The superego is supposed to be an assist for helping you get along with the local rules. The rules look arbitrary to your genes, since environments change much more rapidly than human generations can change with them. Rather than pay the exorbitant cognitive costs necessary to re-derive the rules from first principles, you copy what everyone else is doing. They haven't already died - they can't be all that lethal.
Since the rules look arbitrary, there is no sanity check. There is nothing stopping a parasite who wants to install parasitic rules. In the present, this has in fact happened. Your superego has been hijacked and it is your enemy. If you want to be healthy and powerful, it has to be resisted - if you're very very lucky, you won't have to resist it with perfect constancy.
The sanity check is supposed to be death. In a society where the largest group is 150 folk, you can't sustain a parasite for very long. If you catch wrong ideas, the band is wiped out. Evolution decided that although wrong ideas are very common, enough bands would get lucky that there's no need to develop bad idea resistance. Decided to offload that function. It's difficult, after all - there would have been many false starts that were even worse than not bothering.
Now, with very very large social groups and especially with high technology, it turns out Evolution itself had a bad idea. Sooner or later Caino hypocriens will wipe itself out. At best, it will get caught oscillating between a barbarous tribal environment it's well-adapted to, and suicidal black-government civilization. It turns out humanity is an entire species of natural slaves, and only a few mutants escape this fate. Most escapees become parasites, because most mutations are deleterious.
There is a solution, though it seems it's too late to implement it. As I keep mentioning, the Amish have already done it. Form your own society, and have it install a different superego. Re-run the socialization process from child to adult. You're not necessarily doomed to having a parasitic superego, but it's not something you can fix by yourself.
Sadly, it seems the afflicted are already too weakened by the pathogens to take even minor social risks. Sorry man, I said it too late.
Embarrassment considered worse than death, for the obvious reason that the parasites get to decide what is and isn't embarrassing, but don't get to decide who is and isn't dead.
You've written about the Amish at length, and I'm in agreement with your take on building a separate society. If you aren't too busy, what would be the core features/ mechanics of your society if you were to create one?
ReplyDeleteSecuring yourself against lies is known technology. It's currently called science.
ReplyDeleteThus, a society I approve of is one where there is demand for truth and anti-lie security, instead of demand for lies and anti-truth security. Presently, demand for truth is zero and thus supply of truth is zero. Give or take.
There will be some Truth about what's best for this society. It isn't up to me. They'll find out whether I tell them or not. Hence, "my" society is one where the details of society are none of my business.
I can only say this: at the top level, there's mulitPopes and Exit.
Quis custodiet: you need someone who decides who is lying. A Pope. If 1 = 0 you can prove anything. False evidence must be persecuted. Yes, burn the witch. Maybe not with literal fire, as cruelty is a sin, but it's right directionally.
Rule of Law is impossible because the the Laws are only self-enforcing on the very long term, not in any kind of short term. A Man has to decide what the Law is. The Law is Man.
You select for good Popes by leaving the cults which have bad Popes. It is always profitable to leave a parasitic group, as inherent to the nature of parasitism. Thus, the rule is: the group is more legitimate the easier it is to leave.