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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   2819 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for April 14, 2023

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The Islamic world immediately erupted into a civil war after the death of Muhammad, and there were three more “fitnas” (civil war) over the next 120 years.

As opposed to the very orderly, domesticated processes by which the Carolingian succession, the Reformation, the breakup of the Habsburg and Russian empires, and various French/English royal conflicts were handled.

But surely the ancestors of Muhammad were not especially domesticated or obedient if they had bloody infighting in the century that followed Muhammad’s death. This is the problem of privileging a bloodline with polygamy versus a character trait (Christ-like).

But what you're missing is that being Christ like might be upheld as an ideal, but it does not lead to increased offspring, which is the mechanism of selection. I see no reason Christian societies would increase the reproduction or survival of cooperators over other societies, given that extreme cooperators in Christian societies would be more likely to be monogamous, or even celibate. Extreme cooperators in Muslim societies or in Chinese dynastic societies have more opportunities to reproduce.

That’s fair to a degree, but do we even know if these societies selected for these traits? If you obtained resources by being a vicious war lord, or an excellent trader, or simply the child of a war lord, this does not indicate that you have more domesticated traits as usually conceived. While polygamy allows for certain men to have a lot of wives, this could bring about the opposite problem in that you might be picking the wrong men. A society in which only the rich and the warlords have the most children may not actually be what you want to create a safe, prosperous, civilized society. While you want some who are laser-focused on resource acquisition, and some who are focused on power, you want the majority to be a little bit more well-rounded snd peaceful.

So maybe we're talking past each other, so let me outline what I'm saying a bit more.

When you say "human domestication" I picture the paragon of domestication: the Golden Retriever. The perfect domesticated human is the Tiktok golden retriever boyfriend meme (which is sent to me constantly by women in my life...). Lawful Good, pro social, friendly, cooperative, a strong inclination to listen to orders and follow laws. Given a neutral moral problem, a domesticated human would have a strong inclination to follow the legal/religious dictate on the topic. Picture the perfect obedient son.

Assuming that human domestication is genetic, that there is a rule following cooperator gene complex that can be passed on, we can assess whether humans who are extreme rule following cooperators will be more or less likely to reproduce. Assume that the man carrying the extreme cooperator domestication gene is otherwise neutral on sleeping around, neither extremely interested in not extremely opposed to polygamy.

Under Christianity, following legal and moral dictates will not lead to increased fertility past maxing out single-gamble monogamy for the extreme cooperator. He will marry, remain basically loyal because that's what society tells him to do. He can only have more children by transgressing social boundaries in some ways.

Meanwhile a Muslim golden retriever son who follows the dictates of his society can, without transgressing them, have four wives. He can divorce them according to the law if they are uncooperative or infertile, where the Christian only gets one roll. He can have more children without transgressing social boundaries.

The Muslim ruleset seems more generous to the extreme cooperator on fertility.

Which I don't point out to say Islam produces more domesticated populations, just to point out the just-so post-hoc aspects of your story about Christianity.

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