The Irrelevance of Ethnic Genetic Interests

Intelligence and crime distributions are not relevant enough to be the basis of a pro-white ideology or movement.

If this article is correct on all points then the movement is hopeless outside of us gaining control of the government/media/schools and forcibly altering the populations worldview.

I personally don’t believe these last two articles have been wholly correct given that we do what we consider viable, what we consider rational and what we consider has the best cost to gain ratio.

I believe we have an inherent tendency to pursue “ethnic interests” but that does not mean will always come to the conclusion that pursuing “ethnic interests” is the best, most viable action.

It is our job to lead the population to that conclusion.

Hamilton published on the evolutionary stability of kin altruism as well as that of reciprocal altruism. Certainly, there is a need to improve Hamilton’s theory by quantifying the stability trade-offs between kin altruism and reciprocal altruism, but I don’t see you making a contribution to that here. You are merely revisiting old territory first addressed by Price as elaborated by Hamilton in “Innate Social Aptitudes of Man”.

If you want to move the debate forward, read ISAOM, and then read “Removing Lewontin’s Fallacy from Hamilton’s Rule”.

James Bowery,

I’ve naturally read ISAOM and I don’t see how it responds to the point I’m making here, and your own article seems like jibberish, but perhaps my mind is simply too primitive to grasp your exalted meaning. So please explain to us at greater length why sacrificing yourself for your ethny is evolutionarily rational.

So please explain to us at greater length why sacrificing yourself for your ethny is evolutionarily rational.

I’m not making such a blanket claim although I do claim there are conditions within which it is. But we aren’t even that far yet because we need to establish the relevance of ISAOM:

Consider not only that it is the single most-cited (directly or indirectly) academic paper of your opponents, but the last sentence of ISAOM: “Some of the main points of this paper can be summarized as an answer to this comment: that often, in real life, there is a law, and we can see why, and that sadly we also see the protean nature of this Dilemma, which, when suppressed at one level, gathers its strength at another.”

That is, the main point of his paper is quantification the defection vs cooperation strategy within the Prisoner’s Dilemma — hence the conditions under-which their relative stabilities change.

It is hard to imagine that you read the paper and did not cite it as part of your thesis since it forms the foundation of so much “group selection” discourse and directly and quantitatively bears on your ESS argument.

Bowery,

If you have an objection to my article, make it by all means, but don’t expect me to sit around guessing what it is. Tell us exactly how Hamilton’s argument in ISAOM proves me wrong. I’m not going to spend my time poring over that paper to see whether you’re right or not.

Quoting from ISAOM:

Conceptual simplicity, recursiveness, and formal separation of levels of selection are attractive features of these equations. But, of course, being able to point to a relevant and generally non-zero part of selective change is far from showing that group selection can override individual selection when the two are in conflict. Moreover, even the possibility of devising model circumstances in which a positive group-selection term (first term) outweighs a negative individual selection one (second term, assuming no further levels), gives no guarantee that ‘altruism’ can evolve by group selection: we have to consider whether the population can get into the specified state, and, if it can, whether its present trend will continue.

In other words, Hamilton is addressing precisely your “evolutionary stablity” critique. Continuing with ISAOM:

Putting these results and those of (Eq 5) into equation (Eq 3) we find as the generalization of (Eq 6): w dq=p q(FK-k) (Eq 7) so that the criterion for positive selection of altruism is K/k > 1/F Now the model can be made to work.

For asexual organisms. But for sexual organisms:

The redefinition necessary for diploid organisms involves specifying a regression coefficient b[AB], representing the regression of the genotype of recipient B on genotype of donor A… The usefulness of the ‘inclusive fitness’ approach to social behavior (i.e. an approach using criteria like (b[AB]K-k)>0) is that it is more general than the ‘group selection’, ‘kin selection’, or ‘reciprocal altruism’ approaches and so provides an overview even where regression coefficients and fitness effects are not easy to estimate or specify. As against ‘group selection’ it provides a useful conceptual tool where no grouping is apparent — for example, it can deal with an ungrouped viscous population where, owing to restricted migration, an individual’s normal neighbours and interactants tend to be his genetical kindred.

Bowery,

You’re addressing issues that are very different from the ones that I raised in the article and from the ones that the ENT partisans raise. What they are saying is that kin altruism is rational whenever rB>C, or as Salter says, kin altruism is evolutionarily stable whenever Hamilton’s rule is true. If you look over how they phrase the issue, it really is that simple. And they quote Hamilton’s ISAOM to make just that point, although I know the article is a great deal more complex and interesting than they make it out to be. They are really missing the heart of that article. And so all I have to do to invalidate ENT is just to prove that ethnic nepotism as they see it does not constitute an evolutionarily stable instance of kin altruism.

The reason why Hamilton’s article is more interesting than the ENT partisans make it out to be is that it deals with the processes by which altruists might assort themselves into groups and exclude non-altruists. Of course, if such a mechanism of assortment exists then altruism can be evolutionarily stable because it is reliably reciprocated. Or to see it another way, such a strategy is stable because altruistic genes are aiding other copies of themselves in others.

Such a scenario would not contradict my thesis in this article. After all, I recognize that reciprocal altruism can be evolutionarily stable.

A theory of ethnicity along the lines that Hamilton lays out in that article would be interesting, but that is not what Salter and the rest are doing.

