/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

<In a letter to the editor of Scotland's Sunday Herald, Dawkins argues that the time has come to lay this spectre to rest. Dawkins writes that though no one wants to be seen to be in agreement with Hitler on any particular, "if you can breed cattle for milk yield, horses for running speed, and dogs for herding skill,
<why on Earth should it be impossible to breed humans for mathematical, musical or athletic ability?"
Because only a small number of animals can be bread for traits, try breeding elephants, rhinos, zebras, giraffes and so on. It can't be done, people tried and failed for millennia. We know why that is so, cows, dogs, horses, sheep, pigs, donkeys and so on have a special thing (i forgot the technical term) that can copy paste small genetic sequences within it's dna, that's what's making them lets say "biologically moldable". Like most animals humans don't have it, breeding programs will not have any effect, other than filling people with murderous rage that leads them to kill off the abusive "cast of breeding masters". There is no eugenics advocacy, only strangely worded euthanasia requests. What comes on top of this is that humans have very low genetic diversity, we're almost clones, because humanity went through a near extinction event that dwindled our numbers to nearly nothing , so the gene-pool is incredibly shallow to begin with. If we start messing with our own biology we want to add , not subtract genes.

There was a study about increasing the biological potential for intelligence via targeted genetic modifications, and the result is that we might be able to raise the sealing by 2 Eye Q points. Yes Two. The cost benefit ratio is dogshit. Homo sapiens is already incredibly intelligent and improving on that like it's "milk-yield" is difficult, for the same reasons it's difficult to make sophisticated race-cars go faster.

I Have respect for Dawkins because he has been championing Darwin, reason and scientific thinking for a long time, but what he suggests here is refuted nonsense, and actual genetics researchers are furious about this. The reason why Hitler and eugenics is considered evil is because it can't work. And it never was anything more than a ideological excuse to bully and brutalize people. Genes sometimes correspond to traits, like blue eyes really are just the result of a single gene, but most of the time, it doesn't work that way. The way we define traits is very biased and predates rigorous science, that means it doesn't map to biological reality save for exceptions.

In the 20th century, the counter tendency to eugenics, was generalized research for improving health outcomes. Some of the big wins were when we invented stuff like hygene, vaccines, antibiotics,… when we ended famines and did away with environmental toxins (people use to put led in wine for flavor and got heavy metal poisoning). That resulted in better health but a side effect also was a considerable increase in cognitive and athletic performance, which nobody expected. So the direction we want to go with bio tech is generalized genetic health-care, as in figuring out what kind of genes you can add to improve health outcomes. I think we only should add genes because that way we preserve the evolutionary base, and we'll have the option to undo mistakes later.

We don't know how talent for things like music and math works, and talents may not be special features, consider the possibility that average people may just lack brain-health, and if you fix that, you unlock those cognitive skills in everybody. In the past people thought that literacy was a special talent that enabled only a few people to master reading and writing. But today nearly every human on the planet can do it. Be mindful that the intelligentsia does have economic incentives to have a biased view about talents being a rare occurrence, a gift of nature bestowed on few people, rather than a general human potential that could be awakened in many people.

I have a suspicion that mathematics might have been caused by caffeine, the way classical literature was caused by nicotine, the way rock music was caused by THC/CBD and the way interstellar space folding was caused by spice melange

>cows, dogs, horses, sheep, pigs, donkeys and so on have a special thing (i forgot the technical term) that can copy paste small genetic sequences within it's dna
There is nothing particularly special about their genetics among any other mammals. If you're thinking about transposable elements, just about everything has that, including humans.

>I have respect for Dawkins because he has been championing Darwin, reason and scientific thinking for a long time
Biologist here, I have always disliked Dawkins. His selfish gene idea was never particularly amazing (I thought up the same idea in high school), and he has long abused his reputation as a professor to peddle bullshit outside of his specialty. All he has done is stoke among the public needless hostility against biologists.

