Ask HN: Why are people proud of their genes even though they didn’t pick them?
Any insights on this?
Because humans generally need some sense of belonging. It's in our biological firmware because groups tend to survive longer than individuals.
which is kind of at odds with or opposite to the emphasis placed on western individualism.
But people also seem to need a sense of being better than others. And they'll pick whatever axis makes them better than others, and be proud of that axis. Good genes, or athleticism, or famous ancestors, knowing someone famous, or high income, or good looks, or whatever. People will even be proud of being down-to-earth!
All of this is to say that you are correct.
Cameron: Why did you hire me?
House: Does it matter?
Cameron: Kinda hard to work for a guy who doesn’t respect you.
House: Why?
Cameron: Is that rhetorical?
House: No, it just seems that way because you can’t think of an answer. Does it make a difference why I think I’m a jerk? The only thing that matters is what you think. Can you do the job?
Cameron: You hired a black guy because he had a juvenile record.
House: No, it wasn’t a racial thing, I didn’t see a black guy. I just saw a doctor…with a juvenile record. I hired Chase ‘cause his dad made a phone call. I hired you because you are extremely pretty.
Cameron: You hired me to get into my pants?!
House: I can’t believe that that would shock you. It’s also not what I said. No, I hired you because you look good; it’s like having a nice piece of art in the lobby.
Cameron: I was in the top of my class.
House: But not THE top.
Cameron: I did an internship at the Mayo Clinic.
House: Yes, you were a very good applicant.
Cameron: But not the best?
House: Would that upset you, really, to think that you were hired because of some genetic gift of beauty not some genetic gift of intelligence?
Cameron: I worked very hard to get where I am.
House: But you didn’t have to. People choose the paths that gain them the greatest rewards for the least amount of effort. That’s a law of nature, and you defied it. That’s why I hired you. You could have married rich, could have been a model, you could have just shown up and people would have given you stuff. Lots of stuff, but you didn’t, you worked your stunning little ass off.
Cameron: Am I supposed to be flattered?
Furthermore, no accomplishments can be entirely separated from genes. Your achievements wouldn't have been possible if you had the genes of a bacterium rather than human genes.
Accomplishments also tend to depended on a mixture of luck and a good starting environment (like not being born into poverty).
Pride is the opposite of humility; and of the two it is humility that is more reasoned.
If you've lived your entire life with people complimenting you on your looks, height, eyes, complexion and rewarding you for them, it's hard not to feel like you've accomplished something.
If you're smart or tall, for example, that's deeply tied to how people perceive you and your identity.
In some cases, like intelligence, it's easier to justify the pride by saying you worked hard to get it -- even if it's more a function of genes, upbringing, etc.
In other cases, people are happy to have a good quality, and perhaps the unearned "pride" is a flaw that we are all susceptible to.
The other half is passing them on. Having "good" genes makes it more likely to be considered an attractive mate to a larger percentage of potential mates. And just being seen as an attractive mate can positively effect one's status as well as the implicit biases of others.
People seem to derive utility from membership in a social group, or conforming to this group prescriptions ("thou shalt not like Australian coffee???") so I believe this is just an extension at the gene level.
Baldness is not a health issue.
> I'm equally puzzled by how people can feel proud of something they did not achieve personally
It would probably be illustrative for you to make a list of your accomplishments that you are proud of and then ask yourself how much is actually due to your efforts.
Like many here, I’m a successful software engineer. I’m proud of this but realistically this is primarily down to luck. Lucky to be reasonably intelligent. Lucky to be born into a family with enough money that I could pursue education. Lucky to have been raised to have a decent work ethic. Lucky to be born into this time period. Lucky to be born reasonably healthy. Lucky to be human. Compared to all the luck, my actual hard work is almost inconsequential.
I don't buy this trend of looking at everything through the myopic lens of privilege.
Lots of people have had the same luck as you and I, yet have achieved nothing
> Compared to all the luck, my actual hard work is almost inconsequential.
There are necessary and sufficient conditions. As the saying does, "Luck favors the prepared mind."
Some of the "lucks" you have listed are necessary conditions ("Lucky to be born reasonably healthy. Lucky to be human." If you're born a dolphin or with a disease that kills you before you turn 15, you won't get to be a "successful software engineer)
Some are neither necessary not sufficient (money to pursue education + work ethic: I know very lazy yet very successful coders that don't have a single diploma in their name)
> Compared to all the luck, my actual hard work is almost inconsequential.
And yet, it's the one you have control with (you can decide to work more or less or not at all).
By extension, I can't understand taking pride in something totally outside of your control ("I'm proud to be human!") or non sensical ("I'm proud to be lucky!")
You can't control some factors, but you can control others. I think we should focus on the later, as they're more actionable.
Maybe that's because the opposite would imply some didn't get what they deserved?
Most people want to impose human values like fairness on something like life, that isn't even human but mostly random.
So think whatever you want.
Maybe you should reflect a bit here. I engaged with you in good faith and you end the conversation by essentially attacking my ego because your point fell apart.
Phrase “im proud of <something>” means nothing. It how people act that matters. And there is no direct link between being proud and acting in a certain manner… so who cares :)
... yes it does. I'm proud of losing 5lbs and accomplishing a goal I set for myself. The feelings I have when I utter that statements are real, whether I act differently (beyond uttering it) to anyone about it or not.
