Violence and the Neanderthals

[bicicleur 2]

Whatever might be considered blameworthy: violence, war, crime, lawlessness, civil disorder, greed, gluttony, hoarding, power-grabbing, libertinage, immoralism, etc. The laundry list.

indeed, not all, but part comes from the inner chimp

and chimps aren't as innocent as you claim
they don't just fight for banana's, also females and territory
it's called the alpha-male, which is probably universal among almost all mammals

 

[bicicleur 2]

most think jealousy is a typical human vice

it is not :

 

[hrvclv]

most think jealousy is a typical human vice

it is not :

Hilarious, and... telling!

 

[CrazyDonkey]

indeed, not all, but part comes from the inner chimp

and chimps aren't as innocent as you claim
they don't just fight for banana's, also females and territory
it's called the alpha-male, which is probably universal among almost all mammals

Not claiming that natural instincts, unconscious drives, the Id, or the "inner chimp" is not an issue, but just that repression, prohibition, or "just say no" is of limited utility:

Modern-day psychologists might not blame Eve for her errant ways at all. Because what’s true today was also true at the beginning of time (regardless of what story you believe in): Human beings are horrible at resisting temptation.

“Effortful restraint, where you are fighting yourself — the benefits of that are overhyped,” Kentaro Fujita, a psychologist who studies self-control at the Ohio State University, says.

Indeed, studies have found that trying to teach people to resist temptation either only has short-term gains or can be an outright failure. “We don’t seem to be all that good at [self-control],” Brian Galla, a psychologist at the University of Pittsburgh, says.

The implications of this are huge: If we accept that brute willpower doesn’t work, we can feel less bad about ourselves when we succumb to temptation. And we might also be able refocus our efforts on solving problems like obesity. A recent national survey from the University of Chicago finds that 75 percent of Americans say a lack of willpower is a barrier to weight loss. And yet the emerging scientific consensus is that the obesity crisis is the result of a number of factors, including genes and the food environment — and, crucially, not a lack of willpower.

Psychologists Marina Milyavskaya and Michael Inzlicht recently confirmed and expanded on this idea. In their study, they monitored 159 students at McGill University in Canada in a similar manner for a week.

If resisting temptation is a virtue, then more resistance should lead to greater achievement, right? That’s not what the results, pending publication in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, found.

The students who exerted more self-control were not more successful in accomplishing their goals. It was the students who experienced fewer temptations overall who were more successful when the researchers checked back in at the end of the semester. What’s more, the people who exercised more effortful self-control also reported feeling more depleted. So not only were they not meeting their goals, they were also exhausted from trying.

“There’s a strong assumption still that exerting self-control is beneficial,” Milyavskaya, a professor at Carleton University, tells me. “And we’re showing in the long term, it’s not.”

“‘Want-to’ goals are more likely to be obtained than ‘have-to’ goals,” Milyavskaya says. “Want-to goals lead to experiences of fewer temptations. It’s easier to pursue those goals. It feels more effortless.”

If you’re running because you “have to” get in shape, but find running to be a miserable activity, you’re probably not going to keep it up. That means that an activity you like is more likely to be repeated than an activity you hate.

This theory harks back to one of the classic studies on self-control: Walter Mischel’s “marshmallow test,” conducted in the 1960s and ’70s. In these tests, kids were told they could either eat one marshmallow sitting in front of them immediately or eat two later. The ability to resist was found to correlate with all sorts of positive life outcomes, like SAT scores and BMIs. But the kids who were best at the test weren’t necessarily intrinsically better at resisting temptation. They might have been employing a critical strategy.

“The really good dieter wouldn’t buy a cupcake,” Fujita explains. “They wouldn’t have passed in front of a bakery; when they saw the cupcake, they would have figured out a way to say yuck instead of yum; they might have an automatic reaction of moving away instead of moving close.”

When Mischel’s marshmallow test is repeated on poorer kids, there’s a clear trend: They perform worse, and appear less able to resist the treat in front of them.

