It's happening far to quickly to be a natural evolutionary trend, most of the motivation to actually reason out a solution is born of poverty and a sense of fairness.

Evidence?

On 4/6/2026 at 3:24 PM, swansont said:

Evidence?

Of what, poverty or our inate sense of fairness?

This is political, evidence is tertiary.

What I'm suggesting is a feedback loop.

2 hours ago, dimreepr said:

Of what, poverty or our inate sense of fairness?

This is political, evidence is tertiary.

What I'm suggesting is a feedback loop.

Evidence that it’s happening far to quickly to be a natural evolutionary trend, and evidence that most of the motivation to actually reason out a solution is born of poverty and a sense of fairness.

It would also be helpful to define, reasonably precisely, what “politics” entails.

On 4/7/2026 at 6:23 PM, swansont said:

Evidence that it’s happening far to quickly to be a natural evolutionary trend, and evidence that most of the motivation to actually reason out a solution is born of poverty and a sense of fairness.

It would also be helpful to define, reasonably precisely, what “politics” entails.

I liken my hypothesis to the demise of the African 'tusker', very quickly the females no longer find them attractive.

I think our natural evolution got us ready for a village, conceptually the size of a city is like trying to imagine the size of space.

Unfortunately, I'm not smart enough to design an experiment that would gather any evidence, from the noise of the politicos...

6 hours ago, dimreepr said:

Unfortunately, I'm not smart enough to design an experiment that would gather any evidence, from the noise of the politicos...

We’re not even there yet; you haven’t even established the parameters of a discussion, which is part of what I asked for — a timeline and a definition do not require an experiment. Evidence at this point could even be anecdotal., pointing to specific examples happening.

16 hours ago, swansont said:

We’re not even there yet; you haven’t even established the parameters of a discussion, which is part of what I asked for — a timeline and a definition do not require an experiment. Evidence at this point could even be anecdotal., pointing to specific examples happening.

TBH I was hoping for a little more footfall to help me clarify and order my thought's.

What I'm suggesting is, the pace of human progress/growth is outstripping that of our ability to evolve naturally into the role, much like the mice plague in Australia.

There's loads of anecdotes out there that suggests the problem's found in cities don't really exist in villages.

5 hours ago, dimreepr said:

TBH I was hoping for a little more footfall to help me clarify and order my thought's.

What I'm suggesting is, the pace of human progress/growth is outstripping that of our ability to evolve naturally into the role, much like the mice plague in Australia.

That doesn’t mean that motivated reasoning is limited to or started with politics, nor that its origins don’t have an evolutionary connection, even if it’s some kind of side-effect of a useful advance.

5 hours ago, dimreepr said:

There's loads of anecdotes out there that suggests the problem's found in cities don't really exist in villages.

I can imagine that there are issues that depend on population size or population density but I don’t see how motivated reasoning is one of them.

17 hours ago, swansont said:

That doesn’t mean that motivated reasoning is limited to or started with politics, nor that its origins don’t have an evolutionary connection, even if it’s some kind of side-effect of a useful advance.

I understand that there's a natural evolutionary process that leads to some sort of wishful thinking, I'm thinking that politics has suprcharged and monetised the trait due to our ever expanding populous and the proximity that results.

Much like how religion's use it to bring peace to people and politics corrupts religion's to bring fear.

So this is about politics leveraging motivated reasoning, which it probably always has.

How does expanding population enable it?

On 4/11/2026 at 5:22 PM, swansont said:

So this is about politics leveraging motivated reasoning, which it probably always has.

How does expanding population enable it?

An expanding population had to invent money, and there's nothing more seductive to a wishful thinker.

I think this is where we diverged from a natural evolutionary path.

9 hours ago, dimreepr said:

I think this is where we diverged from a natural evolutionary path.

Perhaps you can enlighten me as to how this is possible.Surely, whatever path gets taken is the "natural evolutionary" one?

15 hours ago, npts2020 said:

Perhaps you can enlighten me as to how this is possible.Surely, whatever path gets taken is the "natural evolutionary" one?

So, what your saying is that every human invention, will result in a natural 'human' evolutionary path, my arguement would be crispr cas9.

I'm saying human inventions pervert our evolutionary path, creating cities and more proximity than we're naturally comfortable with.

33 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

I'm saying human inventions pervert our evolutionary path, creating cities and more proximity than we're naturally comfortable with.

How is politics a technological “invention”?

43 minutes ago, swansont said:

How is politics a technological “invention”?

I'm open to a more appropriate forum.

2 hours ago, dimreepr said:

I'm open to a more appropriate forum.

How about you answer my question.

7 hours ago, dimreepr said:

So, what your saying is that every human invention, will result in a natural 'human' evolutionary path, my arguement would be crispr cas9.

