At 06:08 1/05/97 -1000, you wrote: >At 10:59 AM 5/1/97 EDT, brian j. callahan wrote: > >>At any rate, I think homo sapiens have an ability we call reason that frees >>us to some degree from a pre-ordained pattern of society. The change from >>hunter gatherer to agricultural to industrial societies with large variations >>in the social structure in each should show us that. So let's use that >>reason to create a society where we can satisfy our natural needs and >>inclinations while allowing all the other homo sapiens to do the same. >>Wouldn't that be neato? > >You are apparently basing your ideology the misconception that >people are "rational"[1]. > >Studies show that most people are not rational. For example, >they routinely fail to make inferences according to Bayes' >Theorem, which is a formula used to calculate the probability >that a particular event will occur. People give recently >presented information undue importance, thereby producing >answers that are not rational [Hamm, Ornstein and Ehrlich]. >In other words, humans have not evolved to be successful >democrats in a world that is now far over carrying capacity. > >[1]Here I define rational as: the ability to carefully weigh the > important-known variables and make that decision which is most > likely to achieve the desired end. See, for example, Ornstein: > "Since the mind evolved to select a few signals and then > dream up a semblance, whatever enters our consciousness is > overemphasized. It does not matter how the information enters, > whether via a television program, a newspaper story, a friend's > conversation, a strong emotional reaction, a memory -- all is > overemphasized. We ignore other, more compelling evidence, > overemphasizing and overgeneralizing from the information > close at hand to produce a rough-and-ready realty." > >So if the die is so cast, should we aspire to anything else? Can we indeed be anything else? - Michael Coghlan. >