The biologist who has most helped me in understanding these issues is Jeffrey A. Fletcher—there are references to his work and a link to his research page in the footnotes. The way he phrases it is that the only way that altruistic genes can evolve among kin is if they bring direct fitness benefits to their carriers that cause them to have higher reproductive success than non-cariers. That is, altruistic genes can’t evolve through indirect fitness. I know there are exceptions to that rule, and I point them out in the paper—indirect fitness can be optimal in the case of parental care and large differences in reproductive value among kin. But when you’re dealing with kin of roughly equal reproductive value and maturity, such as is normally the case among human siblings, then unreciprocated altruism towards kin will be selected against.

As I say in the article, I also believe there are some scenarios in which suicidal self-sacrifice could be evolutionarily stable. One can imagine some circumstances in which a gene for such a behavior could bring direct fitness benefits to a carrier. As I say:

>Fletcher makes clear that a gene for suicidal altruism theoretically could evolve, but according to a very different rationale than that suggested by ENT partisans. Such a gene, in Fletcher’s framework, would evolve because of the direct fitness benefits that it brought to its bearers. Such a situation is theoretically possible. Imagine a group of 20 organisms all of whom carry a gene that causes them to be equally likely to commit suicidal self-sacrifice for other carriers of the gene under certain rare circumstances. If the probability that they will have to sacrifice themselves is small (say one in 20), and the benefit that the other organisms get from self-sacrifice is very large, then such a gene would, on average, bring large direct fitness benefits to its carriers, and they could conceivably outcompete non-carriers. After all, there is a 95 percent likelihood that the organisms will benefit from the sacrifice of another, rather than having to sacrifice themselves.

>Fletcher’s conditions for the evolution of suicidal altruism are very different from those defined by ENT partisans and much more stringent. For the latter, suicidal altruism can evolve when it brings sufficiently large benefits to those who are related to the altruist. However, on Fletcher’s theory, a gene for suicidal self-sacrifice can evolve only if it brings large benefits on average to its bearer.

All the ENT folks are saying is that suicide is rational whenever rB is greater than 100 percent of the altruist’s genes. But that’s absurd. And as I argue, I don’t see how adaptations for suicidal self-sacrifice could have realistically evolved among humans along the lines that Fletcher discusses.

If this reasoning is correct, wouldn’t it also be rational for an Englishman to prefer to help out English beggers and to strongly oppose the immigration of French too? (or any non-English Whites)

I think if we follow this reasoning through to its logical end it’s going to deal a harsh blow to White Nationalism and divide an already divided movement even further, especially in the USA, as it seems to imply that the various White ethnic groups would also have different genetic interests and would compete with one another. Moreover, that this should be encouraged.

Also, wouldn’t this instinct have evolved in our very tribal history when the bulk of our competitors would actually have been of the same race? This would imply that ones “ethny” as Salter defines it as far too inclusive and should be narrowed down to sub-races or further if we are to be true to our so-called ethnic genetic interests.

I think Salter et al are trying to suggest what they believe OUGHT to be the case, rather than what is. A quick emperical glance is enough to show you otherwise and simply we wouldn’t have our present multi-racial/multi-cultural society to begin with if ethnic altruism was a staple instinct.

It appears they’re trying to second guess what the genes “interests” or “goals” are, and then try to tell us that we should behave in accordance with what they assume the “interests” of the genes are, even when it’s clear that these behaviours are not suffuciently instinctive to begin with.

In simple terms it appears to me that human beings put themselves and their children first and that group coalitions are designed to serve their individual genetic interests, rather than that of the ethny. This is why we have the case of leftist White politicians working actively against their EGI (and FOR the EGI of other races!) because doing so benefits themselves and their families and that’s really the bottom line.

And they quote Hamilton’s ISAOM to make just that point, although I know the article is a great deal more complex and interesting than they make it out to be. They are really missing the heart of that article. And so all I have to do to invalidate ENT is just to prove that ethnic nepotism as they see it does not constitute an evolutionarily stable instance of kin altruism.

Then I don’t have a horse in this particular race. There are two things that remain important in my mind:

1) The relevance of genetic correlation structure to the definition of “particles” as per Price’s equations.

2) The evolutionary dilemma shared by both nepotism and reciprocation. In Hamilton’s words from ISAOM:

Once the barrier is passed by genetic drift or the like, non-reciprocation finds itself in the category of maladaptive spite – harming the self to harm others more. Nepotistic altruism, of course, also has an initial barrier to pass when it first occurs by mutation. But once positive selection supervenes the resemblance between the two situations fades: reciprocal altruism of the kind described is less purely altruistic. Indeed, the term altruism may be a misnomer: there is an expectation of benefit of the initiating individual, not just an expectation of benefit to the genotype. TO put the matter another way, reciprocal altruism can never be suicidal, whereas suicidal nepotistic altruism can and has evolved – it is apparent, for example, in worker sacrifices in the social insects. Whether recirprocation involves altruism or not, we see that in so far as it involves repeated acts between the same two individuals this useful and immensely varigating type of interaction can spread genetically, given only an ability to remember individual faces of those who have helped and those who have cheated in the past. Unforunately, by the very aid it gives to the growth and diversification of social systems, reciprocation tends to undermine the basis of its success. Situations demanding reciprocation just once between individuals destined never to meet again naturally become more common and it becomes easier for cheaters to specialize in these and to hide from retribution. Cheating can also become more subtle, especially along lines which make it hard for victims to be sure just who has cheated them.

