Language and Genetic Self-Interest

The psychologist Jonathan Haidt has a talk called The Rationalist Delusion in Moral Psychology and Atheism. In this talk, he documents his findings about human psychology. The short story is that humans think and make decisions intuitively (irrationally), then the rationalize their intuitions into language. Ergo, most all human communication is no more than a post hoc rationalization. That’s important to know.

Intuition and Genetic Self-Interest

Why do humans decide what they decide? Why do they reach the intuitions that they reach? I have now fully joined the biological determinist camp. I like Dilbert Creator Scott Adams’ name for it: moist robot theory. If we look at humans as biological robots, and we understand that the survival instinct is the most deeply programmed instinct, then it follows logically that maybe this instinct has something to do with how humans reach their intuited conclusions.

It would be difficult to imagine a scenario in which the moist robot is programmed to reach intuitions which are against the intuited self-interest of the robot. We would expect that genes which coded the robot in this way would rapidly be deleted from the gene pool

I think that a very strong argument can be made that the intuitions that humans reach are (almost) always in the genetic interests of the individual performing the calculation. This would explain why a parent might sacrifice himself for his child or wife and children: because if he dies and they live, then his genes survive. It may not be in his direct self-interest to die, but it may be in his genetic self-interest. If he dies, but his genes live on, then that serves his genetic self-interest.

Language and Genetic Self-Interest

The theory of human language is then:

1. Human intuits his genetic self interest
2. Human rationalizes his genetic self-interest into language.

Most human language can therefore be restated as simply “post hoc rationalizations of genetic self-interest.” I say most because we can also use language to express empirical truth. It’s just that the vast majority of language is not used to express empirical truth.

Why does language exist? The root cause of any widely used technological innovation is that it increase human reproductive fitness. It helps the genes reproduce. It serves our genetic self-interest. This is the purpose of language.

What is the content of language? Per the above theory, human language is simply used to negotiate on behalf of one’s genetic self-interest.

The purpose and the content of human language is the same: to negotiate with others on behalf of one’s genes.

Implications

When analyzing language, if the language is not an expression of empirical truth, we simply need investigate it to ascertain which genetic interests are being expressed. That’s it.

Religion: post hoc rationalization for genetic self-interest.

Philosophy: post hoc rationalization for genetic self-interest.

Ideology: post hoc rationalization for genetic self-interest.

For example, those who advocate for free market capitalism do so because free market capitalism serves their genetic interests. They intuitively know that they will outperform most others in this system. They will then justify this intuition of genetic self-interest using language, decrying wealth transfers as ‘violations of the NAP’ or violations of religions tenets against theft, etc. Those who intuit that they are will not be as competitive in a free market capitalist system will create arguments which defend wealth transfers or outright theft.  The Christian religion has historically promoted free trade (thou shalt not steal). Islam promotes an expansionist strategy which suits a population with a high fertility rate which will be best served by expanding into productive systems created by others.

Marxists are those who sense that they will be out-competed in a free market capitalist system, and who have a facility with sophistry to use language to feed the envy of it’s adherents to attack the productive and take their capital.

Feminism is an ideology created by women who understand that they can use the evolved instincts of humans to protect women and children, to push for ever great transfers of property to females. Female hypergamy leads females to see the highest quality genetic material possible. Under Patriarchy/monogamy, female access to the highest quality genes is restricted, and females are forced to accept lower status males who are good providers. Feminism allows for free reign of the female hypergamous instinct, then allows her to offload the cost of her reproduction onto beta provider males or society in general via the welfare state.

Racism is a theory which inevitably can only be resolved by ever greater concessions and transfers of wealth from whites to non-whites. It serves the genetic interests of non-whites, but not of whites.