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“Sexual selection usually behaves like an insanely greedy tabloid newspaper editor who deletes all news and leaves only advertisements. In human evolution, it is as if the editor suddenly recognized a niche market for news in a few big-brained readers.
She told all her reporters she wanted wall-to-wall news, but she never bothered to set up a fact-checking department. Human ideology is the result: a tabloid concoction of religious conviction, political idealism, urban myth, tribal myth, wishful thinking, memorable anecdote, and pseudo-science.”
― The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature
She told all her reporters she wanted wall-to-wall news, but she never bothered to set up a fact-checking department. Human ideology is the result: a tabloid concoction of religious conviction, political idealism, urban myth, tribal myth, wishful thinking, memorable anecdote, and pseudo-science.”
― The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature
“When agriculture and industry came along people could increasingly rely on the skills of others for survival, and new ‘niches for imbeciles’ were opened up.”
― Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
― Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
“From being a movement aiming for universal freedom, communism turned into a system of universal despotism. That is the logic of utopia.”
― The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern Myths
― The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern Myths
“To all the wolves of the world for lending their good name as a tangible symbol for our darkness.”
― Lon Po Po: A Red-Riding Hood Story from China
― Lon Po Po: A Red-Riding Hood Story from China
“Our sexually selected instincts for displaying sympathy tend to affect our belief systems, not just our charity and courtship
behavior. When individuals espouse ideological positions, we typically interpret their beliefs as signs of good or bad moral
character. Individuals feel social pressure to adopt the beliefs that are conventionally accepted as indicating a "good heart," even
when those beliefs are not rational. We may even find ourselves saying, "His ideas may be right, but his heart is clearly not in the
right place." Political correctness is one outcome of such attributions. For example, if a scientist says, "I have evidence that human intelligence is genetically heritable," that is usually misinterpreted as proclaiming, "I am a disagreeable psychopath unworthy of love." The arbiters of ideological correctness can
create the impression that belief A must indicate personality trait X. If X is considered sexually and socially repulsive, then belief A
becomes taboo. In this way our sexually selected instincts for moralistic self-advertisement become subverted into ideological dogmas. I think that human rationality consists largely of separating intellectual argument from personality attributions about moral character. Our difficulty in making this separation suggests that political, religious, and pseudo-scientific ideologies have been part of moralistic self-display for a very long time.”
― The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature
behavior. When individuals espouse ideological positions, we typically interpret their beliefs as signs of good or bad moral
character. Individuals feel social pressure to adopt the beliefs that are conventionally accepted as indicating a "good heart," even
when those beliefs are not rational. We may even find ourselves saying, "His ideas may be right, but his heart is clearly not in the
right place." Political correctness is one outcome of such attributions. For example, if a scientist says, "I have evidence that human intelligence is genetically heritable," that is usually misinterpreted as proclaiming, "I am a disagreeable psychopath unworthy of love." The arbiters of ideological correctness can
create the impression that belief A must indicate personality trait X. If X is considered sexually and socially repulsive, then belief A
becomes taboo. In this way our sexually selected instincts for moralistic self-advertisement become subverted into ideological dogmas. I think that human rationality consists largely of separating intellectual argument from personality attributions about moral character. Our difficulty in making this separation suggests that political, religious, and pseudo-scientific ideologies have been part of moralistic self-display for a very long time.”
― The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature
Zach’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Zach’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
1,065 books
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235 books
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12 friends
193 books
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47 friends
1,056 books
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47 friends
374 books
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101 friends
1,228 books
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126 friends
286 books
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78 friends
509 books
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109 friends
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