Are Social Darwinists psychopaths?

[HMS Queen Elizabeth]

All social Darwinism says is that those most successful at reproduction come to dominate. It doesn't say anything about who those people ought to be. Today, those most successful at reproduction are Nigerian Muslims. If you are OK with that, fine. The median anti-social Darwinist, though, is not fine with it, but simply ignores it, just like the regular anti-Darwinist, who pretends that evolution is not real because he does not like the sound of it.

Nigerian? You mean Nigerien.

I don't think French is even a minor language in Nigeria, if that is meant to be the implication.

[Olerand]

Nigerian? You mean Nigerien.

I don't think French is even a minor language in Nigeria, if that is meant to be the implication.

No, I meant that Niger is the most fertile country on Earth, not Nigeria.

[HMS Queen Elizabeth]

I don't think French is even a minor language in Nigeria, if that is meant to be the implication.

No, I meant that Niger is the most fertile country on Earth, not Nigeria.

Might be true. On the other hand Nigeria has a much larger population already, whereas TFR difference is probably not very great. The Nigerians are certainly having a lot more children in absolute numbers.

Once upon a time when we had monstrously evil institutions, Europeans had the most children.

[The Widening Gyre]

No. But they are people who either willfully twist actual biology or are just thoroughly ignorant of it for their own ideological ends.

[Soldati Senza Confini]

Labor, either manual labor or technical labor, is how the people who have less, or nothing, go about trading. You trade your labor for someone else's property. Said labor is presumed to be paid fairly under a libertarian society. For libertarians, the government shouldn't exist to pick winners or losers, or "equalize" the market field, as it makes people congregate in factions and seek power to demand the property of others, according to them.

And if you labour and remain in poverty, barely, or not, scraping by. Then what?

That is one of the questions Libertarians cannot answer fully, or give at best a mediocre, insensitive answer; mostly because they don't believe that if you work hard and trade fairly with others that you will be poor to the degree of barely scraping by. They fully are convinced that if you work hard and fairly trade under the free market, there's no reason why you should be that poor.

Hence why I keep alluding to their naivety and idealism, and why I am not entirely a fan of them.

[HMS Queen Elizabeth]

No. But they are people who either willfully twist actual biology or are just thoroughly ignorant of it for their own ideological ends.

What precisely about biology are social Darwinists ignorant of? The fact that pretty much all personality traits and physical and mental competences are 0.5 to 0.8 heritable, where 1.0 is 100% heritable?

[Olerand]

No, I meant that Niger is the most fertile country on Earth, not Nigeria.

Might be true. On the other hand Nigeria has a much larger population already, whereas TFR difference is probably not very great. The Nigerians are certainly having a lot more children in absolute numbers.

Once upon a time when we had monstrously evil institutions, Europeans had the most children.

Nigeria, a country that is struggling but has some potential, is projected to grow from 191,836,000 today to 398,508,000 by the middle of this century (as usual, round up for these numbers). That's a little more than double.
Niger, a country that is struggling and has no potential, is projected to grow from 21,564,000 people this year to 72,238,000 in 2050. That's three and half times as much.

It's a crisis in waiting.

Anyway, we don't need more kids. We need them to have less.

[HMS Queen Elizabeth]

Might be true. On the other hand Nigeria has a much larger population already, whereas TFR difference is probably not very great. The Nigerians are certainly having a lot more children in absolute numbers.

Once upon a time when we had monstrously evil institutions, Europeans had the most children.

Nigeria, a country that is struggling but has some potential, is projected to grow from 191,836,000 today to 398,508,000 by the middle of this century (as usual, round up for these numbers). That's a little more than double.
Niger, a country that is struggling and has no potential, is projected to grow from 21,564,000 people this year to 72,238,000 in 2050. That's three and half times as much.

It's a crisis in waiting.

Anyway, we don't need more kids. We need them to have less.

We might need that, but they're probably going to be just fine and when we have a military age male population of 50 million or so across the whole continent they'll probably just shove us out and grab our stuff too.

[Olerand]

And if you labour and remain in poverty, barely, or not, scraping by. Then what?

That is one of the questions Libertarians cannot answer fully, or give at best a mediocre, insensitive answer; mostly because they don't believe that if you work hard and trade fairly with others that you will be poor to the degree of barely scraping by. They fully are convinced that if you work hard and fairly trade under the free market, there's no reason why you should be that poor.

