| Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I think your subtle distinction between the market and ecosystem is key here because they don't fully map 1 to 1. And you're correct that the market is downstream from the ecosystem itself. But with that said, I'm not sure that I agree with the spirit of your argument. > the gays would be outcompeted genetically by non-gays, and the identity wouldn't persist, right? I'm not sure that's historically accurate. The connection between pederasty and upper caste aristocracy goes back to Greek civilization, if not earlier, and is its own kind of a cultural reproduction mechanism that seemed to have elements of both mentorship and romance. Without a doubt, it's something that I still see today in elite circles. > The fact that the role of "finance guy" exists at all is a product of the broader cultural ecosystem I think I'd beg to disagree -- not with the product of the ecosystem part, but with the idea that it's cultural rather than socioeconomic and caste based. And maybe this comes back to my point earlier, which is a friction point that maybe both the IQ shredder concept and this article fail to account for, which is a certain degree of lifestyle dynamism. That is to say, is that finance guy stuck as a finance guy forever? Or does he eventually accumulate enough wealth before moving on to a separate phase of his life, one where he can have a family of whatever size he wants with the best partner he can find that will take him? Because if that's the case, then maybe both the IQ shredder and Idiocracy argument perhaps only serve a useful function when referring to the lower and middle class, and fail to account for the upper class. And this, too seems to make intuitive sense to me: even as we see the middle class hollowed out, the upper class in America (and maybe across the world) continue to see increased prosperity at levels never before seen in history. > If your sociological frame makes the world look like a dys/utopia, consider that it might be a flawed frame, at least if your goal is to see clearly. I think the warning against dualistic frames is fair to keep in mind. But if you have a non-dualistic frame, that "the future is here, it's just not evenly distributed" then I think that it's equally fair to warn that a frame which conflates an observed scenario to as a dystopic frame rather than evidence of an apoptotic mechanism could itself be the flawed frame. |
I mean, my point was that it's a relatively absurd argument based on a misunderstanding of evolution, as the sibling comment states.
> it's cultural rather than socioeconomic and caste based
Are castes and socioeconomics distinct from culture? (I'm working with Lévi-Strauss's definition of culture as the set of symbolic forms present across society)
> both the IQ shredder and Idiocracy argument perhaps only serve a useful function when referring to the lower and middle class, and fail to account for the upper class
If we consider it in this frame, it seems roughly equivalent to the "brain drain" idea that made the rounds a decade or so ago. Only difference being the ethical valence of the arguments.
> evidence of an apoptotic mechanism
Is this a valid metaphor? I'm unsure myself. I don't find myself agreeing with Spengler and co, but I also don't think I could muster a strong argument against it on demand.