I would just like to post a correction.

I said:

This would imply that ones “ethny” as Salter defines it as far too inclusive and should be narrowed down to sub-races or further if we are to be true to our so-called ethnic genetic interests.

Salter does not define an ethny as a racial group. I picked up this misunderstanding from some White Nationalists who promote Salters work as if it meant “racial genetic interests” and omitting that this requires that they break up Whites further into little competing groups too. I think they suspect, as I do, that most White Nationalists (especially in the USA or other mixed colonies) won’t appreciate this.

Hallelujah, lycurgus! I finally feel understood!

Yes, you’re right, from the point of view of ENT, it is more rational to invest in your own particular ethnic group than in your race as a whole. And yes, if people did have instincts for ethnic nepotism, how would multiculturalist societies be possible?

Moreover, as you recognize, ENT does not provide an effective rationale to invest in any kind of ethny unless doing so coincides with one’s self-interest. Indeed, it’s rational for you to invest in allo-ethnics if this is what will get you ahead, as the politician in your example is doing.

What gets me is that white nationalists who believe in ENT sit around complaining that all whites except for themselves are insane because they don’t act on their racial interests. It never occurs to white nationalists that it is more likely the other way around: it is they who are out of their minds while the white majority is perfectly sane, if unwise and misguided. Imagine the arrogance of this attitude: everyone except me and my buddies is insane!

It never occurs to white nationalists that it is more likely the other way around: it is they who are out of their minds while the white majority is perfectly sane, if unwise and misguided. Imagine the arrogance of this attitude: everyone except me and my buddies is insane!

Just as it never occurs to you that living in an inverted world lends itself to minority sanity.

You’re a danger to yourself and others Ian. Now all that it takes to protect you and others from your access to legal rights is for a “court, board, or other lawful authority” to declare you to be “mentally defective” — both terms being so vaguely defined that there is only one question remaining:

Who will save the sane?

Hallelujah, lycurgus! I finally feel understood!

Some final points I just want to make.

We not only have a situation where Whites are not actively working for their EGI, we have the spectacle of Whites literally working for the EGI of other races. Moreover, racists themselves are probably one of the most discriminated against group right now. Very strange circumstance we’re in if EGI is supposedly so innate.

How could we explain this though? Easy. Simply because doing so serves self-interest. Sometimes it would suit an individuals self-interest to work with co-ethnics but in other circumstances it might suit him to work with less-related individuals against co-ethnics and this is exactly what we observe. This understanding explains ethno-centrism AND it’s exceptions.

Just about everybody is in on the PC bandwagon (incl. Conservatives) and they simply aren’t willing to risk their career or social standing for their race, let alone sacrafice their lives! There might be a slight preference for those more similar to oneself, but EGI (taken to Salterist extremes) is just nonsense. And when people understand the full implications of it, it could become very divisive too.

Bowery,

I don’t want to criminalize white nationalism, and I am myself, by some definitions of the term a white nationalist. I just mean that a life spent worrying exclusively about oneself and one’s family is a perfectly sane one, even though one can legitimately call it narrow, short-sighted, unwise, and misguided. However, to sacrifice oneself for one’s race, or even to hold up such sacrifice as a moral ideal—that is insane. That’s not how human beings were designed to behave. Anyone who does make such a sacrifice is ultimately just a chump because no one except fellow madmen will reciprocate the sacrifice.

I do state what I believe are rational grounds for a pro-white movement in the article:

The emptiness of ENT does not mean that there is no rational basis for a pro-white movement. There are plenty of valid reasons to be concerned about shifting racial demographics in America and the rest of the West. Previous articles on White America have documented racial differences in intelligence, capacity for deferral of gratification, and moral reasoning. The West is seeing increases in the populations of races that are characterized by low intelligence, short-term thinking, and unprincipled morality, such as blacks, Mexicans, and South Asians/North Africans. This development brings grave risks to the well-being of Western nations and may constitute adequate grounds for the emergence of a movement that seeks to preserve white majorities.

So if you’re the type of person who thrives in a society in which people are intelligent, provident, and principled, then it may well be in your self-interest to preserve a white majority.

”So if you’re the type of person who thrives in a society in which people are intelligent, provident, and principled, then it may well be in your self-interest to preserve a white majority.” ( — Ian Jobling)

A white majority or any mixed-race collection of such people as you describe: if all you require is “intelligent, provident, and principled,” every race contains a non-zero number of such individuals who could be selectively permitted to immigrate to your once-white country. Regression to the mean shouldn’t be a problem if the non-white immigrants you swamp your white country with are, say, Hindu Brahmins and Northeast Asians. The GnXp.com approach endorses immigration that selects “aracially” for intelligent, provident, principled individuals. Is this your approach?

Do you offer a justification for preservation of the white race?

Scrooby,

I’m very much doubt that there are effective ways of measuring qualities like providence and a principled nature. Can you name any instruments that are effective measurements of these qualities, as the IQ test is for intelligence? Even if there were good measurements of these qualities, there might be other components to the success of white nations that the immigrants did not have.

To people who make proposals like you claim GnXp is, I say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” I would need convincing evidence that selective immigration would improve things over the long run, and I don’t think it’s possible to compile evidence like that.