>>486628
> If you're thinking about transposable elements
No I would have remembered that, it was a very technical term, maybe there's multiple sub-types ? I read a study that specifically investigated why we domesticated certain species and not others, and they came across a uncommon genetic mechanism that was present in all the beasts of burden. They also used it to predict which new species would be viable for domestication. They found a spider that was useful for something. They made a powerful argument why species that lacked this weren't viable candidates.

I didn't save it because at the time this was but an intellectual curiosity. I deeply regret that omission. I'm terrible at knowledge management in general, i just have a bunch of files in a folder that i search through with basic regex string manipulation queries. So even if i did save it, i would have difficulties finding it without remembering at least partial keywords. Since you're an actual scientist do you have a suggestion for brain-crutch software ? preferable something open source.

>Biologist here, I have always disliked Dawkins. His selfish gene idea was never particularly amazing
I know cells use DNA to replicate them selves, and it's obscurantist to invert that. Like saying the microphone speaks through you.

>All he has done is stoke among the public needless hostility against biologists.
He got many people into reading Darwin which still is a pretty good introduction, and he argued religious fundamentalists into exhaustion, not many actually scientists are able and willing to engage in that mud-throwing contest. I give him credit for that public service.

>and he has long abused his reputation as a professor to peddle bullshit outside of his specialty.
I guess that's also true, lets file his eugenics under peddled bullshitt outside of his specialty.

>>486629
>not many actually scientists are able and willing to engage in that mud-throwing contest
Is that even true? Debating creationists is the easiest free smackdown in the world for a biologist and usually leads to cheap public credibility enhancement. It's practically every biology teacher's secret fantasy to have an audience where they can make their profession proud by giving a creationist a black eye. I know I would jump at the opportunity if given the chance.

>suggestion for brain-crutch software
I've barely used it, but Zotero is a source management tool I've heard nice things about.

>>486630
>he easiest free smackdown in the world for a biologist
You don't get it. You're used to debates where you win by refuting your opponents arguments with evidence. Religious fundamentalists on the other hand consider it a virtue to uphold a position that has been refuted. It's playing the game on a higher difficulty setting. They see debate as a rhetorical competition that is won by refusing to change their mind and by making the other side loose composure, by getting under their skin. Trust me it's a mud throwing contest, your academic training is not giving you the advantage you think it does. You'll have to learn how to remain un-phased by a relentless flood of rage-bait.

>I've barely used it, but Zotero is a source management tool I've heard nice things about.
thanks i'll check it out.

>>486628
>Biologist here, I have always disliked Dawkins.

Clarify?

>His selfish gene idea was never particularly amazing (I thought up the same idea in high school),

Just because you had an idea from high school that doesnt mean its automatically a bad idea.
Also, I thought the selfish gene thing was just a sociopolitical impression.
>and he has long abused his reputation as a professor to peddle bullshit outside of his specialty. All he has done is stoke among the public needless hostility against biologists.

>>486630
>Is that even true? Debating creationists is the easiest free smackdown in the world for a biologist and usually leads to cheap public credibility enhancement. It's practically every biology teacher's secret fantasy to have an audience where they can make their profession proud by giving a creationist a black eye. I know I would jump at the opportunity if given the chance.


Tbh, people dont hate on creationists. They just love the spectacle of seeing someone getting pawned.
Also people dont respect academia on its own merit.
Only as weapon developers.

>>486635
>You don't get it. You're used to debates where you win by refuting your opponents arguments with evidence. Religious fundamentalists on the other hand consider it a virtue to uphold a position that has been refuted. It's playing the game on a higher difficulty setting. They see debate as a rhetorical competition that is won by refusing to change their mind and by making the other side loose composure, by getting under their skin. Trust me it's a mud throwing contest, your academic training is not giving you the advantage you think it does. You'll have to learn how to remain un-phased by a relentless flood of rage-bait.