Hence why I keep alluding to their naivety and idealism, and why I am not entirely a fan of them.

And there you go. If you cannot meet your own needs, and this will be the case, never has humanity ever fulfilled every human alive's basic needs, tough shit.

Ergo, social darwinists.

Nigeria, a country that is struggling but has some potential, is projected to grow from 191,836,000 today to 398,508,000 by the middle of this century (as usual, round up for these numbers). That's a little more than double.
Niger, a country that is struggling and has no potential, is projected to grow from 21,564,000 people this year to 72,238,000 in 2050. That's three and half times as much.

It's a crisis in waiting.

Anyway, we don't need more kids. We need them to have less.

We might need that, but they're probably going to be just fine and when we have a military age male population of 50 million or so across the whole continent they'll probably just shove us out and grab our stuff too.

I'm not too worried about the Nigerian military taking over Europe. They have the numbers, but we have the money and knowledge.

And Niger is a French... uhm... friend.

[HMS Queen Elizabeth]

We might need that, but they're probably going to be just fine and when we have a military age male population of 50 million or so across the whole continent they'll probably just shove us out and grab our stuff too.

I'm not too worried about the Nigerian military taking over Europe. They have the numbers, but we have the money and knowledge.

And Niger is a French... uhm... friend.

They don't need a military when there's no resistance to arbitrary influx of people, of which they have limitless and ever-growing quantities. And while you're perfectly right that Nigerians are congenitally dumb and disorganised - nice admission by the way - at 10:1 numbers do start to matter. States and state structures don't mean anything when they're hollowed out from within and all the people who make them up are replaced.

[Soldati Senza Confini]

That is one of the questions Libertarians cannot answer fully, or give at best a mediocre, insensitive answer; mostly because they don't believe that if you work hard and trade fairly with others that you will be poor to the degree of barely scraping by. They fully are convinced that if you work hard and fairly trade under the free market, there's no reason why you should be that poor.

Hence why I keep alluding to their naivety and idealism, and why I am not entirely a fan of them.

And there you go. If you cannot meet your own needs, and this will be the case, never has humanity ever fulfilled every human alive's basic needs, tough shit.

Ergo, social darwinists.

Your conclusion is like trying to fit a cube into a circular hole.

To them it's not "tough shit", as I said, they don't believe that you can be that poor if you trade fairly.

Many people who are less libertarian, however, believe in some form of private charity to solve the problem. But this leaves a lot of gaps open such as the problem with charity in practice.

Again, they're naïve, not psychopaths.

[Genivaria]

And if you labour and remain in poverty, barely, or not, scraping by. Then what?

That is one of the questions Libertarians cannot answer fully, or give at best a mediocre, insensitive answer; mostly because they don't believe that if you work hard and trade fairly with others that you will be poor to the degree of barely scraping by. They fully are convinced that if you work hard and fairly trade under the free market, there's no reason why you should be that poor.

Hence why I keep alluding to their naivety and idealism, and why I am not entirely a fan of them.

This reminds me of a video I watched about Meritocracy and something about Meritocracy that we often ignore.
While just about everyone says that striving towards Meritocracy is a good thing it comes to a point that if a system is truly Meritocratic then yes if fact you DO deserve the position you're in.
The question is when exactly are we justified in saying that?

[Greed and Death]

NOTE: I AM NOT TRYING TO INSULT ANYONE, I'M USING THE WORD "PSYCHOPATH" STRICTLY IN MEDICAL TERMS.

Social Darwinism is an ideology, according to which, in general terms, society should be based around competition and nobody should receive entitlements. Those who lose in that model should not be pitied, as they deserved their fate.

However, that lack of contempt for the worse-off is disturbing, as it eerily aligns with some of the main signs of psychopathy, namely, a lack of empathy and remorse.

This leads me to thinking that if even if Social Darwinists aren't psychopaths, they at least show they're close to it.

And what do you think? Is Social Darwinism tied to that medical condition?

No no they are not sociopaths they are neutral in regards to the sociopathy. A social Darwin may feel sympathy, empathy, pity, or any other emotion and then logically decide acting on those emotions is detrimental to human society.

For instance you may become angry when someone ghosts you then decide acting on that emotion by setting fire to her car would be detrimental to humanity over all due to green house gas emissions and increased insurance premiums for other drivers (yourself included if not imprisoned for the offense).

