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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32429 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023

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Ancient developed societies had social technology that worked on an evolutionary level. Family name was important, and so the actions of a father would influence the repute of the son. The effect of this was that social defection, from criminality to serious corruption, would not benefit the proliferation of the defector’s genes. A cowardly general or a treasonous noble would reduce their children's opportunity for gene proliferation. Towns in the past were often mono-ethnic, as were many religions, and so civic engagement and “selfless prosociality” would benefit the expansion of one’s extended gene pool. Many human populations evolved prosocial tendencies because such genes were beneficial to the whole, but not necessarily the individual.

It is interesting, but not often stated bluntly, that the culture of the modern West is illogical from an evolutionary standpoint. We are taught not to judge a person by the actions of their parents or kin, and in fact having parents who were antisocial has a sympathetic residue in our media. Because a person’s behavior no longer affects their children’s reputation in any meaningful way (outside of losses from legal action), corruption and perfidy is the evolutionarily correct option in certain cases. It doesn’t matter how many customers you harm, how many people you lie to, or how corrupt you are in a bureaucracy — if you make more money than the legal repercussions take, then your children will go off to a good college and have as high a social standing as before. A Madoff can make off with money and his descendants are not worse as a result, and arguably better than had no corrupt moneys been accrued. (Social shame is essentially limited to the children of conservative politicians who haven’t publicly renounced their parents. Even the children of murderers are given a sympathetic lens.)

Prosocial actions in pre-modern living conditions almost always benefitted the expansion of one’s genes which, in the zero-sum mathematics of mammals, are a kind of dominance-action against other human groups. Helping a homeless person get back to working on a farm may have lead to gene proliferation greater than that of passing up the opportunity. Acting modestly and selflessly, living a simple life of following social rules, would benefit the whole group exorbitantly provided others aren’t defecting from the same standard. Most remarkably, the modern multicultural cosmopolitan America is perhaps the first society in history where prosocial actions are generally against your evolutionary interests. That is, when you don’t signal them to others! The action qua action, undirected to a stranger, is likely going to benefit someone whose genes are too far from yours to benefit your expansion. Even in the Rome of the Roman Empire, groups manly lived in the same neighborhoods, had extended kin groups, had region-locked gods, and in the case of the patrician classes put enormous weight on family/tribal ties. When cross-tribal empathy was practiced, it was so that the stranger would know the goodness of your community — (for instance, failure to be a good host in Greece to a traveler in Greece would dishonor your family and town).

When we talk about the decline in civic engagement, and the bureaucracies that aren’t working for the best interests of the people, and the inefficiencies of ostensibly prosocial organizations that care more about signal than substance, we may want to look at the evolutionary underpinnings of all of our actions. Perhaps we have fashioned ourselves a moral Gordian Knot. We simultaneously value and miss prosocial actions, while forbidding any natural evolutionary impetus for prosocial action. Ironically, the most natural and established methods of prosociality — extended gene nepotism and racism — are the very things that are considered most defective by the cosmopolitan liberal. If this is all true, and there’s no good way to slice this Gordian knot, we will somehow have to devise an advanced capitalist surveillance state that incentivizes substantive prosocial action and not just the signal.

"The effect of this was that social defection, from criminality to serious corruption, would not benefit the proliferation of the defector’s genes."

On the other hand, there is this from the Analects of Confucius:

The Duke of Sheh informed Confucius, saying, "Among us here there are those who may be styled upright in their conduct. If their father have stolen a sheep, they will bear witness to the fact."

Confucius said, "Among us, in our part of the country, those who are upright are different from this. The father conceals the misconduct of the son, and the son conceals the misconduct of the father. Uprightness is to be found in this."

So it might be said that in the Confucian model, filiality and family loyalty trump eusociality. This makes the model of the city/the state/the village (whichever political-social unit from the smallest to the greatest) as a family a difficult concept, since the idea of sociality is that all the members of the unit are, in a sense, 'family' and so acting in the common interest and common good is what should be done - if someone is a thief, inform the authorities. But Confucius here seems to say that bonds of blood relationship outweigh duties to the common good.

Prosocial actions may indeed be against evolutionary interests, but they are necessary for a functioning society. A society where fathers and sons hide crimes, and families act for their own interests first, is not one that is high-trust or low in corruption. American society may not be an earthly paradise, but you can still be reasonably confident that crimes will be tried and punished and that you as a citizen have rights.

