A sport like tennis [...] lacks [...] the excitement of conflict, violence and danger
No, that’s golf you’re thinking about.
What games need to feel exciting is creativity. I’ve had sessions of 20 Questions that felt like a massacre.
and the strong us vs. them tribal spirit of camaraderie.
That’s why tennis begat volleyball.
the goal is to simulate that ancestral environment
That would be a huge problem. If you have followed any professional sport, you will know there’s no guarantee that an aggressive player will behave less aggressively in his private life. People (especially your Manfolk) are bad at distinguishing between appropriate and inappropriate social contexts.
social market economy
If the producers are all robots, whom do you give your money when you buy something? Robots would have no use for it. Instead of a basic income, you could simply give people the food and save the extra step of purchase.
You have not made a convincing case that doing away with aggressive impulses would be harmful. Why? What’s so good and necessary about machismo?
“People (especially your Manfolk) are bad at distinguishing between appropriate and inappropriate social contexts.”
Is there evidence for this concerning either people in general or people who take part in combat sports in particular?
“What games need to feel exciting is creativity.”
Why do you believe this to be true for everyone? Are people psychologically constrained somehow to be excited exclusively by creativity?
Head protection was included in the article precisely for this reason.
Creativity does not simulate war, a warrior’s life, thus dues not channel aggressive or power-oriented instincts. Thus you get the same problem as today, these instincts get bottled up then expressed as e.g. joining right-wing extremist groups.
This is bad. This is really bad. But this happened because they have these instinct like I want to be a tribal warrior, and did not get any proper avenues to vent them.
My deal to people like you is the following: I save you from men like those in the article. As long as they exist and do not find a proper avenue to vent their instincts, they will join extremist groups and be a constant danger for democracy. I will put them into an SPQR team-MMA group and set up matches (raids) against culturally opposing ones, and they will expend all their energies there and will never think about entering politics. Do you see why it is advantageous for you?
If you have followed any professional sport, you will know there’s no guarantee that an aggressive player will behave less aggressively in his private life.
No guarantee, but look at it this way. Only a minority of them did anything wrong. However if e.g. Tyson was not recruited into boxing or military or something similar, maybe a bodyguard, he would guaranteed to become a career criminal because a normal job would be just boring for him. On the whole, it reduced total amounts of violence.
People (especially your Manfolk) are bad at distinguishing between appropriate and inappropriate social contexts.
Oh, that is solvable. Rituals. Triggers. It’s a basic Pavlov’s dog thing. Bell rings, saliva comes.
However if you don’t do this, they will go for inappropriate social contexts all the time.
If the producers are all robots, whom do you give your money when you buy something? Robots would have no use for it. Instead of a basic income, you could simply give people the food and save the extra step of purchase.
Now I am a bit confused what your life experience may be. Do you think people purchase exactly the same goods? You haven’t seen people with expensive shoes but drinking cheap wine or vice versa?
Your theory about the origin of aggressiveness puts more weight on the genes; mine puts more weight on the culture. You work from the assumption that aggressiveness is an instinct; I have found it’s more a personal choice, related to each person’s degree of maturity and empathy. Obviously we will look for solutions in opposite poles.
Do you think people purchase exactly the same goods? You haven’t seen people with expensive shoes but drinking cheap wine or vice versa?
Well...
In the utopia where I’m absolute dictator, liquors are illegal.
But in the utopia where I can expect some people to actually want to live, an apple is an apple. This means there should be no status marks linked to basic goods, so the bread I get should not be fancier than the bread you get. The same goes for clothes and housing. This allows for universal basic income to be given in the form of basic goods; if, after being fed by the state, you still want caviar, then you have to work extra to pay for it.
I think I should post my utopia in the Discussion board too. But LW would collapse in laughter.
Your theory about the origin of aggressiveness puts more weight on the genes; mine puts more weight on the culture.
You do know that this is a controversial topic since at least 1963 when Konrad Lorentz published his On Aggression, right? If you want to talk about theories it’s a good habit to be aware of existing literature :-/
This is a good and interesting discussion, finally. Upvoted.
First of all—my main point is that aggressiveness is not simply a bad thing. It is certainly dangerous. It is arguable whether it is a net negative, but it also has good aspects, or, to put differently, it is caused by things that have other effects and some of those are good, and removing the roots of aggressiveness would also remove them.
Second—aggressiveness is not really well defined term. Let’s see two examples. Let’s look at a fair and equal fight, duel-like, even with weight classes like boxing, and obviously a voluntary one. The other example is simply beating up someone who is defenseless, a victim, out of hatred.
The two things are IMHO very different and hardly ever connected. The second type aims to cause harm, the weaker and more defenseless the victim is the better. The first type looks for challenge: in the first type of encounter if the opponent is defensless or bad at defending himself the whole thing becomes boring and pointless.
So the difference is rather huge and it is not the same thing. The issue is, humanist intellectuals who hate both types tend to conflate them. I am not sure you do. I am sure Erich Fromm did conflate them in The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness which is a textbook case of how to miss this kind of point.
We really need different terms for this, as I obviously endorse only of the first. The first is more of a more intense version of competition and dominance, really a more intense form of volleyball. The second is something much more evil.
The first is lot like challenging each other to a test: if I tried to do the second on you, could you defend yourself? The second is largely outgroup, it is a destroy-the-enemy ethos. The first is closer to an in-group dominance fight, more of a let’s see who is boss around here. (At this point I admit the confusion that I modeled the first type, but between out-groups, but what else can I do? )
I would not collapse in laughter. A form of communist puritanism has a certain appeal to me, but probably for the wrong reasons: it channels status-seeking to more excitingly aggressive forms. It is, quite literally, Sparta.