[The Widening Gyre]

What precisely about biology are social Darwinists ignorant of?

Group selection, population dynamics, genetics, niche partitioning... pretty much the entirety of the last 100 years of research really. Social 'Darwinism' never really progressed beyond Galton as an ideology.

The fact that pretty much all personality traits and physical and mental competences are 0.5 to 0.8 heritable, where 1.0 is 100% heritable?

That is an extremely precise figure considering that you pulled it straight out of your rectal cavity.

[Olerand]

I'm not too worried about the Nigerian military taking over Europe. They have the numbers, but we have the money and knowledge.

And Niger is a French... uhm... friend.

They don't need a military when there's no resistance to arbitrary influx of people, of which they have limitless and ever-growing quantities. And while you're perfectly right that Nigerians are congenitally dumb and disorganised - nice admission by the way - at 10:1 numbers do start to matter. States and state structures don't mean anything when they're hollowed out from within and all the people who make them up are replaced.

I meant knowledge as in military knowledge, not that the Nigerians are " congenitally dumb and disorganised".

And as for the rest, then we need to close the faucet from Africa. By stricter border control and better investments there. The second goal we're probably heading towards, the first...

And there you go. If you cannot meet your own needs, and this will be the case, never has humanity ever fulfilled every human alive's basic needs, tough shit.

Ergo, social darwinists.

Your conclusion is like trying to fit a cube into a circular hole.

To them it's not "tough shit", as I said, they don't believe that you can be that poor if you trade fairly.

Many people who are less libertarian, however, believe in some form of private charity to solve the problem. But this leaves a lot of gaps open such as the problem with charity in practice.

Again, they're naïve, not psychopaths.

Which is nonsensical, unrealistic, and pathetically out of touch. If someone genuinely believes this, then they are ignorant beyond human redemption. Never has human need or want been fully met, and it never will be. To argue that you are responsible for securing your needs and wants because "you can't possibly be poor in our system" (even though you will be, because no system ever devised by humanity can ever solve the basic element of the scarcity and finite status of wealth and resources in our world and unequal acquisition), is to argue for mass impoverishment and bad conditions for the poor.

And charity, especially "voluntary" (you first, me later) type charity never solved this problem. Not when it was practiced on a massive scale during the Industrial Revolution, not today with the tech giants, and not tomorrow with whomever.

I don't see the difference.

[Soldati Senza Confini]

No. But they are people who either willfully twist actual biology or are just thoroughly ignorant of it for their own ideological ends.

What precisely about biology are social Darwinists ignorant of? The fact that pretty much all personality traits and physical and mental competences are 0.5 to 0.8 heritable, where 1.0 is 100% heritable?

The bigger problem I find with Social Darwinism is their "survival of the fittest" dictum.

There's no reason to believe that the "fittest" will survive to be old, or even that the fittest can survive.

Also, the bigger problem with said dictum/mantra is that it fails to define what is "fit" for the purposes of their proclaimed theory of social behavior.

[HMS Queen Elizabeth]

What precisely about biology are social Darwinists ignorant of?

Group selection, population dynamics, genetics, niche partitioning... pretty much the entirety of the last 100 years of research really. Social 'Darwinism' never really progressed beyond Galton as an ideology.

It's not an ideology at all, it is simply the obvious and apparently uncontroversial observation that natural selection also applies to humans. None of those things you list invalidate it.

The fact that pretty much all personality traits and physical and mental competences are 0.5 to 0.8 heritable, where 1.0 is 100% heritable?

That is an extremely precise figure considering that you pulled it straight out of your rectal cavity.

How is 0.5-0.8 precise? Pulled from papers.

[Soldati Senza Confini]

Group selection, population dynamics, genetics, niche partitioning... pretty much the entirety of the last 100 years of research really. Social 'Darwinism' never really progressed beyond Galton as an ideology.

It's not an ideology at all, it is simply the obvious and apparently uncontroversial observation that natural selection also applies to humans. None of those things you list invalidate it.

I think you're mistaking social Darwinism with biological Darwinism.

biological Darwinism does propose that natural selection happens to humans, but that we are too new a species as homo sapiens sapiens to see any significant differences between, say, who we were 3000 years ago and who we are now.

