notion of morality, most would naturally list fairness of a integral part of it. Of course, fairness is not the only element of morality - you could list others as well, such as loyalty or care or purity etc. These may be up to debate. But what I believe is certain is that there are some universal factors upon which humans base their morality; otherwise social mores would not be in part so similar all around the world. Pretty much all societies promoted fairness and kindness within the group (what exactly is a group is a trickier question. It may be a family, tribe or a social class. It goes back to important in-group vs out-group distinction mentioned earlier), punished arbitrary violence, murder or cheating within the group, rewarded loyalty, shown disgust for things they considered impure etc.

[sologdin]

what's so terrifying

nothing. what is so 'terrifying' about it having nothing to do with anatomy? (see how condescending it is to impute an unflattering emotional state to an interlocutor when it was not present, at all, in the presentation and is not warranted by the colloquy?  maybe edit it away next time?)

brain wiring

why speak in metaphor? where is the scientific precision that the subject warrants?

we can pretty safely assume that their moral reaction is natural

i cannot. am not sure who this 'we' happens to be; it does not appear to be a very cautious collective. to be very severe, the argument presented here draws upon historical rather than genetic evidence. the inference strikes me as unwarranted, similar to inferring the non-existence of black swans from the repeated observation of white ones, or inferring a normative principle from empirical evidence.

check subject cross-culturally to eliminate the influence of one particular culture.

assuming arguendo that the evidence exists, a cultural universal would be necessary rather than sufficient, no?

all of them furiously rejected. And not only that, they were offended to be even offered such a small amount. Knowing that, A's would not propose such a deals,

this is doubly aporetic: how did A make a successful proposition with the knowledge that all of the propositions were already rejected?  i.e., it sounds as though two sets of experiments were conducted, and that the second was contaminated with data from the first.  all the second tells us is how that data may be administered.

Pretty much any society

although inferring 'natural' from historical evidence is unwarranted, more significantly 'pretty much' is not a cultural universal, which kills the claim ab initio.

[Jo498]

I am as wary of evolutionary psychology as of cultural constructivism (or whatever). But there are actually cultural differences in ultimatum game style experiments.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=286428

[Kalbear]

4 hours ago, sologdin said:

 because so much of human morality comes from honest to goodness brain wiring and is not taught.

what experiment can authorize this conclusion, which strikes me as one of the most unwarranted inferences ever drawn?

There's a whole lot of study on universal emotions and universal morality out there. The morality one in particular lets me showcase one of the best things of all time yet again - Monkey Unfairness. This also gets into Jonathan Haidt's moral framework theories, which have strong statistical and scientific backing. 

This isn't to say specific moral ratings are set in stone, which I think is where you were getting umbrage. Rather, things like fairness are a universal moral value. What are you being fair about depends a lot on the society and culture, but typically it's like that monkey video. Purity is another one that is common - all cultures have the concept of things that are pure/impure, even if they don't agree on what those are. The idea behind this is that those moral values correspond pretty well to those universal emotional values. Anger and unfairness, disgust and purity, sadness and care/harm, joy and ingroup, fear and authoritarianism. 

These things are fundamentally part of being human. 

[Kalbear]

4 hours ago, Knight Of Winter said:

Is it? Monkeysphere (and in-group vs out-group distinction in general) is as old as humans - or even older - appearing in every person in every society ever made. Latter two are not: nationalism, as we now understand it - started to develop only in 19th century. Racism as well - it was fa(aa)r from norm in human history.

 I've even heard Harari speak how nationalism could be considered as a step in tight direction. Before, people felt loyalty to their immediate family, friends and colleagues. Nationalism far broadened the scale, making people loyal to millions of strangers whom they've never met before. Next logical step would be to include not only one nation, but entire humanity into that circle of loyalty (as much as human nature allows, of course. People will always i.e. put interests of their kin ahead of interests of stranger; no matter how nationalistic or humanistic they are).