Right - it should be those who advocate wrenching, demographically revolutionary upheaval in white countries who should bear the burden of proof for the benefits, and even the urgent necessity, of the radical change they advocate.

It appears that in addition to kin selection, there are other ways in which people are naturally ethnocentric. Women, for example, are according to this research:

http://www.cdnresearch.net/pubs/private/racebias.pdf

During ovulation they are particularly more discriminating on the basis of race.

shawn

I think Salter and his friends who suggest you should sacrafice yourself to prevent people of another ethny from immigrating (and this would include resisting other ethnic groups of Whites) goes well beyond people showing a preference for their race in terms of mating habits.

Some interesting studies that impact on this very issue however that are worth checking out (relating to the topic at hand.) Picked these up from Sailers site, infact.

Do Race and Fairness Matter in Generosity? Evidence from a Nationally Representative Charity Experiment Christina M. Fong, Erzo F.P. Luttmer

“….despite our successfully manipulating perceptions of race, giving does not respond significantly to recipient race. Thus, while our respondents do seem to rate ingroup members as more worthy, they appear to overcome this bias when it comes to giving.”

http://papers.nber.org/papers/w15064

—-

War and Relatedness Enrico Spolaore, Romain Wacziarg

“We examine the empirical relationship between the occurrence of interstate conflicts and the degree of relatedness between countries, showing that populations that are genetically closer are more prone to go to war with each other, even after controlling for a wide set of measures of geographic distance and other factors that affect conflict, including measures of trade and democracy.”

http://papers.nber.org/papers/w15095

—-

This next link is not scientific but interesting nonetheless. According to this, even though White females show a clear preference for White males it would appear that Asian/Hispanic women show an equal or greater preference for White males. Could this be because of the generally higher status of white males in the West and status is attractive to women? Although race is important, it could be that general fitness/attractiveness plays a bigger role in mate choice.

How Your Race Affects The Messages You Get

White men get more responses. Whatever it is, white males just get more replies from almost every group.

White women prefer white men to the exclusion of everyone else—and Asian and Hispanic women prefer them even more exclusively. Thes

Here’s the link for lycurgus’s last reference about the preference for white males.

Those are great links, Lycurgus. If you ever felt like writing up your own critique of ENT based on these findings, I’d be interested in publishing that.

My earlier comment was cut-off in part…Here is the remainder:

White women prefer white men to the exclusion of everyone else—and Asian and Hispanic women prefer them even more exclusively. These three types of women only respond well to white men. More significantly, these groups’ reply rates to non-whites is terrible.

http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/2009/10/05/your-race-affects-whether-people-write-you-back/

Ian, thinking about it further, I don’t even think ENT requires such detailed rebuttles to begin with as it fails at the most basic levels.

If EN was a significant force, I can’t see why there would be such controversy (between WNs no less!) to begin with. For example, there is no controversy over the instinctive love parents have for their kids. Something like that is evident enough to call an instinct.

Also, this goes to WNs: recognise that EGI is not the same as Racial-GI. This means, if you are going to use this type of reasoning to justify segregation/competition with other races, you must extend it to encourage segregation/competition between the different White ethnic groups too. Do you really want to go down that route?

Now, even if there is some degree of EN beyond kin selection, in most cases self-interest would over rule it to the point of making EN in practical terms, largely irrelevant.

I can’t see any other way to explain the rise of our multi-racial societies, a society where racists themselves are one of the most discriminated against groups.

Also, I don’t understand how genes have interests distinct from what is represented by our behaviours. It seems like there is second guessing as to what the genes intend which is rubbish. It’s clear our actual behaviours do not correspond well enough to the interests that Salter claims the genes have. If they did, we wouldn’t be in the situation we are. I think these guys cherry pick their data. What about the vast vast majority of peoples that don’t suicide bomb?

And even if they think we “ought” to obey our EGI as Salter defines it, try tell an average person they must be slaves to their “ethnic genetic interests” and they will think you’re a joke, and/or insane. They just won’t respond to that.

EGI and ENT are just not concepts we can emotionally relate with (like we can to self-interest) and aside from some fringe radicals and Asperger types, average people just aren’t going to be interested in what Salter et al suggest they “ought” to behave like.

In conclusion, I concur and think we should do away with this. It’s certainly not wise to make a highly controversial theory the backbone of a movement, nor is it even politically effective and may actually be divisive.

lycurgus,

Everything you say is true but Salter and Rushton and their like have managed to convince a lot of people that they’re right. Indeed, I would say that the concept of EGIs is at the heart of today’s white nationalism. So the theory is worth refuting.

Actually, what’s at the heart of today’s white nationalism is the experience of people as “white” — not theory. For the vast majority, theory is simply window dressing.

Ian, I agree, it’s certainly worth refuting.

I just meant to suggest that it can be refuted at the elementary level. And until ENT can answer suffuciently some of the more basic objections raised and/or can show itself a better model at explaining our real world observations than say, the self-interest model, it really isn’t worth a more detailed rebuttle.

Just my opinion of course.

Though I have really enjoyed this series of articles.

I think you guys are being rather myopic, what one considers right action is subjective to self. There is no objective basis for anything we support and yet we support what we do because we feel it is right.

Our ability to convince others to follow us(or vice versa) decides the future, outside of that nothing really matters.