Social Darwinism believes that the rules of natural selection apply to society, and that is a whole different ballpark.

[Genivaria]

What precisely about biology are social Darwinists ignorant of? The fact that pretty much all personality traits and physical and mental competences are 0.5 to 0.8 heritable, where 1.0 is 100% heritable?

The bigger problem I find with Social Darwinism is their "survival of the fittest" dictum.

There's no reason to believe that the "fittest" will survive to be old, or even that the fittest can survive.

Also, the bigger problem with said dictum/mantra is that it fails to define what is "fit" for the purposes of their proclaimed theory of social behavior.

According to Darwin 'fit' means that which is most able to adapt.
I reckon most so called 'Social Darwinists' would fail in this regard.

[Soldati Senza Confini]

Which is nonsensical, unrealistic, and pathetically out of touch. If someone genuinely believes this, then they are ignorant beyond human redemption. Never has human need or want been fully met, and it never will be. To argue that you are responsible for securing your needs and wants because "you can't possibly be poor in our system" (even though you will be, because no system ever devised by humanity can ever solve the basic element of the scarcity and finite status of wealth and resources in our world and unequal acquisition), is to argue for mass impoverishment and bad conditions for the poor.

And charity, especially "voluntary" (you first, me later) type charity never solved this problem. Not when it was practiced on a massive scale during the Industrial Revolution, not today with the tech giants, and not tomorrow with whomever.

I don't see the difference.

Hence why I call them naïve. Because they are naïve and out of touch.

I don't necessarily think they are psychopaths though, same as I don't think Spencer and Galton (two prominent social Darwinist writers) were psychopaths.

[Greed and Death]

The bigger problem I find with Social Darwinism is their "survival of the fittest" dictum.

There's no reason to believe that the "fittest" will survive to be old, or even that the fittest can survive.

Also, the bigger problem with said dictum/mantra is that it fails to define what is "fit" for the purposes of their proclaimed theory of social behavior.

According to Darwin 'fit' means that which is most able to adapt.
I reckon most so called 'Social Darwinists' would fail in this regard.

Most likely to produce something of value to the rest of society as measured by $.

[Nocturnalis]

According to Darwin 'fit' means that which is most able to adapt.
I reckon most so called 'Social Darwinists' would fail in this regard.

And how would you figure that, I wonder.

[HMS Queen Elizabeth]

It's not an ideology at all, it is simply the obvious and apparently uncontroversial observation that natural selection also applies to humans. None of those things you list invalidate it.

I think you're mistaking social Darwinism with biological Darwinism.

biological Darwinism does propose that natural selection happens to humans, but that we are too new a species as homo sapiens sapiens to see any significant differences between, say, who we were 3000 years ago and who we are now.

Social Darwinism believes that the rules of natural selection apply to society, and that is a whole different ballpark.

Social Darwinism is literally how Darwinism operates in society - and it always operates. If you have a welfare state then the Darwinian selection operates in favour of welfare bums who hate condoms. You don't somehow escape Darwinism as people like Olerand and the OP are implying. The fact that it's obviously horribly bad for welfare bums who hate condoms to be the evolutionary direction of mankind is why they react with horror and fright to social Darwinism, because they are deeply emotionally invested in continuing the welfare state.

[Genivaria]

According to Darwin 'fit' means that which is most able to adapt.
I reckon most so called 'Social Darwinists' would fail in this regard.

And how would you figure that, I wonder.

The prevalence of Social Darwinist rhetoric amongst the Nazis for example.

[Genivaria]

I think you're mistaking social Darwinism with biological Darwinism.

biological Darwinism does propose that natural selection happens to humans, but that we are too new a species as homo sapiens sapiens to see any significant differences between, say, who we were 3000 years ago and who we are now.

Social Darwinism believes that the rules of natural selection apply to society, and that is a whole different ballpark.

Social Darwinism is literally how Darwinism operates in society - and it always operates. If you have a welfare state then the Darwinian selection operates in favour of welfare bums who hate condoms. You don't somehow escape Darwinism as people like Olerand and the OP are implying. The fact that it's obviously horribly bad for welfare bums who hate condoms to be the evolutionary direction of mankind is why they react with horror and fright to social Darwinism, because they are deeply emotionally invested in continuing the welfare state.

See you make these ridiculous assertions as if they prove your argument and fail to prove said assertions.