> Natural selection is holding a gun to everyone's head, every day of their lives.
Natural selection gave rise to our (and every other species), but it is not a conscious entity capable of threatening us in any political sense. Calling bad genes a form of political force is to commit the same epistemological error as someone that maintains that the gravitational force of the earth of his body is a form of political force. See my other post(s).
> This is a sign that you're engaging in all-or nothing religious thinking
Developing and expressing thoughts clearly (which is what "all-or-nothing" thinking is) is antithetical to religious thought. When an engineer that says "yes, this bridge will stand, absolutely, for this amount of time, assuming the following conditions" is engaged in all-or-nothing thinking (Newton's laws are contextually absolute.) To call this religious thinking is absurd.
> Calling bad genes a form of political force is to commit the same epistemological error ...
This is interesting and telling. I've done no such thing. You seem to be focused entirely on this notion of political force, whereas I'm not. This is what I mean when I point out that you're placing ideology above any practical or empirical concerns.
We did not start out talking about political force. It's only vaguely related to my argument, yet it seems to be very interesting to you. From my side it appears that I've triggered one of your auto-rant keywords. Until your most recent response, it wasn't clear to me that I was responding to a human rather than a chat bot.
Here's is my point, again, so we can stay focused: relieving some of the pressure of immediate survival does not reduce creativity nor innovation. In fact, as demonstrated throughout history, creativity and innovation (as opposed to just cunning) require that people have spare time that they're not devoting purely to survival. Surely you must have heard of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
> Developing and expressing thoughts clearly (which is what "all-or-nothing" thinking is)
Well, I suppose we're all free to choose our own definitions, but this is quite the abuse of the term. "All or nothing thinking" is generally understood to mean the inability or unwillingness to recognize that nuance matters in discussion.
There are many ideas that can be expressed clearly, but that are wrong. While removal of nuance may result in a clearer message, it rarely results in clearer thinking. This is the peril of the sound bite.
"For every complex question there is an answer that is simple, obvious, and wrong."
Could you please start providing some evidence or anecdotes for your claims (not parables). If you can't at least do that, I'm not really interested in continuing this discussion, as it's essentially a rant.
Natural selection gave rise to our (and every other species), but it is not a conscious entity capable of threatening us in any political sense. Calling bad genes a form of political force is to commit the same epistemological error as someone that maintains that the gravitational force of the earth of his body is a form of political force. See my other post(s).
> This is a sign that you're engaging in all-or nothing religious thinking
Developing and expressing thoughts clearly (which is what "all-or-nothing" thinking is) is antithetical to religious thought. When an engineer that says "yes, this bridge will stand, absolutely, for this amount of time, assuming the following conditions" is engaged in all-or-nothing thinking (Newton's laws are contextually absolute.) To call this religious thinking is absurd.