I'm just dangerously inquisitive.
Hence, I shall add some of my own (may be related to what is already given in the link):
1. With technology doing away with many types of interpersonal dependencies and creating some new kinds, is it possible that most of the present day forms social organization, including marriage, will become obsolete in the not so distant future?
2. Do we all, irrespective of our ethnicity, possess an inherent attraction (however small) toward people of fairer complexion?
3. Is everyone, some what racially prejudiced (both positively and negatively)? And is it some how related to, or gives rise to, skin-color-based sexual preferences?
4. (With respect to the history of modern democracy, including the most progressive of societies) Are women leaders more impulsive and show more unwanted aggressive behaviour than their male counterparts, rendering their reign highly controversial if not unpopular?
5. With the growing awareness and the spread of Gender Equality, as it is currently defined by most proactive agents, will chivalry be lost, as an act of insult to the capabilities of women?
6. Whenever a species becomes very successful, countering forces start to kick in and the exploding population is controlled. Most of these forces have been tamed through non-natural selection means by humans. Given this unchallenged supremacy, the onus is on us to conscioulsy overcome our immediate survival instincts and control our own impact on the environment. So are research and medical procedures dealing with the longevity of human life immoral?
Disclaimer: The above questions do not represent my personal views and are open only for a rational debate.
And I think I have an answer to one of the questions raised by Steven Pinker in this book, about which I'm reasonably confident-
Is morality just a product of the evolution of our brains, with no inherent reality?
Answer: Yes, yes and yes. Otherwise why would it change with times?
(Of course there are one or two unchanging building blocks of morality from which most of our sophisticated moral tenets sprout. But once we isolate them, its very easy to show their irrelevance by not attributing the material benefits incurred as a consequence of practising them)
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11 comments:
nice one mars... makes one think...
My take:
1. Technology does change a lot of things but it will definitely not make marriage obsolete.
2&3. Yes, everyone inherently possess an attraction towards the fairer sex unless they have been on the wrong end of harsh treatment by a member of the fairer sex
4. Its very difficult for women leaders to rise to the top in a patriarchal society. So those who do rise need to be aggressive and that shows. Its similar in B-schools in India where women are more aggressive than the normal women in India.
5. Im not really sure
6. Medical research is not immoral because we are not doing a gr8 deal of damage to the environment. Industrialization is a bigger culprit. So can we call industrilaization as immoral?? I doubt so.
@asif:
1. lets debate it out... i say it can
2. why ?
3. the third question wasn't exactly related to the 2nd... i was talking about certain other factors which come into play in terms of sexual selection. (women prefer darker skinned men perhaps?)
4. thats exactly my point... but the reasons may not be limited to external factors. wat about a possible genetic handicap? we know too well that in most species, its the male which lead the herds... the same was true with primates, so is it possible that evolution programmed a male brain differently from a female brain for different purposes... and today that we have a level playing field everywhere, things start to get screwed up when women (or men) try their hands at areas for which their brain is not compatible?
6. how can u say that... industrialization it self is a generic term... there are many alternatives of running it which may not be harmful to the planet, and those measures are definitely being explored. the REASON we need those industries is to cater to the growing population. and the population is growing because there is nothing to really stop it. given this strain on resources, if people start living longer than they naturally should, wouldn't it trigger a chain reaction of exploitation in every possible dimension?
Marriage generally sets a conducive environment for children to grow up. It gives a sort of stability for young fragile minds to develop. You will get the point if you have read freakonomics in which the author argues that the real cause for decrease in crime rate in the 90s in US is because many father-less pregnancies were aborted.
There is no way industrialisation will take place at an exponential growth without harming the environment. How will people in cold countries manage without heaters??? Every electric component would have been manufactured at critical temperatures which again require equipments which damage the environment. Wat about vehicles??? Even before the explosion of population man has been destroying the environment. Its not just a recent phenomenon.