But there’s a good reason for this. As University of Oregon neuroscientist Elliot Berkman argues, people who grow up in poverty are more likely to focus on immediate rewards than long-term rewards. Because when you’re poor, the future is less certain.

Researchers are excited about their new perspective on self-control. “It’s exciting because we’re maybe [about to] break through on a whole variety of new strategies and interventions that we would have never thought about,” Galla says. He and others are looking beyond the “just say no” approach of the past to boost motivation with the help of smartphone apps and other technology.

This is not to say all effortful restraint is useless, but rather that it should be seen as a last-ditch effort to save ourselves from bad behavior.

“Because even if the angel loses most of the time, there’s a chance every now and again the angel will win,” Fujita says. “It’s a defense of last resort.”

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-myth-of-self-control-1468399267

 

[bicicleur 2]

I agree with that.

 

[hrvclv]

"I can resist everything, except temptation" (Oscar Wilde, I believe)

Well, in terms of education, this "principle of pleasure" ("I have to like it to do it") seems to me to be highly objectionable. Nobody's life is made up only of enjoyable activities. It takes some running before you can start enjoying the running. You have to get past the first stages of "spitting your lungs out" before you can find any pleasure in it at all.

Not only that, but if the effort of running teaches you to hold on when you have to, or have decided to, then you can transfer the acquired resistance to other fields of activity. And bravely go through those sleepless nights before end-of-year exams. It doesn't take a degree in psychology to understand that we more readily engage in activities we like than in activities we dislike. What it means (to me) to be human is to get over the dislike, and carry on no matter how we feel - as long as we have made sure the ultimate goal is worth the effort.

If we hold that self-repression and willpower are to be subordinated to a "principle of pleasure", we'll end up with generations of feckless spoilt brats.

 

[Angela]

"I can resist everything, except temptation" (Oscar Wilde, I believe)

Well, in terms of education, this "principle of pleasure" ("I have to like it to do it") seems to me to be highly objectionable. Nobody's life is made up only of enjoyable activities. It takes some running before you can start enjoying the running. You have to get past the first stages of "spitting your lungs out" before you can find any pleasure in it at all.

Not only that, but if the effort of running teaches you to hold on when you have to, or have decided to, then you can transfer the acquired resistance to other fields of activity. And bravely go through those sleepless nights before end-of-year exams. It doesn't take a degree in psychology to understand that we more readily engage in activities we like than in activities we dislike. What it means (to me) to be human is to get over the dislike, and carry on no matter how we feel - as long as we have made sure the ultimate goal is worth the effort.

If we hold that self-repression and willpower are to be subordinated to a "principle of pleasure", we'll end up with generations of feckless spoilt brats.

I couldn't agree more.

Imo, most young people today are indeed spoilt brats, and even worse, a good number are more dangerous than that. Ask any teacher. Every new crop is worse than the one before, all starting in the 1960s. All of this places more of a burden on the schools to try to rectify the mistakes made by parents, and not just single mothers, although that is the worst situation. Then there are those who are incorrigible, totally anti-social. They're warehoused in "special" schools for the hard to control. Then, they're released to wreak havoc on society. Part of the cause is genetics, but part of the cause is also inefficient or absent socialization in their young years.

People who preach these absurdities should spend a year or two in Family Court. That would knock it out of them.

It's like the nonsense I was taught in university about how you don't need to "instruct" children; all you have to do is provide them with the materials and they'll explore and learn on their own. Likewise, grades are not necessary, and "all" children should get trophies when they play sports.

That would have worked for me; it doesn't work for most people. They need not only external rewards but discipline for failure to apply themselves, or they'll take the easy way out, opting for more "pleasure full" activities, or out of sheer laziness.