Just saying “prosocial actions are necessary” does not magically induce the prosocial action, which is the problem in our cosmopolitan democracy. If prosociality is necessary, we actually need to create the evolutionary underpinnings, otherwise I doubt they will really happen to any meaningful degree. Maybe American parents would not try to conceal their children’s crimes, I have no idea. But America is precisely the country where “families acting for their interests first” is not significantly punished, whereas in ancient societies the descendant’s reputation would be harmed (and so would be their opportunities). In America, if you have the chance to be a Madoff and it sends your kids to the best schools, that is the best evolutionary choice. In ancient societies, it wouldn’t be, because it would affect the child’s reputation, and reputation impacted status, and thus resources and mates. The fact that the children would be punished may lead children to attempt to cover up crimes, but only a small minority of social defection can actually be covered up by one’s children in the first place.

cf. Proclus, Ten doubts concerning providence (De decem dubitationibus circa providentiam), 5th century AD:

Such being the problems regarding [ancestral sin], let us first say that every city and every family constitutes one single living being, more so than every single person, being to a larger degree immortal and sacred. Indeed, one single mayor presides over the city as over one single being, one relative over the family as one whole. And there is a single [life] cycle in common for the city and [one] for the family, making the life and the customs of each of them converge, different ones for different cities and families – as their lives are simultaneous as it were – and their different body sizes, different resources, postures and motions – as if one single nature were pervading the whole city and every single family in it, making both that city and that family one.

If, then, also providence is one and fate, with respect to these things, is one, if their life is of the same form and their nature from the same root, how could one refuse to call the city and the family one living being, and from now on to talk specifically about each of them as one, since, when compared to any one of us, [each of them] is a living being that is longer-lived, more divine and more like the universe in that it encompasses the other, smaller living beings and is akin to the everlasting?

So if, as has been shown, every city and every family is a single living being, why wonder if the [deeds] of the forefathers are paid out to the progeny and if the life of the cities, being one, spread out from above [over the citizens] like a canvas, encompasses the compensation, in other times, for actions, be they good or bad, committed in other times? For providence shows not only that every one of us bears the fruit of the things that he did in another time [of his life] and receives the penalty for them, but also that [this is the case for] the city as a unity and the family as a unity – and as a living being, at that – whereby the first to act are not disregarded either (for it is not allowed that something is overlooked, given that providence exists) and the later-born because of the co-affection to the first as to their founding fathers and by the fact that together with them they complete, as it were, one single living being, inherit from them the share that they deserve. For their origin is from them and they share a life and nature in common with them, so that it is obvious that because of them they receive honour and punishment.

Weren't things we call 'corruption' today, from "bribes" to "nepotism" ... rampant and even accepted among many premodern societies? Something somewhat similar to this may be true, but historical evopsych is very hard to get right.

A Madoff can make off with money and his descendants are not worse as a result, and arguably better than had no corrupt moneys been accrued.

... as opposed to crassus, who

Marcus Licinius Crassus' next concern was to rebuild the fortunes of his family, which had been confiscated during the Marian-Cinnan proscriptions. Sulla's proscriptions, in which the property of his victims was cheaply auctioned off, found one of the greatest acquirers of this type of property in Crassus: indeed, Sulla was especially supportive of this, because he wished to spread the blame as much as possible among those unscrupulous enough to do so. ... Crassus is said to have made part of his money from proscriptions, notably the proscription of one man whose name was not initially on the list of those proscribed but was added by Crassus, who coveted the man's fortune

Some of Crassus' wealth was acquired conventionally, through slave trafficking, production from silver mines, and speculative real estate purchases

The first ever Roman fire brigade was created by Crassus. Fires were almost a daily occurrence in Rome, and Crassus took advantage of the fact that Rome had no fire department, by creating his own brigade—500 men strong—which rushed to burning buildings at the first cry of alarm. Upon arriving at the scene, however, the firefighters did nothing while Crassus offered to buy the burning building from the distressed property owner, at a miserable price. If the owner agreed to sell the property, his men would put out the fire; if the owner refused, then they would simply let the structure burn to the ground. After buying many properties this way, he rebuilt them, and often leased the properties to their original owners or new tenants.[18][5][19][3]

... prosocial?

Weren't things we call 'corruption' today, from "bribes" to "nepotism" ... rampant and even accepted among many premodern societies?

Important I think. It does seem that in the past leaders had less of a problem with their actions being seen. That could be interpreted as social norms being enforced on them better. "Prosocial" in the relevant evolutionary sense is not the same as pro-equality. Moldbug argument about unclear assignment of power being the problem.

Fighting fires costs time and money. If he is obliged to fight fires for people who didn't pay him, he'd go broke. It just looks bad because the firefighters are physically standing next to the fire, but standing next to it and not fighting it is no worse than being far away and not fighting it.

Would you quote it the same way if a supermarket was refusing to give away food to someone who couldn't pay?