Youll be surprised how many religiopolitical conservative pundits had went to college and have studied science

The thing is, people font respect academia as fact-checkers.
They only respect them as theatrics.
As some cute mature looking sage babbling about new agey things.

>>486641
>Tbh, people dont hate on creationists. They just love the spectacle of seeing someone getting pawned.
>Also people dont respect academia on its own merit.
>Only as weapon developers.
You only get the "weapons science" if you do the hole enlightenment society thing too. It's a packaged-deal. Warhammer40k is not real, if you have an imperial wizard, the most sophisticated weapon you'll get is a catapult. Don't get me wrong i don't want to "pedestule" academia, because that's been somewhat "de-enlightened" as well and they're sometimes chasing phantasms of their own. To be fair most of the damage was done by the neo-liberals who equated more scientific papers with better science.

>Youll be surprised how many religiopolitical conservative pundits had went to college and have studied science
Studying science isn't enough, you also have to practice it.

>The thing is, people font respect academia as fact-checkers.
Yeah the so called "fact checkers" probably aren't really part of the "scientific pantheon" either. Science isn't really compatible with Authorities that declare what "the truth" is. That's more a theocracy thing.

Science is an open arena, instead of gladiators you have hypothesis that battle it out. Instead of taming beasts, they tame the gathered raw data from experiments.
OK maybe that's not the best metaphor.

You sniveling retards always start in whenever I'm not around to beat you down.

If Eugenics worked, where are the results? We have lived under eugenics law for 100 years, and all it has produced are sniveling "yes men" and insufferable smug. Every policy eugenics wanted they have had, imposed by extreme ultraviolence. We have been made to suffer entirely for this Satanic religion, and what can they say for themselves? But, they never needed any excuse. A Satanic race cannot change.

>>486616
>it would interfere with the bodily autonomy of the parent/s what do we do?
definitely avoid doing that, because people like their "bodily autonomy" and will try to kill you.

>>486664
is that a clockwork orange reference in there ?
Nice

>>486664
Hey Eugene I missed you

>>486657
>Science is an open arena, instead of gladiators you have hypothesis that battle it out. Instead of taming beasts, they tame the gathered raw data from experiments.
OK maybe that's not the best metaphor.

Irony is, in the olden days, alot of scientists were involved in some bloodpsort like fencing or night polo.

Intellectuals whenever they had disareements they would duke it out.

>You only get the "weapons science" if you do the hole enlightenment society thing too. It's a packaged-deal. Warhammer40k is not real, if you have an imperial wizard, the most sophisticated weapon you'll get is a catapult.

People confuse academic smarts with technical smarts far too much.

>Don't get me wrong i don't want to "pedestule" academia, because that's been somewhat "de-enlightened" as well and they're sometimes chasing phantasms of their own. To be fair most of the damage was done by the neo-liberals who equated more scientific papers with better science.

Nah, science has been polluated with junk since forever.
In fact, some scientific figures of the past advocated for slavery.
They even pushed race realism.

>>486624
>I have a suspicion that mathematics might have been caused by caffeine, the way classical literature was caused by nicotine, the way rock music was caused by THC/CBD and the way interstellar space folding was caused by spice melange

Wrong. Alcohol has been the universal beverage of all walks of life.
From the bohemian to the layman to the intellectual.

>>486681
Alcohol is a great preserving agent for "liquid food", and an excellent disinfectant for wounds. And during some periods of history drinking slightly alcoholic beverages probably was the safer option because water supplies could be dodgy, as in bacterial contamination. Alcohol is great at killing bacteria. Alcohol is also a cleaning agent and can be fuel if you can get the concentration high enough. So definitely a very practicle contribution to civilization.

However I've never heard of alcohol being used for creative/productive enhancing cognitive effects. I'm probably not remembering it correctly but Alcohol stimulates the secretion of the gaba neurotransmitter, which is a neuro-depressant, it kinda slows down your brain and it gives you tunnel vision as in narrow focus. Most people become useless if they go beyond slightly inebriated. Do you mind explaining what cognitive effects people get out of drinking booze other than a buzz at parties?

