Very few people are capable of rationality, and even those who are, often reach wildly different conclusions. Even on matters related to science.
Your book on debunking the selfish gene is very interesting (of course for its content), but it's also interesting for the implicit "meta" content: it shows how someone very rational (arguably unnaturally so) like Richard Dawkins, who dedicated his life to the rational study of biology, has arrived at the wrong conclusions with his selfish gene framework.
> The authority of rationality is your authority. It comes from you, not from a meme, and not from other people.
That's kind of the problem though, isn't it? It's all subjective. A culture that encourages individuals to use rationality ultimately encourages them to value subjectivity. A culture of "My Truth" and "His Truth" where anything goes and you're not allowed to call out other people's stupid opinions. Just like you used your rationality and reached your conclusions, they used their rationality and reached their own conclusions.
Human irrationality cannot be fixed. It can only be worked-around. The ability to outsource improtant cognitive problems to culture is in my opinion one of the important adaptations that made civilization possible.
I think people in the West largely understand that the purpose of living beings is reproduction, and yet this only makes them value reproduction less, not more.
High fertility societies don't tell people that their purpose is to reproduce. These cultures make individual people value having large families and makes men value leaving a progeny. I don't think you can find many people who value rationality and also think that wanting to leave behind a progeny is a rational thing to want.
The only reason I can leave this comment on your article is because I know that you do value reproduction, but it's actually quite a contrarian position among the rationalist blogosphere.
If instead I was commenting on an article by say, Sam Harris, I wouldn't leave this kind of comment, because I know he would probably say "Indeed we should not value reproduction".
I think the argument is not "we should become religious because it's good for us". It's more like "Between you and me, religion is all bullshit, but for the masses, they need religion or they will be lost".
The difference between "gender ideology" and Christianity is that the former's sacred object is part of the material/physical plane - therefore signaling loyalty to the ideology necessarily has direct consequences on one's actions on that plane eveen at the most fundamental level of reproduction.
Christianity's "holy contradiction", "religious paradox" - however you want to rationalize the form of its belief in God - remains in the realm of metaphysics and need not have consequences on one's actions on the material plane.
In other words - believing men are women affects your daily life and reproductive success significantly, believing God is at once One and Trinity has no bearing on your everyday life, nor on your reproductive success (religious celibacy notwithstanding).
This point is illustrated very well by the fact that Christianity has, until its recent subsumption by Globo*omo, driven reproductive success (be fruitful and multiply), whereas gender ideology tends to quite literally sterilize its proponents.
Yeah, you could argue that Christianity is more biologically adaptive, but that argument is outside the frame of Christianity. If you are measuring human success by reproduction, then you are not a Christian.
Christianity does not promote reproduction very much. The focus is on the afterlife, and sexual desire is denigrated. Christianity is more adaptive than wokism, but less adaptive than valuing reproduction.
I think the details of a religion's or ideology's sociological function are by default incomprehensible to the average believer. In order to look at it scientifically, rationally, you must transpose it from the sacred to the profane and dissect it.
Dioesn't mean you can't examine Christianity from within Christianity - as a Christian - while using "reproduction" as an important metric: "be fruitful and multiply" clearly commands that Christians proliferate, and you can't do that if you're sterile and/or celibate. "you will know them by their fruits" is pragmatist epistemology as metaphor - the fruits of gender ideology are rotten at best, nonexistent at worst. Not so for Christianity.
By these maxims, Christianity commands reproduction, since that is the only way the average person spreads the gospel of Christ. And by these maxims, gender ideology is doubly hostile to Christianity - it is a rival faith - i.e. competes for psychological space and it reduces the number of people in the world, preventing Christ's gospel from proliferating.
"Be fruitful and multiply" only occurs in Genesis, afaik, which reflects an older worldview. It's not in the 10 commandments, or emphasized elsewhere. Christianity developed a celibate priesthood, so it clearly did not view reproduction as a necessary duty.
These days, Christianity has little effect on reproduction. Highly religious but modern countries, such as Portugal and Poland, have very low fertility.
Generally speaking, religions don't make people do things. People make people do things. People conform to those around them. Religion is used to rationalize implicit norms, and to prevent thought. That's fine when people have a functional culture, but not when thought and change are necessary.