I'm saying human inventions pervert our evolutionary path, creating cities and more proximity than we're naturally comfortable with.

I would say that human invention is part of the evolutionary process and that those inventions become part of it as well. If the evolutionary path becomes much "perverted" the species goes extinct.

7 hours ago, dimreepr said:

So, what your saying is that every human invention, will result in a natural 'human' evolutionary path, my arguement would be crispr cas9.

I'm saying human inventions pervert our evolutionary path, creating cities and more proximity than we're naturally comfortable with.

That argument suggests that evolution follows some kind of determined path, but it doesn't. It is a random walk where stuff along the way nudges steps sometimes in one, or the other direction. Callings some natural and an perversion of it, is a value judgement, which is not baked into the system.

21 minutes ago, npts2020 said:

I would say that human invention is part of the evolutionary process and that those inventions become part of it as well. If the evolutionary path becomes much "perverted" the species goes extinct.

I disagree that extinctions are perversions of sorts. They are just part of the process. Some genes persist, other vanish. Sometimes because of selective pressures, sometimes just by chance. There is not perversion in the common sense here.

21 minutes ago, CharonY said:

That argument suggests that evolution follows some kind of determined path, but it doesn't. It is a random walk where stuff along the way nudges steps sometimes in one, or the other direction. Callings some natural and an perversion of it, is a value judgement, which is not baked into the system.

I disagree that extinctions are perversions of sorts. They are just part of the process. Some genes persist, other vanish. Sometimes because of selective pressures, sometimes just by chance. There is not perversion in the common sense here.

It was my bad expression of thought using the word extinct when what I actually meant was; that in cases where evolution deviates significantly, the organism generally dies. If not, they become part of evolution and that is why I put "perverted" in quotes.

Yeah, it is a bit tricky. Everything resulting in change, regardless of direction is the "normal" process. There is really no definition for a deviation. The only would be the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, which a condition where evolution stops.

18 hours ago, swansont said:

How about you answer my question.

TBH I'm not sure how to answer.

14 hours ago, CharonY said:

That argument suggests that evolution follows some kind of determined path, but it doesn't. It is a random walk where stuff along the way nudges steps sometimes in one, or the other direction. Callings some natural and an perversion of it, is a value judgement, which is not baked into the system.

Not in the context of this topic/title, I understand the process of evolution, what I'm suggesting is the process is interrupted bc our civilisation has determined that certain things/people can live or they have to die.

14 hours ago, npts2020 said:

I would say that human invention is part of the evolutionary process and that those inventions become part of it as well. If the evolutionary path becomes much "perverted" the species goes extinct.

Of course evolution will catch up, I refer you to my previous analogue of the Australian mice plague's.

4 hours ago, dimreepr said:

Not in the context of this topic/title, I understand the process of evolution, what I'm suggesting is the process is interrupted bc our civilisation has determined that certain things/people can live or they have to die.

Except that makes no sense. Anything that an organism has built or is capable of building is part of the whole tapestry of evolution. Ants do not cheat evolution or death by being social and building homes, they are because of it. And so are we. Many aspects of selection are determined in a non-intuitive way. Sexual selection, for example determines who passes on their genes, but sometimes at the cost of being less able to survive due to expansive plumage, fore example. Or coupling reproduction with death.

The distinction between natural and unnatural is purely a human construct and as long as our gene pool varies over time, there is still evolution. It doesn't matter if the factor is medicine or an asteroid.

2 hours ago, CharonY said:

The distinction between natural and unnatural is purely a human construct and as long as our gene pool varies over time, there is still evolution. It doesn't matter if the factor is medicine or an asteroid.

Is it an illusion for us to think that with our minds we can somehow "stand outside" the physical processes?

Would this be a common illusion ,to think we are somehow independent of our environment rather than an admittedly highly elastic and dynamic but intrinsically incorporated part of it?

(Is that related to Descarte's huge lever?)

On 4/15/2026 at 11:50 AM, geordief said:

Is it an illusion for us to think that with our minds we can somehow "stand outside" the physical processes?

For the most part, yest. But it is also a matter of how we (as humans) like to name, define and categorize things. The term evolution is often filled with meaning, but mechanistically speaking it really just refers to the fact that gene pools rarely stay constant. So from that definition, the how does not really come into play.

In terms of mechanics, we like to categorize how the pool shifts and have created categories like natural and artificial selection (as well as stochastic processes), though often these are more judgement calls. Mathematically, one would rather use terms like directional, stabilizing and disruptive selection as they can be used to model gene pool shifts. But yes, from a biological standpoint any biological entity falls under the same bracket and it doesn't really matter for the process whether we get extinguished by an asteroid or AI killer drones.