>>486677
>Irony is, in the olden days, alot of scientists were involved in some bloodpsort like fencing or night polo.
>Intellectuals whenever they had disareements they would duke it out.
You probably aren't trying to tell me that being better at poking somebody with a metal stick is a reliable way to distinguish who is right about scientific questions. Although given the excessive hostility against scientific curiosity that existed for long periods in human history, it would make sense that fighting-skill would complement science-skill in terms of survival.
If you are implying that weapons research is driving science, color me skeptical. There definitely are some examples of that happening. But lately ? Know any weapons research that has really pushed scientific boundaries ?

>People confuse academic smarts with technical smarts far too much.
I think you need engineers and theoreticians to complement each other.

>Nah, science has been polluated with junk since forever.
>In fact, some scientific figures of the past advocated for slavery.
>They even pushed race realism.
Fair point. I guess it would be more correct to say the enlightenment is incomplete.

>>486683
Alcohol is the only drug where there's no upsides besides being an antiseptic.

Marijuana makes you think but it makes your mind wander too deep which is why people criminalize it.
Alcohol shuts off your conscious mind so it gives people an excuse to be obnoxious and violent.

>>486690
>Fair point. I guess it would be more correct to say the enlightenment is incomplete.


Enlightenment is a never ending quest. There will never be a completion for it.
To begin with, the reason why people choose science as a career is because there's always so much more to learn.

>I think you need engineers and theoreticians to complement each other.

Yes, but I'm saying that people assume academic skills are comorbid with technical skills.
They're not. They're manually earned.

>You probably aren't trying to tell me that being better at poking somebody with a metal stick is a reliable way to distinguish who is right about scientific questions. Although given the excessive hostility against scientific curiosity that existed for long periods in human history, it would make sense that fighting-skill would complement science-skill in terms of survival.
If you are implying that weapons research is driving science, color me skeptical. There definitely are some examples of that happening. But lately ? Know any weapons research that has really pushed scientific boundaries ?

Most of our scientific endeavors were motivated by weapons development or resource extraction.

>>486732
>Enlightenment is a never ending quest. There will never be a completion for it.
>To begin with, the reason why people choose science as a career is because there's always so much more to learn.
You're probably right that scientific discovery will never be complete. However the goals of the enlightenment don't necessarily require total scientific understanding of reality. You can have an enlighten society even if you don't know everything.

>Yes, but I'm saying that people assume academic skills are comorbid with technical skills.
Is that really so ? Do people assume that?

>Most of our scientific endeavors were motivated by weapons development or resource extraction.
You are kinda cheating by including resource gathering too, because steam-engines, responsible for the biggest leap in human history were invented for mining and transportation. I don't know if steam was actually weaponized, there were some attempts at steam cannons, but i don't think that went anywhere.
There certainly were scientific breakthroughs because of weapons research, but weapons as the main driver of scientific advances? I don't think so. There are long periods of technical and scientific stagnation in human history during which warfare continued.

At the moment it feels more like the weapons industry is recycling civilian technology like consumer drones and AI-stuff. There's weapons companies who try to pass off the feature-subscription scam as "technical innovation". So they even recycle utter crap from the consumer sector. Maybe it wasn't always like this, but at present the weapons sector seems like it's really stale. The Russians invented fancy new rockets, maybe there's some new science that went into that. But those are exceptions. It sometimes feels like the weapons industry in the west decided they like the 1990s and will live there forever.

RC-drones and ai-stuff wasn't really designed for an adversarial environment. I'm not convinced that these will have staying power. If somebody tweaks a microwave phased array for raw power-output rather than precision-sensor-sweeps and communication all the weaponized drones might be cooked. They're also vulnerable to emp or flak-shells that release tangle-nets.