@asif: de im not at all concerned about wat kind of environment will be conducive for a child's growth and wat's not here. when ppl have choices, convenience will take the front seat invariably. you are underestimating the power of technology in replacing humans in almost any process, including child birth.
and as regards industrialization, it doesn't really matter when or how it started, (in fact exploitation of natural resources is much much more older than industrial revolution). TODAY, it grows only with the increasing needs , which in turn increases with the population (there are of course certain other factors, but not as dominant as this one). my point is, now that we haven't even succeeded in controlling this growth, an unnaturally long human life would be disastrous.
By the same account ur overestinmating the power of technology!!! I dont believe technology can replace all aspects of human life. But we might never know if it will happen until or unless it happens!!!
@asif: u think so?? if u ask me there is nothing called overestimation with tech ;)
Lemme put in some thoughts:
1. Tech. is nt going to change the underlying feelings that one has. The so called marriage is nothing but an institution that satiates the thirst for these feelings, bondings etc. So ultimately, its not gonna be harmed. All said and done, with tech., bondages may take diff. shapes, with online buddies becoming more prominent. But that's just a diff. sort of marriage as far as i m concerned.
2. dude, cmon. are u trying to generalise the whole world. this is just impossible.
3. if you ask me this ques. i ll say this may be in the genes and bring up and environment etc.etc.
4. well well well. this is a really cool one. there can be multiple reasons. i have exp. of working with a few women and i think its basically because of both internal and external pressure that they show aggresiveness. external ones are the effects a normal male chauvinist has on them. internal ones- they dont want pity. i think that's a normal human tendency one would show in places were you are in minority. that need not be characteristic of women. i m sure with time, women will become normal leaders and we may not see this diff.
5. yeah i agree. it may get lost once she starts competing. after all shes gonna be in the dogs world.
6. they cant be called immoral. after all it is part of our quest to be a successful species. :) what say? and i think the countering forces in our case is going to be the environment itself!
Some answers...
Ill start with the 6 th one, very interesting to me.... as the anonymous before me has said .. it is the duty of evry species on earth to do whatever is possible within its means to survive and propogate... thats the rule of life.. when we are manipulating the environment using technology to our means, we are just using the advantage inherent to us as compared to other species..'intelligence'... The question of morality should not bother us as long as we are trying to survive...thats wat the 1 billion years of natural evolution intended us to do, also made us capable to do.... But, then 'Given this unchallenged supremacy, the onus is on us to conscioulsy overcome our immediate survival instincts and control our own impact on the environment'...addressing to this 'with great power comes great responsibility' issue...i would not say we are that supreme yet... in numbers we are outnumbered by the microbes that we havent been able to conquer, and which would readily conquer us if given a chance.... Actually digressing from the issue the whole sense of morality or immorality (which long suffers a lack of definition) can be helped by putting in a theory totally based on narcissism... The world was designed to fluorish in a state of total narcissim by all creatures where each one strived for its own existence selfishly.... seeing that way, the medical progress is justified in its fight against the microbes, since it also tries to put an end to the ever growing population by birth control, reducing the passage of defective genes by gentic counseling and screening, etc.. evrything is based on the philosophy of creating a world good for living for those who are already existing in it. This is the reason the rights of unborn child are almost none when compared to the mother, when it comes to issues of deciding between life of mom and fetus. Evrytime we try to save mother nature from the harms of our industrialisation, it should not be on the pretext of doing a favor to the nature, but it should be a direct result of actually helping our species live longer ... thats the way it should be justified..... Foolish are those people who spend millions of rupees and manpower on saving a few endangered species which have no benefit to humankind or the world in particular... the evolution brought them into existence and evolution has killed them
5. With all the sense of growing gender equality, I dont think chivalry will ever be lost because---
a) as a matter of fact women are not equal to men .... women have very clear disadvantages as against men, and people who propogate gender equality are, i believe, hypocrites. I dont say women are weaker to men in evrything. Both the sexes are specialised in some qualities which are utmost essential to the combined strength of the species. It is the very differences in qualities that forms the basis of attraction betwen the sexes (mere sexual attraction cannot propogate the species beond a point).. and it is this attraction that keeps the species going. If it was just left to sexual attraction for propogation of humans, then family and social structure could have never developed. This difference was formed when mammals evolved. the difference between reptiles and mammals is the defined gender roles, and formation of family structure. well, how does it al relate to chivalry anyway.... chivalry is nothing but a euphemism of 'wooing'. giving the female sex its sense of importance which it seems to need whatever be the situation (thats one of the weaknesses of the sexes,both male and female,they are by nature attention seeking)
b)A simpler explanation- people who propogate the idea of gender equality are themselves too foolish to ever understand the superficiality of chivalry. I do not know if the female sex is as intelligent as male sex or not, but the feminists are definitely the most retarded examples among the females. feminism is itself a concept resulting from 'attention seeking behaviour'. sexes should fight for equality of rights, it should not fight to prove equality of gender.