I agree that wokism is a competing religion to Christianity, but it also inherits a lot from Christianity, and neither is functional in the modern world.
>Generally speaking, religions don't make people do things. People make people do things. People conform to those around them. Religion is used to rationalize implicit norms, and to prevent thought. That's fine when people have a functional culture, but not when thought and change are necessary.
People make people do things, but religions serve as focal points that establish patterns of proper behavior (and signaling proper belief through behavior), enforced by people. So in this sense, religions do make people do things.
>These days, Christianity has little effect on reproduction. Highly religious but modern countries, such as Portugal and Poland, have very low fertility.
You're definitely right here, but the implication is that Christianity is:
1) not intrinsically incompatible with high fertility, i.e. it doesm't prohibit procreative sex, which woke does
2) therefore also compatible with selective interpretations of its doctrine, which allow for emphasis on procreative sex as a norm (rewarded with status for lots of kids), made manifest by being a target for performative signaling (people compete for status by signaling their acceptance of the procreation norm in a costly manner, i.e. by having kids)
BTW, I'm a fan of your work, I stumbled upon your "Collectivize sex" almost 10 years ago and have been sporadically checking on your blog. Glad to see you on the stack!
Thanks, glad you find my work interesting. "Collectivize Sex" was a long time ago :)
I think we agree that religion plays a role in determining human behavior, but does not operate in isolation. E.g. the Amish belief system only works within an Amish community that propagates an entire way of life, not just certain beliefs. Those beliefs do not propagate on their own, and can't be transplanted to, say, software developers living in Santa Cruz.
I agree that Christianity is better than wokism, in terms of functionality for individuals and societies, but neither is functional now, and the difference is not huge.
Where we might disagree is on whether there are traditional solutions to modern problems. NRx seems to have that view: that we can and should restore things from the past, such as monarchy and traditional religion. The idea is that we broke something and can fix it. My view is very different: that modern civilization is a radical departure from the past, and modern problems require new solutions. I talk about that in "Bootnecking Modern Civilization".
Very few people are capable of rationality, and even those who are, often reach wildly different conclusions. Even on matters related to science.
Your book on debunking the selfish gene is very interesting (of course for its content), but it's also interesting for the implicit "meta" content: it shows how someone very rational (arguably unnaturally so) like Richard Dawkins, who dedicated his life to the rational study of biology, has arrived at the wrong conclusions with his selfish gene framework.
> The authority of rationality is your authority. It comes from you, not from a meme, and not from other people.
That's kind of the problem though, isn't it? It's all subjective. A culture that encourages individuals to use rationality ultimately encourages them to value subjectivity. A culture of "My Truth" and "His Truth" where anything goes and you're not allowed to call out other people's stupid opinions. Just like you used your rationality and reached your conclusions, they used their rationality and reached their own conclusions.
Human irrationality cannot be fixed. It can only be worked-around. The ability to outsource improtant cognitive problems to culture is in my opinion one of the important adaptations that made civilization possible.
I think people in the West largely understand that the purpose of living beings is reproduction, and yet this only makes them value reproduction less, not more.
High fertility societies don't tell people that their purpose is to reproduce. These cultures make individual people value having large families and makes men value leaving a progeny. I don't think you can find many people who value rationality and also think that wanting to leave behind a progeny is a rational thing to want.
The only reason I can leave this comment on your article is because I know that you do value reproduction, but it's actually quite a contrarian position among the rationalist blogosphere.
If instead I was commenting on an article by say, Sam Harris, I wouldn't leave this kind of comment, because I know he would probably say "Indeed we should not value reproduction".
I think the argument is not "we should become religious because it's good for us". It's more like "Between you and me, religion is all bullshit, but for the masses, they need religion or they will be lost".
The difference between "gender ideology" and Christianity is that the former's sacred object is part of the material/physical plane - therefore signaling loyalty to the ideology necessarily has direct consequences on one's actions on that plane eveen at the most fundamental level of reproduction.
Christianity's "holy contradiction", "religious paradox" - however you want to rationalize the form of its belief in God - remains in the realm of metaphysics and need not have consequences on one's actions on the material plane.