While I believe we instinctively act with EGI in mind, that does not mean it can not be overridden nor does it mean our choices can not be poor.

Strictly speaking, genes have no interests.

To say that we love our children for the purpose of preserving our genes is wrong.

Rather, we love our children because the humans who loved their children survived better than those who didn’t and this is why the behaviour persists.

The way we think about genes is significant. It’s often makes the difference between being having a gene-centric, or human-centric worldview.

Afterall, we’re trying to build a better and happier world for humans, not mindless genes.

The mistake is thinking that preserving genetic complexes for their own sake is equatable to genetic interests as a whole and that it’s our “purpose” to do so. This kind of thinking missing the human element completely and makes us slaves of the imagined interests of genes.

And isn’t this misunderstanding at the heart of the issue?

Even if we wanted to preserve the White race, it wouldn’t be for any other reason but that the human mind enjoys the aestetic qualities of the race, just as we have desire to preserve other species.

The genes are not vested in preserving ethnic gene complexes. They are vested in nothing. Simply, traits that happen to survive get passed on - and that’s it!

So why should we equate genetic interests with ethnic interests? It doesn’t matter that ethnic gene complexes get preserved. As far as survival is concerned, it just matters that we have babies, and they have babies, preferably with a mate as attractive, healthy and intelligent as we can get!

Depending on where you are, a superior reproductive strategy could mean picking a less related but more beautiful girl over a more related but less beautiful girl. Now, this would indicate a really rational choice on your part and how this affects the gene pool of the ethny is irrelevant as fitness has a far greater bearing on survival.

We could therefore conclude that fitness plays a greater role in reproductive success (and ultimate survival) and following these cues a more accurate expression of ones real “genetic interests.”

I recognise some of the language we use to debate these issues can lend itself to confusion. Even amongst ourselves. So, I would like to clarify some of the things I said earlier.

What I mean to say is that, our behaviours correspond more with “individual genetic interests” rather than “ethnic genetic interests” and unless a behaviour has significant bearing on ones survival and the fitness / reproductive success of ones children, I don’t think it matters and we certainly aren’t required to make it our purpose.

So, understanding the primacy of individual genetic interests, it would appear that while in some cases it would be rational to help co-ethnics, in other circumstances it might not be. I think this is a more accurate representation of how things really are.

Again, strictly speaking, genes have no interests. Behaviours that promote the survival of genes period- not neccessarily ethnic genetic complexes, get to stick around, and that set of characterestics selected for.

Ian, I agree, it’s certainly worth refuting.

What is your own ancestry, Lycurgus?

Strictly speaking, genes have no interests.

Strictly speaking, people, and the “interests” they experience, are the sum of the expression of their genes, which is dependent on their…genes.

To say that we love our children for the purpose of preserving our genes is wrong.

It is, really, just another way of saying the same thing.

Rather, we love our children because the humans who loved their children survived better than those who didn’t and this is why the behaviour persists.

The thrust of this comment seems to be that since ‘love genes’ induced behavior that managed to produce more ‘love genes’ then we are bound by some logic or moral duty implied by that observation to simply let ‘love’ take its course without regard to any more broad considerations. An incredibly stupid suggestion, especially in light of the fact those ‘love genes’ and the effect they produce are but one part of a larger complex of genes and the effects the latter produce, which are themselves irrevocably tied to the production of our love objects.

The way we think about genes is significant. It’s often makes the difference between being having a gene-centric, or human-centric worldview.

If you do not take the genetic preservation of the White race seriously you are no friend to White people, and certainly no friend to humanity. You might as well say: “I think the way we think about war is significant. It’s often makes the difference between having a war-centric, or human-centric worldview.” And yet there are men who by profession are warriors for the good of society.

Afterall, we’re trying to build a better and happier world for humans, not mindless genes.

If you found that your life would be “better and happier” if you gave your own children up for adoption, would you do it? Funny how duty tends to falter to the effect that what we value is lost when happy-clappy hedonism is one’s standard.

The mistake is thinking that preserving genetic complexes for their own sake is equatable to genetic interests as a whole and that it’s our “purpose” to do so.

Your very children ARE the expression of those gene complexes and if those were altered your children would have effectively ceased to exist. Loving your children and loving their gene complexes are one and the same. And logically, if you love your children, who are like yourself, and wish to preserve them, would you not also with to preserve others who are like you and your children yet not you and your children? Relieve yourself of your solipsism for a moment if you would!

Enoch Powell: No, we do not fight for values. I would fight for this country even if it had a communist government.

Margaret Thatcher: Nonsense, Enoch. If I send British troops abroad, it will be to defend our values.

Powell: No, Prime Minister, values exist in a transcendental realm, beyond space and time. They can neither be fought for, nor destroyed.

Captainchaos,

I actually wanted that earlier comment of mine withdrawn as there is alot of confusing language in it. But, let’s continue the discussion…

What is your own ancestry, Lycurgus?

English speaking German.

Strictly speaking, people, and the “interests” they experience, are the sum of the expression of their genes, which is dependent on their…genes.

So, using this logic, if it could be shown that the interests real people experience do not correspond well to the interests Salter et all say the genes have, ENT is refuted and we could conclude the genes have no such interests. More on this later.

It is, really, just another way of saying the same thing.