The result is abominably ignorant young people for whom the college boards have had to be dumbed down. Superstar kids today get 2400 on the three part test. They wouldn't have gotten 1600 on the two part tests I took, even with all the preparatory courses paid for by their parents. (Now, they're even going to do away with the tests altogether, because otherwise there'd be no diversity of the kind they want. ) Then, people wonder why Chinese kids in the U.S. are so over-represented at the most elite schools. It's not just genetics. It's the "tiger moms" demanding excellence and all the after school schools they attend. (All of those East Asian kids in the elite schools is not the kind of diversity they want.) For the rest, everything is dumbed down for them. It wasn't only native ability that helped me: it was the old-fashioned, strict teaching of the sisters of the order which taught me. University was child's play after the discipline and challenges of my preparatory school.

 

[CrazyDonkey]

"I can resist everything, except temptation" (Oscar Wilde, I believe)

Well, in terms of education, this "principle of pleasure" ("I have to like it to do it") seems to me to be highly objectionable. Nobody's life is made up only of enjoyable activities. It takes some running before you can start enjoying the running. You have to get past the first stages of "spitting your lungs out" before you can find any pleasure in it at all.

Not only that, but if the effort of running teaches you to hold on when you have to, or have decided to, then you can transfer the acquired resistance to other fields of activity. And bravely go through those sleepless nights before end-of-year exams. It doesn't take a degree in psychology to understand that we more readily engage in activities we like than in activities we dislike. What it means (to me) to be human is to get over the dislike, and carry on no matter how we feel - as long as we have made sure the ultimate goal is worth the effort.

If we hold that self-repression and willpower are to be subordinated to a "principle of pleasure", we'll end up with generations of feckless spoilt brats.

Only claiming that "self-repression and willpower" are of limited utility, not that they have no utility at all. Impulse-control does tend to come down to which is stronger, the impulse or the resolve. Resolve, or willpower, however, is often the result of stronger counter-impulses (positive reinforcements) being brought into play. Aversion-therapy can sometimes be effective, but can also have its own negative consequences, with guilt and shame, for instance, being internalized driving factors behind the behavior.

 

[Angela]

China seems to think the old fashioned combination of punishment and reward works, and not just to tame the chimpanzee within.

See:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ery-resident-based-on-behavior-by-end-of-2020

"China’s plan to judge each of its 1.3 billion people based on their social behavior is moving a step closer to reality, with Beijing set to adopt a lifelong points program by 2021 that assigns personalized ratings for each resident.

The capital city will pool data from several departments to reward and punish some 22 million citizens based on their actions and reputations by the end of 2020, according to a plan posted on the Beijing municipal government’s website on Monday. Those with better so-called social credit will get “green channel” benefits while those who violate laws will find life more difficult.

The final version of China’s national social credit system remains uncertain. But as rules forcing social networks and internet providers to remove anonymity get increasingly enforced and facial recognition systems become more popular with policing bodies, authorities are likely to find everyone from internet dissenters to train-fare skippers easier to catch -- and punish -- than ever before."

"Hangzhou rolled out its personal credit system earlier this year, rewarding “pro-social behaviors” such as volunteer work and blood donations while punishing those who violate traffic laws and charge under-the-table fees. By the end of May, people with bad credit in China have been blocked from booking more than 11 million flights and 4 million high-speed train trips, according to the National Development and Reform Commission.
According to the Beijing government’s plan, different agencies will link databases to get a more detailed picture of every resident’s interactions across a swathe of services. The proposal calls for agencies including tourism bodies, business regulators and transit authorities to work together."

You can't even get phone access without a government ID.

 

[CrazyDonkey]

Is it changing hearts and minds? I doubt it. Oppression causes resistance.

 

[bicicleur 2]

China seems to think the old fashioned combination of punishment and reward works, and not just to tame the chimpanzee within.

See:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ery-resident-based-on-behavior-by-end-of-2020

"China’s plan to judge each of its 1.3 billion people based on their social behavior is moving a step closer to reality, with Beijing set to adopt a lifelong points program by 2021 that assigns personalized ratings for each resident.

