I think you’re way too confident that Big 5 traits cause political beliefs. My prediction is that, even when controlling for Big 5 traits, political beliefs would be heritable. So kids that didn’t inherit their parents’ Big 5 traits would still inherit their parents’ political beliefs on average.
How does this theory reconcile persons who change their ideology significantly? Thomas Sowell and David Ramsay Steele started out as Communists. Hayek was a socialist as a young man. Are these the exceptions that prove the rule?
How should we distinguish this theory from Caplan's ideas about social desirability bias? According to him, political positions are chosen by ordinary people mostly on the basis of what they think their social peers will approve of. Are the two theories different perspectives on the same thing, complementary, or contradictory?
"Ideologies are often masks for genetic markers." - Dr. Ed Dutton. Here we agree. It's an evolutionary strategy.
Where we disagree is what for me is the natural conclusion to the realization that if ideologies are genetic markers, then there are no objective Universal truths. There is no "humanity," but only various human groups - separated by the evolutionary impetus for survival and continuance, which is where ideologies largely come from. Perhaps if we were to stop seeing Nature as "bad" and an obstacle to overcome, but just the way things are - will continue to be - we will get somewhere.
If you were to take a poll of all your viewers, you will, I highly suspect, find what Jordan Peterson finds - which is that at least 80% of those thinking there's some kind of Universalist morality applicable to all - are White. And those advocates of this non-idea - are also White. The thinking over centuries that gave rise to this supposition, also predominantly, without question, White. You're preaching to people who are inclined toward less in-group preference. Indeed, the folks who share the least in-group preference of all. So rather than trying to tell Whites to be less tribal so that they might ascend toward a higher way of being divorced from the physical realities of the flesh, why not try to to take this message to the Congo? Or to Yemen? The Amazon? Or Israel?
The people having this conversation from your POV, arguing for actual intellectual honesty via less tribalism, are missing the forest for the trees - and are likely to be White, or Jewish intellectuals (who, nevertheless, are voraciously ethnocentric - and argue this way within White communities, likely, due their own evolutionary strategy). *That last statement can be checked. It isn't just "hate" vomit. I don't need it to be so. It simply seems from where my reading and exploration has taken me, that it is so. Libertarians are, in some respects, my closest kin - but they're so far away. They just won't question biology. Or if they do, they do so selectively, like theists or atheists who grocery shop around for their unique brands of "isms" they "identify" with. It's all tiresome.... the answer is literally, right in front of us.
A good example of the power of the tribe vs ideology can be seen today since Trump. Where are those Republicans who believed in free trade? The same ones who would have yelled 'socialist' had a Democratic president taken ownership stakes in public companies, or told companies where and how they can locate their businesses, or what interest rates credit card companies can charge, or what prices drug companies can charge, and, and, and.
” Here's a short description of what Copilot says about humans' political beliefs: “[M]ost people hold contradictory political beliefs—and not just a little contradictory, but structurally contradictory in ways they rarely notice.”
Dr. Huemer, I think you make a lot of sense but it presents a rather pessimistic outlook. Does this provide humanity with little hope for the future if we can't reason and objectively chart a better course?
I spoke to Grok about this. Here's its take on the pessimism perspective and where you might currently stand:
"In short, the hope isn't mass enlightenment through debate—Huemer is skeptical of that—but in individual vigilance, institutional design that accounts for our weaknesses, and the quiet influence of those who actually care about ideas. It's a tempered, realistic optimism rather than naive faith in reason conquering all."
Does this align with your views? This also makes sense to me. People are under the illusion that they are reasonable and rational, not seeing that they are buried under layer upon layer of illusions and propaganda - religious, political, social, etc. Maybe privately living in the most objective light we can, by way of example, is one of our best ways out of our current mess.
I think you’re way too confident that Big 5 traits cause political beliefs. My prediction is that, even when controlling for Big 5 traits, political beliefs would be heritable. So kids that didn’t inherit their parents’ Big 5 traits would still inherit their parents’ political beliefs on average.
How does this theory reconcile persons who change their ideology significantly? Thomas Sowell and David Ramsay Steele started out as Communists. Hayek was a socialist as a young man. Are these the exceptions that prove the rule?
How should we distinguish this theory from Caplan's ideas about social desirability bias? According to him, political positions are chosen by ordinary people mostly on the basis of what they think their social peers will approve of. Are the two theories different perspectives on the same thing, complementary, or contradictory?
"Ideologies are often masks for genetic markers." - Dr. Ed Dutton. Here we agree. It's an evolutionary strategy.
Where we disagree is what for me is the natural conclusion to the realization that if ideologies are genetic markers, then there are no objective Universal truths. There is no "humanity," but only various human groups - separated by the evolutionary impetus for survival and continuance, which is where ideologies largely come from. Perhaps if we were to stop seeing Nature as "bad" and an obstacle to overcome, but just the way things are - will continue to be - we will get somewhere.
If you were to take a poll of all your viewers, you will, I highly suspect, find what Jordan Peterson finds - which is that at least 80% of those thinking there's some kind of Universalist morality applicable to all - are White. And those advocates of this non-idea - are also White. The thinking over centuries that gave rise to this supposition, also predominantly, without question, White. You're preaching to people who are inclined toward less in-group preference. Indeed, the folks who share the least in-group preference of all. So rather than trying to tell Whites to be less tribal so that they might ascend toward a higher way of being divorced from the physical realities of the flesh, why not try to to take this message to the Congo? Or to Yemen? The Amazon? Or Israel?
The people having this conversation from your POV, arguing for actual intellectual honesty via less tribalism, are missing the forest for the trees - and are likely to be White, or Jewish intellectuals (who, nevertheless, are voraciously ethnocentric - and argue this way within White communities, likely, due their own evolutionary strategy). *That last statement can be checked. It isn't just "hate" vomit. I don't need it to be so. It simply seems from where my reading and exploration has taken me, that it is so. Libertarians are, in some respects, my closest kin - but they're so far away. They just won't question biology. Or if they do, they do so selectively, like theists or atheists who grocery shop around for their unique brands of "isms" they "identify" with. It's all tiresome.... the answer is literally, right in front of us.
A good example of the power of the tribe vs ideology can be seen today since Trump. Where are those Republicans who believed in free trade? The same ones who would have yelled 'socialist' had a Democratic president taken ownership stakes in public companies, or told companies where and how they can locate their businesses, or what interest rates credit card companies can charge, or what prices drug companies can charge, and, and, and.
” Here's a short description of what Copilot says about humans' political beliefs: “[M]ost people hold contradictory political beliefs—and not just a little contradictory, but structurally contradictory in ways they rarely notice.”
Dr. Huemer, I think you make a lot of sense but it presents a rather pessimistic outlook. Does this provide humanity with little hope for the future if we can't reason and objectively chart a better course?
I spoke to Grok about this. Here's its take on the pessimism perspective and where you might currently stand:
"In short, the hope isn't mass enlightenment through debate—Huemer is skeptical of that—but in individual vigilance, institutional design that accounts for our weaknesses, and the quiet influence of those who actually care about ideas. It's a tempered, realistic optimism rather than naive faith in reason conquering all."
Does this align with your views? This also makes sense to me. People are under the illusion that they are reasonable and rational, not seeing that they are buried under layer upon layer of illusions and propaganda - religious, political, social, etc. Maybe privately living in the most objective light we can, by way of example, is one of our best ways out of our current mess.
What is "humanity"? No, really. What is it?