I sort off get the vibe that you might be trying to suggest that investing into militarism will bring scientific and technical advancement. I don't think that's the case, maybe it's because the weapons industry was privatized. There also is a strange undercurrent in the weapons industry where they are merging what is called "population controle" with combat-tech. I think that trend might have started in Israel, at least they have an unusually high concentration of that. To me it looks like "slaver-tech" (to borrow Larry Niven's vernacular). It's nasty shit designed to attack or cajole populations but it's not very effective against armed forces. Ultimately the people who seek for means of repression end up opposing science, because science requires knowledge-sharing which isn't very conducive to repression.

>>486745
>Is that really so ? Do people assume that?
A lot of people seem to think that knowing how to solve advanced algebra equations without a calculator is more important than learning how to do basic home reapir.


>At the moment it feels more like the weapons industry is recycling civilian technology like consumer drones and AI-stuff. There's weapons companies who try to pass off the feature-subscription scam as "technical innovation". So they even recycle utter crap from the consumer sector. Maybe it wasn't always like this, but at present the weapons sector seems like it's really stale. The Russians invented fancy new rockets, maybe there's some new science that went into that. But those are exceptions. It sometimes feels like the weapons industry in the west decided they like the 1990s and will live there forever.

Ive been saying that our popular culture plateaued in the mid-late 1980s.
The technology, fashion, music, and media graphics.

>I sort off get the vibe that you might be trying to suggest that investing into militarism will bring scientific and technical advancement.

Wrong. What is happening is the other way around.

>>486775
>A lot of people seem to think that knowing how to solve advanced algebra equations without a calculator is more important than learning how to do basic home reapir.
Most of the blame for that goes towards industry that pushed for a throw-away culture. We could go back to repair culture, but you have to bully the industry to make stuff that can be fixed.

>Ive been saying that our popular culture plateaued in the mid-late 1980s.
>The technology, fashion, music, and media graphics.
Yeah that's probably caused by neoliberal economics. Everything had to go through the comercialism funnel, and new ideas rarely make it past that. Also the increasing rate of exploitation meant that people have less time and are more exhausted which isn't helping creativity.
Whether that also explaines stagnation in the "warbiz" I don't really know.

>Wrong. What is happening is the other way around.
I guess that's somewhat true, but if we invested into brain-science maybe we could figure out how to cure what ever brain-damage causes the neocons to drive towards human extinction through war. In that case scientific advances would lead to less militarism.

>>486783
>I guess that's somewhat true, but if we invested into brain-science maybe we could figure out how to cure what ever brain-damage causes the neocons to drive towards human extinction through war. In that case scientific advances would lead to less militarism

Why do people think moral compasses are neurocognitively created?
Morality isn't something that's genetic. It's a transcendent force.

But,if you want my guess, methinks some of them are influenced by demonic entities.

>>486784
>Why do people think moral compasses are neurocognitively created?
>Morality isn't something that's genetic. It's a transcendent force.
I'm setting the bar quite a bit lower than a "moral compass" , not trying to make your own species go extinct that's a reasonable ask.

The neocons baiting nuclear war, that's a behavior, like learning the guitar or reading a book are also behaviors. The brain causes behaviors. I have no idea what's causing neocon brains to malfunction. I'm quite puzzled why you jump to the conclusion it would be genetic, it doesn't seem very likely that evolution would select for "deliberate self-extinction genes".

Anyway i didn't intent for this to be entirely serious, i don't really expect anybody to medicate neocons away. Maybe people eventually grow tired of all the bullshit and they get thrown into a lava pit.

>But,if you want my guess, methinks some of them are influenced by demonic entities.
And the demonic entities are what ? Think tanks that come up with these schemes ?

>>486628
>All he has done is stoke among the public needless hostility against biologists.

Maybe If your folks degree aren't the most useless among the STEM fields people would be less hostile toward your people

>>486812
Curious how you came to that conclusion anon.