Archimedes Posted January 10, 2016 Posted January 10, 2016 Hi, I wanted to share this excellent video of Coltaine about biology culture and ideology. His basic premise is that biology influences culture which influences ideology. Later in this video he looks at the numbers of different culture issues. Including divorce rates, crime rates, single motherhood, single fatherhood, male suicide, government largesse and birth rates. Here are the findings: Almost perfect correleation between divorce rates, crime rates and male suicide single motherhood rises the same way as divorce rates, but continues to rise after divorce rates stop rising no correlation between divorce rates and single fatherhood no correlation between divorce rates/single motherhood and government largesse Almost perfect inverse correlation between divorce rates and birth rates, with divorce rates lagging behind birth rates. Conclusions: The findings go against the popular libertarian notion that divorce rates and single motherhood are caused or supported by a large state The invention of the pill seems to have caused a cultural shift in divorce, single motherhood and crime rates. 3 1
Guest Gee Posted January 10, 2016 Posted January 10, 2016 Skeptical but thank you for the link, will watch soon.
Matthew Ed Moran Posted January 10, 2016 Posted January 10, 2016 "The findings go against the popular libertarian notion that divorce rates and single motherhood are caused or supported by a large state" I fail to see how the state is not in fact, empirically, supporting single mothers with the numerous types of welfare, public education, alimony, and possibly other factors I'm not mentioning. This is not a libertarian notion, this is a fact. It is also a fact that single mothers vote democrat, and are very strong advocates for the plunder they feed off like parasites on productive society. I'm not necessarily disputing your other points, but your OP immediately is suspect because you are denying basic laws of economics when you say the state can subsidize something, and that can have no effect on the amount of outcomes of that thing. That goes against basic logic, and if you would alter your OP to address that concern, I think it would garner more interest and less skepticism. I want to watch your video and I think it could have some serious implications, but I am turned off at the disregard of basic incentives that are present and are at least among this website cited as a causal factor for the fact that single motherhood exists as it does today. If there is some dispute of the basic fact that government subsidizes single motherhood I would like to see it, and I would like to hear the case for how subsidizing something does not create more of it.
Troubador Posted January 13, 2016 Posted January 13, 2016 I think his premise hardware > operating system > software and biology > culture > ideology analogies require closer examination. Quite aside from the fact software can and does effect hardware. The stuxnet virus scuppered many of Irans centrifuges used in their nuclear program as one example. Ideologies can and have effected biology, the culture/ideologies of slavery and white supremacy have had a demonstrable effect of the genetic (biology) make up of the modern US population. His whole thesis is predicated on an inexorable and one way cause and effect string following from biology to create culture which in turn generates ideology with the conclusion that meaningful change can only come from altering biology. Whilst he makes a compelling and entertaining case for quite how important biology is, I think unless one agrees with the suppositions outlined above his thesis falls down. After all it can essentially go in circles, his biological "patch" in the pill could only come about from a scientific ideology and culture, which in turn can only come about with the fantastic brains we posses (biological) so it comes down where wants to put your start line. Chickens and eggs and all that...
Frosty Posted February 1, 2016 Posted February 1, 2016 I posted his prior video in another thread, the video this is a follow up to, and I got voted down, not sure why.
Frosty Posted February 1, 2016 Posted February 1, 2016 I think his premise hardware > operating system > software and biology > culture > ideology analogies require closer examination. Quite aside from the fact software can and does effect hardware. The stuxnet virus scuppered many of Irans centrifuges used in their nuclear program as one example. Ideologies can and have effected biology, the culture/ideologies of slavery and white supremacy have had a demonstrable effect of the genetic (biology) make up of the modern US population. Stuxnet attacked hardware which explicitly opened itself up to software control, which is to say that the malware didn't or couldn't modify hardware that wasn't already explicitly built to allow such modification. I believe the core idea is that software can be limited by the hardware it runs on and some changes are only possible by first modifying the hardware. In fact I believe this only serves to prove Coltaines point, there was a time when hardware couldn't monitor or control environmental systems and as such software had no such ability to reach into those hardware system. But as we've moved towards things like SCADA systems there is an ever increasing threat from software and network access to physical systems. That is to say what the software is capable of doing now is inherently being changed by the underlying change in hardware. The analogy does break down somewhat when you consider that humans and other living beings are evolving via the process of evolution and that constant revisions are being made to hardware, and you're right some of those modifications get influence from culture and ideologies. It's the issue of hopping between the idea of static computer and an evolving system I guess.
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