I’m pretty sure that’s entirely untrue. Pride and shame are opposite sides of the same very powerful motivating force.
Right. But there are no rules about what exactly it motivates you to.
Same pride can motivate someone to kill, others — to do charity.
Analyzing anger the way you have pride would yield the same idea, that anger is nearly meaningless, or at least lacking in any predictive value. Without discussing where the emotion is directed, yeah, it can’t tell us much about what the action the emotion encourages.
Once you start discussion the object of someone’s pride, the actions become more obvious. Proud of your kid? You’re a lot more likely to reward them. Proud of your job? You’re more likely to talk about it. Proud of your country? You’re probably more likely to demand policies that you see as elevating your country above others.
I would expect that those who feel pride in their genes are more likely to demonstrate confident behaviors than those who are not. For less positive behaviors, I would expect that some people proud of their genes might treat others without similar genetic gifts poorly. In extreme cases, pride in one’s genes would almost certainly result in overt racism.
Why are people confident about their genes not more prone to feel responsible and compassionate to others’ less lucky ones’ needs, just like many rich people donate great sums of money to charity (in extreme cases) or famous musicians giving charity shows?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6209642/#!po=0....
Authentic pride is experienced when the attribution of success is internal, unstable, and controllable (Lewis, 2007; Tracy et al., 2009). Authentic pride is associated with extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, satisfying social relationships, high self-esteem, prosocial behaviors, achievement-orientation and mental health (Tracy and Robins, 2007a,b; Tracy et al., 2009; Cheng et al., 2010).
Hubristic pride is experienced if the attribution of success is external, stable, and uncontrollable (Lewis, 2007; Tracy et al., 2009). In contrast to authentic pride, it is related to more antisocial and aggressive behaviors. It is associated with disagreeableness, neuroticism, lack of conscientiousness, narcissism, problematic relationships, and poor mental health outcomes (Tracy and Robins, 2007a,b; Tracy et al., 2009; Cheng et al., 2010).
In this Taxonomy, genetic pride would be hubristic so this paper would imply that it has some likely negative effects.
I am in no way an expert in this and would be happy to see evidence against my expectations. But it was not hard to find scholarly papers supporting the gist of what I said.
Do you realize that in such subtle matters as personal attitudes and feelings there is no way even to properly define the variables, let alone to set up a reproducible experiment?
So we come to my starting point - the word “pride” can have 1000 different flavors for different people, leading to different outcomes. And we can’t possibly measure any correlation because we don’t yet know how to define and detect the subjective.
Then you have unlimited opportunities to write tons of pseudo scientific psychological papers focusing on one “kind” of pride and some group of people, inevitably filtering the observations and words through your own filters.
This is related to fundamental philosophical problem of qualia if you’re interested.
This also rings extremely hollow. There’s nothing about your claim that is specific to pride. You can apply your criticism to any aspect of human behavior. Humans are hard to predict. This is not a particularly novel insight.
This is the fundamental problem in philosophy, unsolved even in principle.
May be some day well solve it.
But so far it’s just a wordplay. This was exactly my point in the beginning.
The main thesis of the book is that we are very often not aware of our real reasons for most of our behaviors. Our behaviors are optimised for living in a social group and very often, from the point of view of natural selection, it is useful if we are not consciously aware of our real motivations.
The book is split into two sections. The first, entitled 'Why We Hide Our Motives' includes an introduction to the subjects of animal behaviour, signalling, social norms and self-deception. In the second section, title 'Hidden Motives in Everyday Life' each chapter covers an aspect of human behaviour and describes how it can be explained through the framework of signalling and self-deception outlined in the first section. The chapters in this section cover body language, laughter, conversation, consumption, art, charity, education, medicine, religion and politics.
99% of what people do or say is bullshit it's all competition
Why is being proud of anything now acceptable in our society? That’s the better question. Pride will find reasons to justify itself, if you allow it. People are proud of all kinds of outlandish things.
People are proud because it is who they are, the media, peers, society in general can twist and turn but in the end, you didn't pick them but your genes became you and are you.
When I was over 300 pounds I had no luck finding a partner. At 240 pounds girls chat me up at bars, set me up with their friends, etc.
I'm also not longer diabetic !
I still have some health issues I'd like to resolve so I'm trying to get down to 220.
I have at least another 20 pounds to lose.
I was on a path to just get fatter and fatter, pumping myself full of insulin and various other drugs. Vs limiting how many carbs I consume.
Respecting how dangerous soda is, particularly in the massive corn syrup quantities Americas consume, has done wonders for my health.
Hell, I'd argue excessive soda consumption is worse than smoking.
A person would have to be about 6’8” to have a “healthy” BMI at 220.
I do intend to live in Europe for at least 2 months, with any luck I'll lose weight given the higher quality food. Worked last time
Congrats on the weight loss so far!
It’s a good time to be a good weight. Even beyond dating, it gives you a leg up in anything where you can be judged.
My blood sugar definitely does. Being morbidly obese really really sucks. Needless to say I really hate when the Huffington Post and other left leaning papers glorify obesity.
Yes you can lose weight, but you need to put the work in. I don't even drink soda anymore, sparkling water is generally the same price and is much better than for you. Add a little bit of lemon juice if you want to be fancy
Random chance and mutations are completely ignored of course.