In other words - believing men are women affects your daily life and reproductive success significantly, believing God is at once One and Trinity has no bearing on your everyday life, nor on your reproductive success (religious celibacy notwithstanding).
This point is illustrated very well by the fact that Christianity has, until its recent subsumption by Globo*omo, driven reproductive success (be fruitful and multiply), whereas gender ideology tends to quite literally sterilize its proponents.
Yeah, you could argue that Christianity is more biologically adaptive, but that argument is outside the frame of Christianity. If you are measuring human success by reproduction, then you are not a Christian.
Christianity does not promote reproduction very much. The focus is on the afterlife, and sexual desire is denigrated. Christianity is more adaptive than wokism, but less adaptive than valuing reproduction.
I think the details of a religion's or ideology's sociological function are by default incomprehensible to the average believer. In order to look at it scientifically, rationally, you must transpose it from the sacred to the profane and dissect it.
Dioesn't mean you can't examine Christianity from within Christianity - as a Christian - while using "reproduction" as an important metric: "be fruitful and multiply" clearly commands that Christians proliferate, and you can't do that if you're sterile and/or celibate. "you will know them by their fruits" is pragmatist epistemology as metaphor - the fruits of gender ideology are rotten at best, nonexistent at worst. Not so for Christianity.
By these maxims, Christianity commands reproduction, since that is the only way the average person spreads the gospel of Christ. And by these maxims, gender ideology is doubly hostile to Christianity - it is a rival faith - i.e. competes for psychological space and it reduces the number of people in the world, preventing Christ's gospel from proliferating.
"Be fruitful and multiply" only occurs in Genesis, afaik, which reflects an older worldview. It's not in the 10 commandments, or emphasized elsewhere. Christianity developed a celibate priesthood, so it clearly did not view reproduction as a necessary duty.
Paul's view on marriage and sex: https://www.christianity.com/bible/niv/1-corinthians/7
These days, Christianity has little effect on reproduction. Highly religious but modern countries, such as Portugal and Poland, have very low fertility.
Generally speaking, religions don't make people do things. People make people do things. People conform to those around them. Religion is used to rationalize implicit norms, and to prevent thought. That's fine when people have a functional culture, but not when thought and change are necessary.
I agree that wokism is a competing religion to Christianity, but it also inherits a lot from Christianity, and neither is functional in the modern world.
>Generally speaking, religions don't make people do things. People make people do things. People conform to those around them. Religion is used to rationalize implicit norms, and to prevent thought. That's fine when people have a functional culture, but not when thought and change are necessary.
People make people do things, but religions serve as focal points that establish patterns of proper behavior (and signaling proper belief through behavior), enforced by people. So in this sense, religions do make people do things.
>These days, Christianity has little effect on reproduction. Highly religious but modern countries, such as Portugal and Poland, have very low fertility.
You're definitely right here, but the implication is that Christianity is:
1) not intrinsically incompatible with high fertility, i.e. it doesm't prohibit procreative sex, which woke does
2) therefore also compatible with selective interpretations of its doctrine, which allow for emphasis on procreative sex as a norm (rewarded with status for lots of kids), made manifest by being a target for performative signaling (people compete for status by signaling their acceptance of the procreation norm in a costly manner, i.e. by having kids)
BTW, I'm a fan of your work, I stumbled upon your "Collectivize sex" almost 10 years ago and have been sporadically checking on your blog. Glad to see you on the stack!
Thanks, glad you find my work interesting. "Collectivize Sex" was a long time ago :)
I think we agree that religion plays a role in determining human behavior, but does not operate in isolation. E.g. the Amish belief system only works within an Amish community that propagates an entire way of life, not just certain beliefs. Those beliefs do not propagate on their own, and can't be transplanted to, say, software developers living in Santa Cruz.
I agree that Christianity is better than wokism, in terms of functionality for individuals and societies, but neither is functional now, and the difference is not huge.
Where we might disagree is on whether there are traditional solutions to modern problems. NRx seems to have that view: that we can and should restore things from the past, such as monarchy and traditional religion. The idea is that we broke something and can fix it. My view is very different: that modern civilization is a radical departure from the past, and modern problems require new solutions. I talk about that in "Bootnecking Modern Civilization".