From: Timothy Bates (tbates@bunyip.bhs.mq.edu.au)
Date: Wed Nov 11 1998 - 17:23:08 MST
Hi Scott and list,
I take back my initial posting: this is an exciting list. thanks for all
your thoughts, on and off list.
Mike Lorrey said
>>Brin [is], like ... many
>>social engineers today, trying to push a change of behavior which is
>>totally contrary to human nature. ignoring the fact that most
>>people LIKE their privacy
Scott replied
>Really? A desire for privacy is part of human nature? Are there any
>studies that support that hypothesis? Do you mean to say that there was
>some evolutionary advantage available to those who preferred to be alone?
>Any other advantages come to mind that might have resulted in a
>preference for privacy being hard-wired into our circuitry?
Wow! a scientific attitude to human nature!
I am not aware of studies which demonstrate that, to paraphrase and
extend this logic, libertarian values were selected for. Robert Ardrey
argued that territoriality (property) was innate. He also argued that
enmity and amity are innate and result in human cooperative systems. He,
like Desmond Morris after him, popularised the notion that large
corporations with their concentration of alpha-positions to a privileged
few lead to increased suicide and depression (there is good scientific
evidence that major depression is (in part) an adaptation to
lower-than-desired social status.
Humans want to be part of a group and some of them want to dominate the
group.
My hypothesis is that libertarians are partly the confluence of extreme
scores on some independent underlying shared dimensions such as hi
openness, low agreeableness, low Neuroticism and empathy, and hi
intelligence. We have a study investigating this at present, examining
the relationship between the major dimensions of personality, libertarian
views, and susceptibility to superstition.
Partly, though, I think that libertarians are trans-human. That they have
genes which are at very low levels outside the libertarian population,
partly because without technological augmentation, we are at greatly
increased risk of being hung, shot, tortured to death, and being burned
at the stake ;-)
I think these are genes for not acknowledging the legitimacy of the will
of the band or tribe. It seems likely that the tribe genes are still
present but are overridden. I say this because I am sure we all get
lonely and wish to have close friends etc. However some intellectual
vision, commonly found in hackers, keeps us from being able to be close
simply for closeness' sake: there has to be a logic to a view before we
will subscribe.
Just as 92% of computer users are too stupid/indifferent to change their
default Internet browser, and have no idea of the critical importance of
crypto, privacy is not an innate demand because most people have no
philosophy other than "maximise the difference between my stuff and your
stuff, at any cost". Do not get between these people and stuff unless you
have a gun.
cheers,
tim
____________________
Todays definition:Curiosity
Richard Feynmann, suffering terminal cancer, made the doctor promise to
take away the anesthetic before he dies because "I want to feel what it's
like to turn off."
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