They are functionally equivelent claims but they often lead to confusion. I think it’s important to recognise that genes cannot be said to have interests apart from real human interests and behaviours.

If you do not take the genetic preservation of the White race seriously you are no friend to White people

This isn’t about what I personally believe, this is about determining how people really are. I would wager than most people are simply not interested in the “preservation of the white race.”

To address whether ethnic genetic interests are truly genetic interests:

Although there might be a mild ethnic bias, any more extreme form of EGI can be safely ruled out.

• It is clearly not instinctive to sacrafice one’s life for one’s race. Not only is it not instinctive, but one could argue such behaviours are maladaptive and irrational. The examples often cited in support of ENT seem cherry picked and I see the rarity of suicide bombing as actually strong evidence against ENT.

In the real world most people won’t even risk their careers or social standings for their race, let alone their lives. Self interest reigns!

• In circumstances where ethnic interests and individual interests conflict, the latter always overrules the former. Such circumstances are so plentiful in the real world that it renders EN a largely irrelevant force, assuming it was able to evolve in the first place.

Simply, our instincts and behaviours do not correspond well with the idea that ethnic interests are priority interests of the genes, nor that they are particularly important if at all.

We wouldn’t have rising multi-racial societies where our elites snub their racial interests for personal gain and racists are discriminated against by just about everyone if this weren’t the case. We wouldn’t even be having this debate if EN was in any form a potent force to begin with.

Such real world observations show that nature favours strategies which serve individual interests. Therefore, it would be completely rational behaviour to prioritize one’s individual interests even at the expense of one’s ethnic interests. And infact, this is how people behave in the real world and this is precisely what we observe.

So if we want to argue that people should follow certain behaviours because such behaviours represent their genetic interests, then we should be required to promote self interest rather as a more accurate reflection of our real genetic interests.

Personally, I believe that the more extreme forms of ENT are nonsense and that is why appeals to racial altruism in people have consistently failed. Miserably.

If you found that your life would be “better and happier” if you gave your own children up for adoption, would you do it? Funny how duty tends to falter to the effect that what we value is lost when happy-clappy hedonism is one’s standard.

I think you’re misunderstanding here. I’m no hedonist. Though, I think most people, would be happier keeping their children and could not find greater fulfillment in anything else.

Your very children ARE the expression of those gene complexes and if those were altered your children would have effectively ceased to exist. Loving your children and loving their gene complexes are one and the same. And logically, if you love your children, who are like yourself, and wish to preserve them, would you not also with to preserve others who are like you and your children yet not you and your children? Relieve yourself of your solipsism for a moment if you would!

I don’t love them because they are like myself, I love them because such a bio-social strategy was adaptive. Extending that altruism beyond kin because they are like myself is not equally an adaptive strategy so was not selected for.

“To the contrary, if there is a close relative in the vicinity, there is no reason to give a distant relative any cake at all. Subject to other complications like laws of diminishing returns, the whole cake should be given to the closest relative available.” ~Dawkins

And, if there are no close relatives in the vicinity, our hero still wouldn’t extend his love to race but would instead operate on the basis of what is known as reciprocal altruism.

This is not complicated. The distaste Jews feel towards healthy European culture, healthy European institutions and healthy European Mind, expressed so agreeably in Nathan Abrams’ term “the Jewish tradition of subversion”, is a wholly racial animus predicated on Judaistic millenarian supremacism. Jobling is a Jewish extended phenotype. Lycurgus is his best Jewish friend.

There is nothing else to see here, friends - unless you are a masochist. Move along now.

I wrote elsewhere approximately: “Psychologically people see ethnic groups as extensions of themselves, so they see threats to their group as direct threats to themselves, and thus they defend their groups (E.g. Norton, Monin, Cooper & Hogg, 2003).”

Jobling makes a few mistakes.

First he seems to think that if altruism exists, it should be unthinking automatic reaction/ instinct and genetically programmed to be so. This would mean that people would act in certain way when certain conditions are fulfilled, e.g. when perceiving subtle differences in the degree of ethnic similarity.

Even if we ignore the complexity required in social cooperation of people, it is hard to see what such cooperation would look like. Somewhat like eusociality of social insects like termites, bees and ants, with chemical messages guiding automatic recognition of degrees of similarity and collective cooperation, the possible functions of members limited to small number of predetermined operations? Or people first seeing sufficient similarity and then without ability to help it erupting to a preprogrammed deed, like giving whatever a person happens to hold to another person; thus “altruism” staying inside the group?

Second, Jobling assumes that ethnicity or continental genetic cluster is just something inert, with no other meaning than itself, nothing connected to it; no requirements, no other bonds connected to it, no other feelings connected to it, other than what ethnicity unconnected to anything else can produce, etc.; thus ethnicity separated to an unreal abstraction.

Third, Jobling assumes absolute genetic similarity requirement in genes as a condition of relatedness. Jobling also ignores or doesn’t know about the structural differences, copy variation and alternative splicing differences between genes in different ethnicities etc.

Related genes are clusters, not absolute similarities in every gene. I may have one variant of a gene, but I recognize that other gene variants in Finnish cluster are also related to me and Finnishness in general. I have no illusions that my gene variants have some special position inside the ethny and ultimately the ethnic cluster is more important than me. I am temporary genetic wave in ethnic sea.

