[Further OT] Social Darwinism (was Re: [ale] Indian outsourcing)

[Joe Knapka]

Stephen Touset <stephen at touset.org> writes:

> On Thu, 2004-01-29 at 13:24, Stephen Touset wrote:
> > On Thu, 2004-01-29 at 12:52, Cleon wrote:
> > > It's incredibly easy to justify or support people losing their jobs
> > > when you haven't lost yours.
> > 
> > Last I checked, I haven't been able to get a decent IT job either. Why
> > do you think I have so much time to write entries in my blog?
> 
> To add to this, I support capitalism, social darwinism, and survival of
> the fittest with the full knowledge that I may be on the losing end.

It seems to me that a lot of "free-market" capitalists and such folk
have really fixated on the "nature red in tooth and claw",
every-entity-for-itself view of natural selection. IMHO that attitude
reveals a failure to recognize some further implications of Darwin's
theory.

Fitness depends on the environment; it is not merely a function of the
attributes and behaviors of an individual. Humans are very good at
increasing our own fitness by changing our environment. While it's
true that the principle of "survival of the fittest" always applies,
we can, by adopting behaviors and policies designed to benefit the
group rather than the individual, *change the evaluation function* by
which "fitness" is defined. As an example, today we have medical
skills and knowledge, and social policies, that permit individuals to
survive who would have had essentially no chance in earlier centuries;
those people are ipso facto among the fittest of *today's*
population. And it's possible that the next Mozart or Einstein or
Darwin will be among such people; in other words, we can, by virtue of
the power of our civilization to alter the fitness landscape, turn
what might once have been fitness minima into fitness maxima.

If you are a good social Darwinist, therefore, you owe it to yourself
and your DNA to do your damnedest to change both yourself *and the
environment* so that you come to represent a fitness maximum. It may
be that such efforts should include supporting protectionist labor
policies. (Or perhaps not. The point is, it's not obvious what the
Darwinianly-correct stance on the issue is. )

There's also an ethical question here.  While we cannot escape from
the practical effects of natural selection, it's by no means clear
that it is a good basis from which to make ethical choices. Using
it as such is, in my opinion, to fall victim to the naturalistic
fallacy (nature == good).

Cheers,

-- Joe Knapka

-- 
I'm gonna do everything / silver and gold / but I got to
hurry up before I grow to old. -- Joe Strummer, 1952 -- 2002
If you really want to get my attention, don't reply to this;
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