The capital city will pool data from several departments to reward and punish some 22 million citizens based on their actions and reputations by the end of 2020, according to a plan posted on the Beijing municipal government’s website on Monday. Those with better so-called social credit will get “green channel” benefits while those who violate laws will find life more difficult.

The final version of China’s national social credit system remains uncertain. But as rules forcing social networks and internet providers to remove anonymity get increasingly enforced and facial recognition systems become more popular with policing bodies, authorities are likely to find everyone from internet dissenters to train-fare skippers easier to catch -- and punish -- than ever before."

"Hangzhou rolled out its personal credit system earlier this year, rewarding “pro-social behaviors” such as volunteer work and blood donations while punishing those who violate traffic laws and charge under-the-table fees. By the end of May, people with bad credit in China have been blocked from booking more than 11 million flights and 4 million high-speed train trips, according to the National Development and Reform Commission.
According to the Beijing government’s plan, different agencies will link databases to get a more detailed picture of every resident’s interactions across a swathe of services. The proposal calls for agencies including tourism bodies, business regulators and transit authorities to work together."

You can't even get phone access without a government ID.

this is stupid
I agree selfdiscipline and resistence to temptation are necessary

but don't ignore the chimpanzee within

 

[CrazyDonkey]

The Chinese are adherents of Pavlovian conditioning (or "brainwashing"), not Freudian/Nietzschean sublimation. Can it work? Sure - absolutist tyrannies exist - but for how long and at what price? The Chinese are betting not just on the power of technology, but also on the technology of power (abetted by Google/Frontpage/Amazon), to create a system of automatic (self-enforcing) social controls (punishments and rewards). Condition the dog and the chimp will follow. Eventually, with enough repetitions, neither electric prods (punishments) nor treats (rewards) will be necessary - just ring the bell.

What is the "ascetic ideal" in Nietzsche, if not the ideal tyranny, or Nihilism, as such?

 

[Angela]

I really have nothing to say to an argument that following the principles of Nietzsche is a good idea.

Pavlovian principles have the benefit of being able to be tested empirically. Nietzsche's ideas, like those of Freud and Jung, are, imo, nicely worded nonsense. They fit very nicely into the reams of material in the social sciences which either can't be proved, or when tested have yielded results which can't be replicated. Nietzsche was quite popular among the Nazis; I'm not aware of their doing much sublimating.

 

[CrazyDonkey]

And the conversation was just starting to get interesting, if a bit far afield of the original topic. The question is whether an "inner dog" (we are all mammals, a deeper substrate than the primates), when conditioned with cattle prods and the like, can be trusted to not turn on its "master" and bite the hand that feeds it. I'd say no. Nature bites back.

Chimps, however, will tear your face off...

 

[hrvclv]

And the conversation was just starting to get interesting, if a bit far afield of the original topic. The question is whether an "inner dog" (we are all mammals, a deeper substrate than the primates), when conditioned with cattle prods and the like, can be trusted to not turn on its "master" and bite the hand that feeds it. I'd say no. Nature bites back.

Chimps, however, will tear your face off...

Behavior can no doubt be conditioned, to a degree, by pavlovian "mechanical" training (cf A clockwork orange) , or by guilt (cf. 2000 years of moral blackmail by Christian priests). But this is to posit that no man is intelligent enough to really grasp what is at stake, and that he is too spineless to work on himself.

Man is fallible, for sure. He will stumble and fall many times on the way. But maybe what makes him human is the abilty to look around, understand, and decide to build himself. It may take some guidance in the early stages - which doesn't necessarily involve electric shocks, but then he may choose to train himself, exert his will, strive towards his goal, practice and practice and practice, just like a weightlifter has to lift weights thousands of time before his arms can be seen to change noticeably.

