You can have a new idea, but you may not see all the ramifications of it. Other people will take your idea and reprocess it, reformulate it, improve it.
You can find forgotten ideas in old books, or several recent ideas and combine them, synthesise them.
You discuss ideas with other people and process and reprocess them.
You cannot read all books, but you can discuss them with other people, and often learn enough to avoid reading the book.
Old books become out-of-date; you rewrite them so people today can understand them; you improve them.
A mass of people and libraries constitute a computing, information processing machine which is superior to a single person trying to work it all out on its own.
Sunday, 2 February 2020
Indiscriminate violence against groups
Greece migrant crisis: Islanders strike over crowded camps. BBC, 22 January 2020.
"Strikes and protests have been held on the Greek islands of Lesbos, Samos and Chios over the government's handling of migrants arriving from Turkey.Why haven't locals taken matters into their own hands? Locals should form a secret society to shoot migrants landing on their shores as soon as they step off the boats, if not before.
Banners on the Lesbos municipal theatre proclaimed: "We want our islands back".
Another read: "No more prisons for human souls in the North Aegean."
North Aegean Regional Governor Kostas Moutzouris said on Wednesday he was "annoyed" that Greek islands had been "turned into places of concentration and detention" for thousands of people around the world.
In Samos town, the refugee camp is in the olive groves on a hill just a few minutes' walk from the town centre.
It is common to see migrants hanging around on benches at the seafront.
Migrants live in tents at the camp on the Greek island of Samos."
Similarly, a reconquista of the streets requires a secret society to attack members of high-risk groups who enter civilised areas, even before they commit crimes. This is criticised as unjust, punishing the collective for the actions of individuals, but it is effective and has been used successfully historically. In the above case, it is not even a response to actions, but a means of holding territory.
Similarly, reprisals against a group are an effective means of deterring individual crimes.
Favela world
Devin Helton and BAP agree: the central problem of politics is the unceasing growth of third world slums.
Humans don't optimise for increasing living standards, they optimise for procreation. Humans who aren't willing to sacrifice living standards and civilisation for more children will be replaced by those who do.
This leads to the unceasing growth of favelas. Favelas are parasitic on civilisation: they appear on the edges of cities. They do not grow their own food or produce much (apart from a rich source of votes for a certain sort of political entrepreneur).
Favelas are populated by people who are willing to live at the highest possible density. They sacrifice everything for procreation, including producing beautiful buildings (their buildings are as cheap as possible: everything is sacrificed to make more of them). They occupy land that could otherwise be occupied by civilised people. They are a major source of crime, being proximate to civilisation.
What is the solution? The land must be confiscated and the people destroyed. Favelas will naturally appear and grow unless they are actively stamped out. We need a reconquista of the streets, violence against favela dwellers who enter the civilised areas and even those who don't.
Humans don't optimise for increasing living standards, they optimise for procreation. Humans who aren't willing to sacrifice living standards and civilisation for more children will be replaced by those who do.
This leads to the unceasing growth of favelas. Favelas are parasitic on civilisation: they appear on the edges of cities. They do not grow their own food or produce much (apart from a rich source of votes for a certain sort of political entrepreneur).
Favelas are populated by people who are willing to live at the highest possible density. They sacrifice everything for procreation, including producing beautiful buildings (their buildings are as cheap as possible: everything is sacrificed to make more of them). They occupy land that could otherwise be occupied by civilised people. They are a major source of crime, being proximate to civilisation.
What is the solution? The land must be confiscated and the people destroyed. Favelas will naturally appear and grow unless they are actively stamped out. We need a reconquista of the streets, violence against favela dwellers who enter the civilised areas and even those who don't.
Ways in which false beliefs can be good for you
- Religion makes you have more children.
- Positive ethnocentrism: if you believe that your group is "special", you are more likely to defend it.
- Negative ethnocentrism: if you "other" other people and groups, you can promote your group cohesion and more successfully defend your territory.
- Meaning, purpose and transcendance: If you believe life has meaning you are more likely to procreate.
- Suicide: if you believe suicide is morally wrong you are less likely to do it.
- Group moral beliefs: belief in morality is one way in which groups can regulate behaviour.
(Previously: Ways in which true beliefs can be bad for you)