I wouldn’t be so sure about it. All it takes is one charismatic political leader that can get their sympathies… for example because he also is a good sportsman in their team.
But yeah, it is better if they have also other things they can turn their attention to.
What exactly is wrong with you?
No, that’s golf you’re thinking about.
What games need to feel exciting is creativity. I’ve had sessions of 20 Questions that felt like a massacre.
That’s why tennis begat volleyball.
That would be a huge problem. If you have followed any professional sport, you will know there’s no guarantee that an aggressive player will behave less aggressively in his private life. People (especially your Manfolk) are bad at distinguishing between appropriate and inappropriate social contexts.
If the producers are all robots, whom do you give your money when you buy something? Robots would have no use for it. Instead of a basic income, you could simply give people the food and save the extra step of purchase.
You have not made a convincing case that doing away with aggressive impulses would be harmful. Why? What’s so good and necessary about machismo?
“People (especially your Manfolk) are bad at distinguishing between appropriate and inappropriate social contexts.” Is there evidence for this concerning either people in general or people who take part in combat sports in particular?
“What games need to feel exciting is creativity.” Why do you believe this to be true for everyone? Are people psychologically constrained somehow to be excited exclusively by creativity?
Head protection was included in the article precisely for this reason.
Creativity does not simulate war, a warrior’s life, thus dues not channel aggressive or power-oriented instincts. Thus you get the same problem as today, these instincts get bottled up then expressed as e.g. joining right-wing extremist groups.
Look at these guys: http://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2014/jul/18/skinhead-fascists-italy-photography-paolo-marchetti
This is bad. This is really bad. But this happened because they have these instinct like I want to be a tribal warrior, and did not get any proper avenues to vent them.
My deal to people like you is the following: I save you from men like those in the article. As long as they exist and do not find a proper avenue to vent their instincts, they will join extremist groups and be a constant danger for democracy. I will put them into an SPQR team-MMA group and set up matches (raids) against culturally opposing ones, and they will expend all their energies there and will never think about entering politics. Do you see why it is advantageous for you?
No guarantee, but look at it this way. Only a minority of them did anything wrong. However if e.g. Tyson was not recruited into boxing or military or something similar, maybe a bodyguard, he would guaranteed to become a career criminal because a normal job would be just boring for him. On the whole, it reduced total amounts of violence.
Oh, that is solvable. Rituals. Triggers. It’s a basic Pavlov’s dog thing. Bell rings, saliva comes.
However if you don’t do this, they will go for inappropriate social contexts all the time.
Now I am a bit confused what your life experience may be. Do you think people purchase exactly the same goods? You haven’t seen people with expensive shoes but drinking cheap wine or vice versa?
Your theory about the origin of aggressiveness puts more weight on the genes; mine puts more weight on the culture. You work from the assumption that aggressiveness is an instinct; I have found it’s more a personal choice, related to each person’s degree of maturity and empathy. Obviously we will look for solutions in opposite poles.
Well...
In the utopia where I’m absolute dictator, liquors are illegal.
But in the utopia where I can expect some people to actually want to live, an apple is an apple. This means there should be no status marks linked to basic goods, so the bread I get should not be fancier than the bread you get. The same goes for clothes and housing. This allows for universal basic income to be given in the form of basic goods; if, after being fed by the state, you still want caviar, then you have to work extra to pay for it.
I think I should post my utopia in the Discussion board too. But LW would collapse in laughter.
You do know that this is a controversial topic since at least 1963 when Konrad Lorentz published his On Aggression, right? If you want to talk about theories it’s a good habit to be aware of existing literature :-/
If you want to talk about books it’s a good habit to check they’re not outdated.
Well, at least you’re being internally consistent.
This is a good and interesting discussion, finally. Upvoted.
First of all—my main point is that aggressiveness is not simply a bad thing. It is certainly dangerous. It is arguable whether it is a net negative, but it also has good aspects, or, to put differently, it is caused by things that have other effects and some of those are good, and removing the roots of aggressiveness would also remove them.
Second—aggressiveness is not really well defined term. Let’s see two examples. Let’s look at a fair and equal fight, duel-like, even with weight classes like boxing, and obviously a voluntary one. The other example is simply beating up someone who is defenseless, a victim, out of hatred.
The two things are IMHO very different and hardly ever connected. The second type aims to cause harm, the weaker and more defenseless the victim is the better. The first type looks for challenge: in the first type of encounter if the opponent is defensless or bad at defending himself the whole thing becomes boring and pointless.
So the difference is rather huge and it is not the same thing. The issue is, humanist intellectuals who hate both types tend to conflate them. I am not sure you do. I am sure Erich Fromm did conflate them in The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness which is a textbook case of how to miss this kind of point.
We really need different terms for this, as I obviously endorse only of the first. The first is more of a more intense version of competition and dominance, really a more intense form of volleyball. The second is something much more evil.
The first is lot like challenging each other to a test: if I tried to do the second on you, could you defend yourself? The second is largely outgroup, it is a destroy-the-enemy ethos. The first is closer to an in-group dominance fight, more of a let’s see who is boss around here. (At this point I admit the confusion that I modeled the first type, but between out-groups, but what else can I do? )
I would not collapse in laughter. A form of communist puritanism has a certain appeal to me, but probably for the wrong reasons: it channels status-seeking to more excitingly aggressive forms. It is, quite literally, Sparta.
You say aggressiveness
What are those other effects, both good and not?
I wouldn’t be so sure about it. All it takes is one charismatic political leader that can get their sympathies… for example because he also is a good sportsman in their team.
But yeah, it is better if they have also other things they can turn their attention to.