"They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity— like yours—the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly. Yes, it was ugly enough; but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself that there was in you just the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim suspicion of there being a meaning in it which you—you so remote from the night of first ages—could comprehend. And why not? The mind of man is capable of anything—because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, valour, rage—who can tell?— but truth—truth stripped of its cloak of time. Let the fool gape and shudder—the man knows, and can look on without a wink. But he must at least be as much of a man as these on the shore. He must meet that truth with his own true stuff— with his own inborn strength. Principles won’t do. Acquisitions, clothes, pretty rags—rags that would fly off at the first good shake. No; you want a deliberate belief. An appeal to me in this fiendish row—is there? Very well; I hear; I admit, but I have a voice, too, and for good or evil mine is the speech that cannot be silenced." (Conrad, Heart of Darkness)

 

[bicicleur 2]

And the conversation was just starting to get interesting, if a bit far afield of the original topic. The question is whether an "inner dog" (we are all mammals, a deeper substrate than the primates), when conditioned with cattle prods and the like, can be trusted to not turn on its "master" and bite the hand that feeds it. I'd say no. Nature bites back.
Chimps, however, will tear your face off...

some dogs never attack in their whole life
but some are very gentle and nice and can all of a sudden lose controll and turn into a killing monster
others are bread and educated to attack whoever comes near

IMO it's the same for humans
Pavlonian conditioning can work for some time, but there is always the possibility for the subject to all of a sudden derail

 

[Angela]

some dogs never attack in their whole life
but some are very gentle and nice and can all of a sudden lose controll and turn into a killing monster
others are bread and educated to attack whoever comes near

IMO it's the same for humans
Pavlonian conditioning can work for some time, but there is always the possibility for the subject to all of a sudden derail

It only works on the relatively "normal", not those with deep seated disorders. Serial killers are one example. Many of them seem to be absolutely "socialized": productive members of society, good husbands, good fathers etc. Yet, it's a role they have taken on in order to hide.

A very good friend of mine, a psychiatrist, tells me that in his experience and from his study, some children will turn out well almost in any circumstances. It's as if they have their own "compass". Some will be "anti-social" to some degree or another no matter what effort is brought to bear. It's only the ones in the middle who can be helped by good parenting. The difference is genetics.

 

[SYNCHRONIC]

I'd say people like Pythagoras, Sir Isaac Newton, Nikola Tesla, Leonardo Da Vinci, Professor Yan Xin etc... are far more deserving of being some of the greatest minds of all-time. I mean what did Nietzche really do beyond write his opinion down on pieces of paper?

All the great minds and genius' have all been highly spiritual, and many developing a direct connection to the source of consciousness and creativity that many religions call "God".

 

[CrazyDonkey]

It only works on the relatively "normal", not those with deep seated disorders. Serial killers are one example. Many of them seem to be absolutely "socialized": productive members of society, good husbands, good fathers etc. Yet, it's a role they have taken on in order to hide.

A very good friend of mine, a psychiatrist, tells me that in his experience and from his study, some children will turn out well almost in any circumstances. It's as if they have their own "compass". Some will be "anti-social" to some degree or another no matter what effort is brought to bear. It's only the ones in the middle who can be helped by good parenting. The difference is genetics.

I think you're over-exaggerating the reach and impact of "mental health" services, which have historically been limited to the rich and well-to-do. Freudian psycho-analysis (the "talking cure") certainly was. We can't assume that treating children before they become "incorrigible" wouldn't have any positive benefit, but only that by the time they are belatedly treated (or, more accurately, "medicated") it is much more likely to be much too little, and much too late.

 

[CrazyDonkey]

I mean what did Nietzche really do beyond write his opinion down on pieces of paper?

And the others you mentioned didn't? Have you even read a single work by him, from cover to cover? If you had, you should at least know how to spell his name.

"Almost everything which we call 'higher culture' rests on the spiritualization and intensification of cruelty - that's my claim. That 'wild beast' hasn't been killed at all: it's alive, it's flourishing. Only it has turned itself into - a god." --Beyond Good and Evil, 229.