Ans 4) When a female rises to power, I think the insecurities that she has grown up with shows, and she tries to assume a more aggresive identity to suppress the subconcious fears of being dominated upon.
Ans 2) yes, may be because whites are the more developed variants.
Ans 1) i dont think marriage wud become obsolete so soon atleast. the day it does, the species wud crash.... and it is well known and recognised by the modern psychiatrists, the importance of the social structure that the western world is going away from. Marriage by its original definition might not stay, but some form of it would exist. For the psychological stability of an individual, the most important factor is 'one person to depend'... that is known to reduce the insecurity of a person more than anything. that is provided by marriage in common terms.
@Arun: I just have some disagreements
6. I think you misunderstood me. I wasn't using the word 'immoral' in the usual sense that people use. In fact, I have already answered the question of what exactly is morality if you scroll down that question. No, here, by 'immoral' i was merely answering the question - 'Is a particular act detrimental to our individual or collective survival?'
In that sense, something like research to fight a growing epidemic is completely justified and i'm not questioning it. but imagine a new research, which was capable of say doubling the life span of humans by delaying natural death, or the ageing process by stimulating some sort of increased production of anti-oxidants in the body, is that research 'moral'? I mean, wouldn't that in the long run (actually very short run) jeopardize the survival of us all by putting a strain on our limited resources? Obviously, our development cannot match that kind of increase in need.
And regarding your questioning of animal rights activists, well, i do think they are totally gay. However, i don't know what exactly you are refering to, but many of the movements to save endangered species do make sense for our own survival. The movement to save the Whales for eg. You see, when creatures as big as whales go extinct in a geologically small time, it drastically changes the ecosystem and the bio-chemical equillibrium of the oceans which would start a chain reaction of extinctions. we are not killing one species, but creating an extinction event, which would eventually affect us in some way. Even natural extinction events take down with them a whole chunck of species which were not directly related to that event. if we want to survive, shouldn't we think of that?
2. 'yes, may be because whites are the more developed variants' ... what the hell does that mean????
'And regarding your questioning of animal rights activists, well, i do think they are totally gay. However, i don't know what exactly you are refering to, but many of the movements to save endangered species do make sense for our own survival.'
I agree to your view on species like whale or the coral reef etc.. they are improtnt to the eological system But there are animals like white tiger, red panda, whose extinction is not going to affect anybody. They are beautiful but that doesnt justify pmping in millions to save that beauty, when that money and resources could be used for so many suffering humans.
'Do we all, irrespective of our ethnicity, possess an inherent attraction (however small) toward people of fairer complexion' I interpreted your question here as a reference to the white race.... ( now that i think, i feel u were actually talking about the people of same race but a little bit fairer).... well actually both mean the same. I feel the white race was a a much more recent development in the human history and they would have prevailed and slowly vanquished all others through natural selection methods if not human interference through human rights etc. Africans were more primitive, and would have vanished like the neanderthals did ... hehe.... so by nature they are more developed and hold a selection advantage.....
well that makes me ponder, the origin of browns... was it due to the mixing of black and white some time in history and the generation of an even stronger human race which vanquish evrything else !!!!
wel, coming to ur actual intent of the question , i woul disagree cause, evryboy does not have a preference to fairer colour... caucasians prefer more tan... africans and indians prefer fairness... well, it all seems to be going towards that moderation of colour .... (which again means brown is the most sought after colour??!!!)
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