Speaking of which, I think he was on the right track when he wrote about the very issue this thread is about: what binds people together. For smaller numbers (up to Dunbar's number linked by Kalbear): it's informal stuff such as loyalty based of kinhsip or friendship, common goals, shared interests etc. The concept of monkeysphere refers to this type of relationships: always informal and always on personal level. For larger groups, on the other hand, it's always a shared belief in some abstract common myth, and this can be applied to nations, religions, money, political parties etc.

For me, I think nationalism is an obvious growth from the monkeysphere. Because you cannot hold in your head all of the people of a city, much less a nation, your brain has to do stereotypes - and when people who speak like you, wear clothes like you, groom like you, and care about the same things like you exist, your natural inclination is to say 'that person is good because I am good'. These are markers of being in the same tribe, basically, and play on that ingroup feeling. 

Also, the idea that nationalism didn't exist until the 19th century is farcical, as is the idea that racism didn't exist until recently. Perhaps not racist with respect to a specific skin color, but racism with respect to where people were from has been something recorded for a long time. Racism is a byproduct of the human need to dehumanize people that are being treated inhumanely. It is as old as slavery and war. 

[DMC]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

This also gets into Jonathan Haidt's moral framework theories, which have strong statistical and scientific backing. 

Let's not got carried away here.  The "backing" on such a broad assertion requires more than differences in means experiments (or any statistical methods).  It's more about research design, and isolating the mechanism(s) of causality in a convincing way is very difficult.  I'm not trying to denigrate Haidt's work, but everyone I've ever talked to about it would agree it's still in the evaluation phase.  

[JGP]

6 hours ago, Knight Of Winter said:

Is it? Monkeysphere (and in-group vs out-group distinction in general) is as old as humans - or even older - appearing in every... [clipped]

Mmn. I'd argue much, much older than that.

I mean, in-group vs out-group distinction is pretty much the core tenet of complex adaptive systems, the organization of matter across more or less every scale, since like... hell, as far back as humanity can speculate. It's transactional. An economy. Perhaps at the heart of all that binds us, or anything maybe, is the *desire for more than what one can individually have, or do, or be. 

 

 

*yes, I'm aware that's an anthropomorphism, but you know what I mean  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

For the love of god, the correct answer has already been given:

On 5/29/2018 at 5:33 PM, Tywin et al. said:

Tacos. The answer is tacos. All other responses are invalid and anyone who disagrees is a thoroughly weak-minded villain. 

Heathens! 

[JGP]

Shush, you. Fucking retweeting yourself lol

[Knight Of Winter]

7 hours ago, sologdin said:

nothing. what is so 'terrifying' about it having nothing to do with anatomy? (see how condescending it is to impute an unflattering emotional state to an interlocutor when it was not present, at all, in the presentation and is not warranted by the colloquy?  maybe edit it away next time?)

I really don't see any condescension either way. If I made a wrong reading of your tone or your meaning - simply point it out and I'll try to correct it. Without implying condescension.

7 hours ago, sologdin said:

why speak in metaphor? where is the scientific precision that the subject warrants?

Sigh...I only used that phrase because you yourself quoted it from Kalbear's post. It's simple and straightforward, so I assume everyone will understand my meaning.

7 hours ago, sologdin said:

i cannot. am not sure who this 'we' happens to be; it does not appear to be a very cautious collective. to be very severe, the argument presented here draws upon historical rather than genetic evidence. the inference strikes me as unwarranted, similar to inferring the non-existence of black swans from the repeated observation of white ones, or inferring a normative principle from empirical evidence. 

Yeah...that's how inductive reasoning works. If you get repeated evidence for A, you'll assume A is indeed correct, unless you have some good reason to believe otherwise. Else you couldn't prove or disprove existence of anything: you couldn't infer the non-existance of unicorns from repeated observation of non-unicorn animals.

So, overall, are there some evidence that morality is at least in part hardwired in brain - yes. Is there evidence to the contrary - that morality is completely taught - no, as far as I know. So I don't see how would it be logically fallacious to assume the former as truth. Of course, if you have proof for the latter case - please present it. 

8 hours ago, sologdin said:

i.e., it sounds as though two sets of experiments were conducted, and that the second was contaminated with data from the first.  all the second tells us is how that data may be administered.