All these are exacerbated by the atheist materialist view of Jobling.

a) Ethnic interest could be understood in one dimension as love. Ethnic interest requires survival, acquiring and making the necessities and development, so those that are able and love their ethny will show it by participating in the cooperation of ethny and thus built their good reputation. Free riding shows that member doesn’t love ethny. Free riding is punished with different methods and cooperation rewarded with various methods. The fact that all functioning cooperating groups have to solve free rider problem doesn’t mean that purely socially constructed group and ethnic group are the same thing anymore than the fact that all groups have to eat means that they are the same thing.

How much should member do and what? What others should do and how much? How these are coordinated and what is the level of reciprocity between between different members? In what way is the membership limited and what is the size of the group? How is reputation recognized, what are the punishments and rewards, and does everyone participate in punishing and rewarding? How much people are expected to share with the group? What are the decision making mechanisms? What kind of security and insurance does the group povide? Etc. The number of possibilities is so enormous that ethnic instincts guide the actions to certain directions and create the foundation to cooperation, but the details must be socially constructed. The social construction can be in varying degrees coherent with ethnic instincts; the more coherent it is, the more efficient the cooperation is likely to be. E.g. Hutterites are genetically related on average as closely as 2-3 cousins and their cooperation is likely to be the most efficient human cooperation in the world (where it is directed is a different matter). Hutterite group resembles one person working intensely.

In large groups some form of hierarchical organization structures are unavoidable and this might create unnecessary psychological and practical distance between members, thus the ethnic instincts and interests might not start and function in full force. It might be better to divide groups to about 150 member group networks.

b) Self sacrificial altruism is built on the said cooperation and measures, i.e. when people are with similar people and can trust on others in their group, on their cooperation, loyalty, insurance, group continuity etc., they can sacrifice themselves in certain situations to protect the ethny. We have much more than science to tell us about this. We have knowledge what happened in our wars. There are countless of situations in Finnish WWII, where purely self interested people would have given up, run away, saved themselves, deserted their groups, quit cooperating etc. without the fear of punishments and loss of rewards, and gained some personal advantages to themselves and their closest relatives, but they continued fighting to the end. I mention one such case. Because of several things (not desertion) one Finnish soldier had to defend his position against overwhelming number of enemies. Many bullets and shrapnels hit him. One bullet went into his mouth, tearing tissue and teeth off. He spat the lose teeth, tissue, blood and the hot bullet away. Breathing became more difficult. He knew that he has the possibility to crawl away to safety. Instead he thought about his family, Finns and made peace with God. Then he used his skills to kill many enemies, before the loss of blood brought unconsciousness. The back up force that came saved him in the last moments. Single handedly this man protected important position and saved many lives of Finns.

The propensity to do this might have been selected in groups in peace time with some combination of mechanisms that resemble and mimic or is connected to the psychology of self sacrificial altruism closely enough to likely be a trustworthy signal about it in wartime, which is then realized in extreme situations, i.e. it’s full altruistic force is ignited in extreme situations. I.e. shortly: In peace time advantages in groups are given, perhaps without knowing this clearly, to people who are likely to be self-sacrificially altruistic in wartime. This gives also advantages in group level.

Like Finnish soldiers have said, dying is easy.

The Finns that have come after them are indebted their lives to our soldiers.

c) Cooperation with outgroup members can be arranged, but it is more likely to be transaction/ contract and business based and often worse on all accounts. The threshold to cooperation is higher, instinctual similarity advantages largely missing, loyalty is less, trust is weaker, indirect bias more often denied, mutual understanding harder to reach, uneasiness higher, coherence of cooperation is more lacking, empathy is weaker, reciprocity “forgotten” more, propensities and ways of thinking imcompatible, self sacrificial altruism non-existent, etc.

Ethnic cooperation is more than the sum of it’s parts, interracial cooperation is less than the sum of it’s parts.

Logic is all a big Jewish scam—this is the basic maxim of anti-Semites, and guessedworker confirms it.

This article has a very simple argument: self-sacrifice for one’s ethny is never rational because any heroic sacrifice brings the greatest benefit to those who do not sacrifice themselves. A hero who sacrifices himself for his ethny may get an indirect fitness benefit from saving co-ethnics, but all surviving co-ethnics get the same benefit or a slightly larger one, plus they get to survive. None of my critics here has said a word in answer this argument.

Finn, I’d like to know more about these Finnish heroes you describe, so if you could give me names and links, I would appreciate it. One thing you have to remember about courageous soldiers is that, if they survive, they have throughout human history tended to enjoy high reproductive success—women love a hero. I’ve never seen any reason to think that heroism evolved for any reason other than direct fitness benefits. There may be a few people who display maladaptive levels of heroism, but they are always rare because their genes tend to get outcompeted by those who do not behave maladaptively.

If ethnies punish free-riders, then ethnic cooperation can be explained in terms of the direct fitness benefits deriving from reciprocity without reference to EGIs.

This article has a very simple argument: self-sacrifice for one’s ethny is never rational because any heroic sacrifice brings the greatest benefit to those who do not sacrifice themselves. A hero who sacrifices himself for his ethny may get an indirect fitness benefit from saving co-ethnics, but all surviving co-ethnics get the same benefit or a slightly larger one, plus they get to survive. None of my critics here has said a word in answer this argument.