I'm not making an anticapitalist / anti-paying-for-insurance argument here - the key phrase is a miserable price, and often leased the properties to their original owners or new tenants. Compare this to healthcare pricing - during an emergency, your 'willingness to pay' is limited only by your wealth, and the hospital you are at / crassus's fire brigade can demand much higher prices than they could in a competitive market because they have no competition at the moment of emergency, a problem (sort of) solved by paying for insurance from competing providers. It's possible wikipedia is overstating that, but other sources seem to agree. Even if that's untrue, the other bits are similarly antisocial.

If he had no firefighters and he was just a real estate developer buying up burned properties for pittances, nobody would complain. Adding the firefighters increases his profit, but it doesn't make the situation worse--losing your house from fire is no better than losing your house this way.

There's also nothing preventing another company from offering "I'll do this and charge half the rent on the lease", leading to a price war that makes the price for the service go down to the point where nobody loses their house.

In general, using monopoly power of any kind to demand prices significantly above the "ideal" market price is (currently) considered bad and antisocial. Even moreso if the thing extorted was "your house" instead of eggs. The same is true of a hospital - sure, "without the hospital, the person just dies", but "give me your life savings or i won't stop the bleeding" is still "antisocial". Economics describes this as "the producer extracting all the surplus". If the cost to crassus of putting out fires is much smaller than the price he demands, and he uses this to extract wealth, that's ... 'antisocial', in the sense it's worse for society than demanding only a bit above cost.

Note that (again, according to wikipedia in vague language, notanexpert, might be wrong) the privately owned system of firefighting became ineffective, and was replaced with a volunteer force.

This led to

"A major duty of the Vigiles was to enforce preventative measures against conflagrations. Adequate fire fighting equipment was required in every home. The Digest of Justinian decrees that Vigiles are "ordered to remind every one to have a supply of water ready in his upper room". While the Vigiles only had advising authority, their recommendations were often followed to avoid repercussions for negligence."

Which is something crassus's force would ... not be incentivized to do.

It's much easier to have a price war over food or steel, which buyers regularly buy large amounts of, can choose the time and place of purchase, and have many sellers, all of which give buyers opportunity and motive to inform themselves and select low prices, than something like a fire or rare medical emergencies, which satisfy none of those. (And history doesn't record several roman firefighting startups pushing the price down a year after crassus's thing began - and even if they did, unless multiple show up to the same fire, extortionate pricing would remain).

If he had no firefighters and he was just a real estate developer buying up burned properties for pittances, nobody would complain

... not about him, but people would certainly complain about the un-fought fires. It may be better for a steel factory that illegally dumps runoff into rivers to exist than not, considering the many benefits of steel, but it's still very bad to dump it!

In some ways, markets and free exchange are very effective in coordination! In other ways, they aren't, and 'it's all voluntary' doesn't mean every action is moral.

In general, using monopoly power of any kind to demand prices significantly above the "ideal" market price is (currently) considered bad and antisocial.

Your description only says that he used monopoly power in the sense of being the only company around--not that he did anything to prevent other companies from being created and competing with him.

It's much easier to have a price war over food or steel,..., than something like a fire or rare medical emergencies... unless multiple show up to the same fire, extortionate pricing would remain).

Why wouldn't someone create another company, which would also show up? It sounds like there's information you're leaving out.

One problem is that the same power over prices exists if crassus is the only one to show up to any specific fire, even if other companies exist. This makes market competition and price discovery much harder. Compare this to: multiple hospitals exist, but you have a heart attack and are only delivered to one. If his company shows up to some fires, and other companies show up to other fires ... and cartels like this are a very common phenomenon in businesses today.

Another problem is that this is ... ancient rome, not exactly a well oiled machine for free enterprise. Startup costs, frictions, and risk of 'you get your property stolen because higher status person dislikes you' were higher than today.

I think it might be worth noting that, contra your comment about it only now being the case that signaling is the way to harvest benefits from prosocial actions, that signaling also is the source of the benefit in the original example you gave. In the case of the father who benefits his son, it is not actually doing good to other which helps, but the building up of the family name. Once again, feigning to do costly actions, if you are not caught, outperforms actually doing them, and lives of crime and the like can bring rewards, if done in secret.

Moreover, it's just transparently the case that those sorts of goings-on still happened. One need only think of rapacious tyrants or common criminals or of hypocrites (woe to you, scribes and Pharisees!) to see that there existed in the ancient times people who defected, and that signaling was common.

Of course, there is something to the fact that our familial connections are weaker than they have often been in the past. But I am not convinced that it has these large effects of disregard for ethics or one's reputation, given that there still exist substantial pressures toward having the politically correct views, or whatever falls within the socially acceptable range.

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