[hyeonwho22]

I would argue that rather than stability a lot of the puritan instinct comes from a desire to see one's children thrive.

The relevant analytical unit at the small scale is the family: I don't want my kids to be temperant because of stability, I want them to abstain from drugs/games/$VICE because that's the path which maximizes the chance of their living a fulfilling life, or (more cynically) which maximizes their chance of bearing me successful grandkids and great grandkids. This is why puritainism is selected for evolutionarily (at least in environments where resources are limited).

To return to the large scale policy questions, I also don't want to see the continent of my children fall to a mercantilist China (using China as an example because Chinese law cracks down hard on drug sales and limits students to one hour of video games per night). Accordingly, I support policies to limit access to addictive substances and stimuli, despite the inevitable conflict between those laws and individual rights. The inequitable enforcement of those laws is another problem entirely, and one which I think would be well solved by starting with the prosecution of celebrities and thought leaders who openly partake in $ADDICTIVE_STIMULUS, and their suppliers.

[bumby]

This is a pretty reasonable hypothesis, but to add a counterpoint: the nuclear family is relatively recent phenomenon from an evolutionary perspective.

[eastof]

Not sure how that is a counterpoint, GP doesn't even specify they are talking about a nuclear family. Presumably other family structures have a similar dynamic where they want the youth to succeed.

[bumby]

Fair enough. From an evolutionary perspective, there is a much smaller distinction between “family” and “society as a whole”. Prior to the nation-state, most of “society” were people known on a personal level.

So I’m not sure that there is a strong distinction between “ensuring my family has a good outcome” and “ensuring a stable society” because a stable society is meant to be a means and not an end. Regardless, this feels a bit like an untestable hypothesis.

[hyeonwho22]

On the contrary it is very testable: look at number of grandchildren in families with different moral beliefs and cultural norms. Can look at whether the grandchildren thrive, too.

[bumby]

Your statement shows why social science is hard. Superficially, sure it seems testable but in reality it is much more difficult.

Good science controls for variables. Counting the number of offspring turns a blind eye to a number of variables that can influence the outcome beyond just moral beliefs or cultural norms. Can you say your results aren't influenced by factors like genetics, environment, war, etc. that are outside those moral beliefs? Even if you could control for them, a lot of that data isn't available from an evolutionary perspective. And even if it was, moral beliefs are not static; you could have one set of morals that leads to higher numbers of offspring in one stage of your life and change morals later. It makes for a messy, and probably untestable, hypothesis.

That's my main gripe that led me to the OP. People tend to take an enormously messy social situation and think they can distill it to a simple model. Real life tends to not work that way.