autofagist.blog

The idealist's dream

Often I see the same kind of animal appear in different shapes; that something inefficient should be encouraged by convention without imposing any penalties to enforce the restriction.

I think my reasoning is best explained by a simple example. Followed by a few examples more that applies the same principle;

Humans typically groom themselves to give the appearance of being more desirable in the social economy. That is to say, humans practice deception by trying to get other individuals to "invest" in them based on an inflated value. It is a form of advertisement, practiced by non-human animals too.

However, given that other forms of intentful social deception (such as lying) is typically evaluated as bad, it is easy to leap to the conclusion that all forms of deception are unconditionally bad and should be abolished. What we call femininity and masculinity for example is undeniably, at least partly, made up by social constructs. These constructs deceive, and might be identified by some as a sort of error in human behaviour.

Imagine a theoretical society where personal grooming is social taboo. No one is allowed to inflate their perceived value by wearing powder or fancy pants. When a simulatee invests in another person, for example by becoming their friend or instigating a romantical relation, no visual interception of the sensory signals is permitted. There is no mechanical punishment for violating these rules, they are upheld simply by social convention.

Simulatees that break this rule, that ever so subtly enhance their value by arranging their hair in a slightly more flattering fashion, will appear to be more valuable and be preferentially selected in the social economy. The system inherently rewards what it is trying to prevent. And in any economy, what is being preferentially selected will gain prevalence and eventyally dominate the market.

Humans that decide to "optimize" their life by ridding themselves of these "unethical" constructs might find themselves wondering why life all of a sudden became so hard, why ridding oneself of a heavily selected trait would introduce resistance in a system that has evolved to be unethical.

To pose a rhetorical question; who in a game of poker has the highest self-interest in demanding that all players reveal their hands? Who has the most to gain from abolishing deception from the system entirely? Surely, least of all the unlucky.

To demand that somebody give up their preferential trait or behavior, real or not, is to demand a human sacrifice for the cause of the demander. Normal distribution dictates that the transmogrification of beauty is in the self-interest of the masses, which ironically puts the propagation of self-hatred in the interest of the beautiful as a sort of vanity disguised as guilt. Sounds familiar?