Ok, maybe I didn't clarify enough in my first post. There was no two sets of experiments. When I said that A knew that B would reject the "unfair" offer, I thought it was clear that A used his innate moral sense of fairness to see that e.g. 90-10 offer will be considered unfair and assume (correctly) that B will be outraged to even hear it suggested; hence he refrained from making such an offer in the first place.

8 hours ago, sologdin said:

although inferring 'natural' from historical evidence is unwarranted, more significantly 'pretty much' is not a cultural universal, which kills the claim ab initio.

I really didn't come here to dabble in semantics, and my knowledge of English is not good enough to know how strong of a claim wording "pretty much" describes. So I'll put it in simpler terms: every society that I know of, and every society that psychologists I know of who researched that subject - like Haidt and Pinker to a lesser extent - has some universal principles for its morality: fairness, care, purity etc. Yes, they may differ on opinions about
"what is pure" or "what is harmful", but core principles remain the same. I won't go into much depth, Kalbear already did it in his response. Of course, should you have any counterarguments which prove the opposite, I'm all ears.

 

6 hours ago, Kalbear said:

For me, I think nationalism is an obvious growth from the monkeysphere. Because you cannot hold in your head all of the people of a city, much less a nation, your brain has to do stereotypes - and when people who speak like you, wear clothes like you, groom like you, and care about the same things like you exist, your natural inclination is to say 'that person is good because I am good'. These are markers of being in the same tribe, basically, and play on that ingroup feeling. 

I understand your argument here and don't disagree with it much. My point was that "traditional" in-group feeling was based on personal knowledge of your fellow in-group member: he was a part of your tribe; or a colleague; or a freind - in any case, someone whom you knew and interacted on a regular basis; and your "in-group" sentiment was based on that personal relationship the two of you shared. I find it remarkable achievement of human psyche that that same in-group feeling started (in case of nationalism) being based not on personal knowledge of said individual, but on the fact that both of you belong to some vague abstract concept, such as state or religion.

 

7 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Also, the idea that nationalism didn't exist until the 19th century is farcical, as is the idea that racism didn't exist until recently. Perhaps not racist with respect to a specific skin color, but racism with respect to where people were from has been something recorded for a long time. Racism is a byproduct of the human need to dehumanize people that are being treated inhumanely. It is as old as slavery and war. 

Nationalism (in the way we today understand the word) is indeed a recent invention - for it is based of a presumption that all inhabitants of some country share a connection, a bond that unites them into a greater whole known as state. For the most of human history, such a feat was impossible: you could maybe invoke a sense of national pride in e.g. Spanish noble or perhaps a citizen; but majority of population was made of farmers and peasants who couldn't care less about some abstract entity which doesn't influence their daily lives at all. They could perhaps feel a sense of belonging to a local community or some other kind of local-patriotism, but that's as far as it went. Some common connection based of a fact that all of them are part of Spanish nation was non-existent. Peasant from Leon felt no common ground with peasant from Aragon whatsoever. Only in cca 19th century did countries became strong enough, and technology advanced enough for rulers to reach all of their subject and instill in them a sense of common national belonging.

As for racism, it's indeed old and common - what I said was that it was not universal; that it was far from norm. Some societies were racist, others weren't. I questioned whether something sporadic (such as racism) could be considered an offshoot of something well-established and universal (such as monkeysphere).

[Rippounet]

Didn't know where to post this, so I'll shamelessly resurrect my own thread.

This study is starting to make made some noise a few years ago*:

Quote

Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior
https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/109/11/4086.full.pdf

Seven studies using experimental and naturalistic methods revealthat upper-class individuals behave more unethically than lower-class individuals. In studies 1 and 2, upper-class individuals weremore likely to break the law while driving, relative to lower-class individuals. In follow-up laboratory studies, upper-class individualswere more likely to exhibit unethical decision-making tendencies(study3),takevaluedgoods fromothers(study4),lieina negotiation(study 5), cheat to increase their chances of winning a prize (study 6),and endorse unethical behavior at work (study 7) than were lower-class individuals. Mediator and moderator data demonstrated thatupper-class individuals’unethical tendencies are accounted for, inpart, by their more favorable attitudes toward greed.

