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Comment by crux_ | Hacker News Reader

Your basic underlying thesis here is that we are all hard-wired lemmings, slaves to our biology, with limited capacity to adjust our behavior on the basis of reasoned morality.

I reject that thesis. We are not animals. Our evolutionary history does not dictate right and wrong.

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We do have some choice (ok, barring the free wil debate, which is for more than I'd like to go into), but we are also largely effected by our cognitive and biological biases. For some easy to dive into examples, check out http://youarenotsosmart.com/. Don't take that name as an insult; it's a fascinating, well written, and yet easily digestible look at the myriad biases we all have. I think we have a lot less choice than we like to believe.

> we are also largely effected by our cognitive and biological biases

I agree completely that these biases exist. However, to use a programming term, our biases are implementation concerns.

Injustice doesn't somehow become otherwise simply because we are predisposed to it; our innate biases don't provide a valid excuse for inaction in the face of moral imperatives.

Certainly, I missed that part of your post and was focusing on the "we are not animals". I agree that we remain responsible for our actions even we are predisposed to them, but I think we are more influenced by our predispositions than people think.

The important takeaway I see is that regardless of wether advertising accurately taps some innate biologic differences between mean ad women in order to sell things effectively, it doesn't make it ok or right to do so. We should avoid it because it has fostered the negative elements of our society that the OP illustrated. We can shape the culture we live in for the better.

"... with limited capacity to adjust our behavior on the basis of reasoned morality."

We also have hard-wired general memory and reasoning faculties.

"We are not animals."

We are not base animals, to be sure. Neither are we angels of pure logic.

I'm not sure you understand me.

To illustrate with an extreme: If we happened to be hard-wired by evolution to be tremendously predisposed towards genocidal behavior, would that make any acts of genocide we commit morally acceptable behavior?

Halfway through my response to this, I realized that someone had already written it, and in a much more entertaining fashion. So I'll just point you to his post instead:

Three Worlds Collide, by Yudkowsky

http://lesswrong.com/lw/y5/the_babyeating_aliens_18/

"The most controversial story I’ve ever written. Starts with the baby-eating aliens and moves on from there."

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