I don't think the theory is new. It's well in line with studies arguing that CEOs are statistically more likely to have psychopathic tendencies among others...
I wouldn't take the studies themselves too seriously, but the core theory is really that our capitalist/materialistic society requires unethical behavior to succeed in it. In other words, you need to be greedy, selfish, or callous to make a lot of money.
A different way to put it (in order to link this with this thread's original topic) is that successful people do not feel as bound to their community or society than others.

I wouldn't have paid much attention to this angle of attack against capitalism/materialism. I suppose people versed in theology could point out that this could be a reflection of an ancient feud between Catholicism and Protestantism and their respective values (?), perhaps Judaism as well (?). Point is, accusing the wealthy of being "immoral" is as old as humanity.
However, with global warming the idea that our elites are very likely to act unethically may be worth highlighting.
Also, given the moral dimension involved in global warming (Kal pointed out it can become a religion, and funnily enough that's a common take among conservatives), there are objective markers for people behaving selfishly or unethically, like driving a brand new SUV...

 

*lol it's actually from 2012 and only popped up in my facebook feed... internet can be weird.

[OldGimletEye]

7 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Didn't know where to post this, so I'll shamelessly resurrect my own thread.

This study is starting to make some noise:

I don't think the theory is new. It's well in line with studies arguing that CEOs are statistically more likely to have psychopathic tendencies among others...
I wouldn't take the studies themselves too seriously, but the core theory is really that our capitalist/materialistic society requires unethical behavior to succeed in it. In other words, you need to be greedy, selfish, or callous to make a lot of money.
A different way to put it (in order to link this with this thread's original topic) is that successful people do not feel as bound to their community or society than others.

I wouldn't have paid much attention to this angle of attack against capitalism/materialism. I suppose people versed in theology could point out that this could be a reflection of an ancient feud between Catholicism and Protestantism and their respective values (?), perhaps Judaism as well (?). Point is, accusing the wealthy of being "immoral" is as old as humanity.
However, with global warming the idea that our elites are very likely to act unethically may be worth highlighting.
Also, given the moral dimension involved in global warming (Kal pointed out it can become a religion, and funnily enough that's a common take among conservatives), there are objective markers for people behaving selfishly or unethically, like driving a brand new SUV...

Reminds of the asshole I saw recently that parked his BMW in a handicap spot, without a handicap sticker. Somebody should have chewed his sorry ass for that.

[maarsen]

58 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Didn't know where to post this, so I'll shamelessly resurrect my own thread.

This study is starting to make made some noise a few years ago*:

I don't think the theory is new. It's well in line with studies arguing that CEOs are statistically more likely to have psychopathic tendencies among others...
I wouldn't take the studies themselves too seriously, but the core theory is really that our capitalist/materialistic society requires unethical behavior to succeed in it. In other words, you need to be greedy, selfish, or callous to make a lot of money.
A different way to put it (in order to link this with this thread's original topic) is that successful people do not feel as bound to their community or society than others.

I wouldn't have paid much attention to this angle of attack against capitalism/materialism. I suppose people versed in theology could point out that this could be a reflection of an ancient feud between Catholicism and Protestantism and their respective values (?), perhaps Judaism as well (?). Point is, accusing the wealthy of being "immoral" is as old as humanity.
However, with global warming the idea that our elites are very likely to act unethically may be worth highlighting.
Also, given the moral dimension involved in global warming (Kal pointed out it can become a religion, and funnily enough that's a common take among conservatives), there are objective markers for people behaving selfishly or unethically, like driving a brand new SUV...

 

*lol it's actually from 2012 and only popped up in my facebook feed... internet can be weird.

I have a suspicion that when people have the outward signs of affluence, they are given more leeway when it comes to the disregard  of societal norms. There was a documentary I watched called Lambert and Stamp, the managers of The Who. Pete Townsend told a story about going into a wine store with Stamp and taking out a few bottles of the most expensive champagne without paying because he, Stamp, looked upper class and the clerk expected to see that behaviour.