You are conflating the concept of rationality with acts-that-could-have-been-selected-for in our evolutionary past. This is totally spurious. Admittedly, certain pro-European commentators may have done something similar but it is nonetheless a fallacy.

The weakness of your argument in general is that self-sacrifice for the ethnic group tends to further genetic reproduction, and the fact that such self-sacrifice is not evolutionarily stable does not in any way contradict this.

Basically you have taken one element of thinking, ‘ENT’ as you call it, which may well be wrong but you have used it to attempt to delegitimise the more important point of On Genetic Interests which has nothing to do with selection for ethnic nepotism, and everything to do with how ethnic kinship is analogous to family kinship - the fact that a fitness-maximiser would invest time and effort in his ethnic group and its reproduction.

So much for logic! This is a very dishonest effort, and you have exposed yourself as someone who wishes to deconstruct European ethnic identity. I don’t think many people are going to think of you as ‘pro-white’ (LOL!) anymore.

Ian,

A true example of self-sacrafice for race would be suicide bombers. Their rarity constituting strong evidence against ENT.

You are conflating the concept of rationality with acts-that-could-have-been-selected-for in our evolutionary past. This is totally spurious. Admittedly, certain pro-European commentators may have done something similar but it is nonetheless a fallacy.

I’m quite clear in this article that I’m not just discussing the possibility of evolving instincts for ethnic altruism, but the rationality any kind of ethnic altruism, whatever the motive. As I say:

During my debate with Kevin MacDonald in December, it became clear that there is an important difference between his version of ENT and the standard one. MacDonald thinks that people have no instincts for ethnic altruism, but that such behavior is still evolutionarily rational. MacDonald erroneously attributes the same view to Salter. Therefore, on MacDonald’s version, even though we have no instinctive desire to sacrifice ourselves for our ethnic groups, we should nevertheless do so because our rational intelligence tells us this is the best course. However, this debate is irrelevant to this article, as my argument here is that the Hamiltonian logic behind all versions of ENT is mistaken. Relatedness among co-ethnics cannot justify ethnic altruism for rational actors; therefore, instincts for ethnic altruism cannot evolve on this basis, nor would a rational fitness maximizer sacrifice himself because of ethnic kinship.

Whatever its motive, any kind of self-sacrifice for ethny runs up against the fact that those who do not sacrifice themselves do better than those who do. Thus self-sacrifice for ethny can never be rational or evolutionarily stable. If you don’t think that self-sacrifice for ethny can be evolutionarily stable, then you disagree with Salter, who states that it is—see the discussion in the article.

Ian, are you implying that I am anti-semite and that I have claimed that “logic is all a big Jewish scam”? Is this your normal way of debating?

That dying is easy has been most famously said by infantry general Adolf Ehrnrooth, who was seriously injured in a battle (guts torn to pieces by artillery grenade), but survived. Other Finnish soldiers have said essentially the same thing concerning various situations.

http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Ehrnrooth

The event I told about was in Finnish war book of Valitut Palat (Finnish subsidiary of Reader’s Digest), a company which has published many war books about Finnish WWII. I have loaned that particular book and other similar books from library years ago, so I don’t remember the name of it. It might be one of the following (Some warbooks is mentioned in the link), but there are other Valitut Palat warbooks too:

http://www.hietsunkirjat.net/kirjat/sota.htm

Valitut palat: Kun Suomi taisteli, kk, 15 € Valitut palat: Läpi tulen ja veden - Suomi 1939-1945, A4, kk, 15 € Valitut palat: Maailma palaa - toinen maailmansota 1-3 30 € Valitut Palat: Marskin ritarit - 191 ihmiskohtaloa, A4, kk, 20 € Valitut palat: Ratkaisun hetkiä Suomen kohtalonvuosilta 1939 - 1945, kk, 20 € Valitut palat: Suomalainen korpisoturi - Taistelijan elämää talvi- ja jatkosodassa, kk, 20 € Valitut palat: Suomi sodassa - talvi- ja jatkosodan tärkeät päivät, A4+, kk, 20 € Valitut palat: Talvisodan sankarit - 105 kunnian päivää - 105 legendaa, kk, 20 € Valitut palat: II Maailmansodan sankareita ja vakoilijoita, 2 osaa, yht. 15 € Valitut palat: Tuntematon sota, kk, A4, 20 €

The names of the books in English: When Finland Fought; Through Fire and Water - Finland 1939-1945; World on Fire - Second World War 1-3; The Knights of Mannerheim - 191 Faiths; The Decisive Moments in Faithful Years of Finland 1939-1945; Finnish Guerilla Soldier - The Life of Fighter in Winter- and Continuation War; Finland in War - The Important Days of Winter- and Continuation War; The Heroes of Winter War - 105 Days of Glory - 105 Legends; Heroes and Spies of World War II, 2 parts; Unknown War.

These kinds of self-sacrificial altruism events have been many in Finnish Wars, i.e. there have been situations where people have known or sincerely thought they will die and chose to do so.

Possible pathways; psychological qualities that are favored in peace time that are directly or indirectly connected to propensity to self sacrifice in extreme situations (compare e.g. to multiple purposes of religious and other brain processes, nature often functions in this way) and thus produces more these kinds of people than others despite some losses; the ethnic and other similarity tested in repeated interactions and cooperation leading to propensity in extreme situations to self-sacrifice leads to protection and selection of similar and closely related, among other things self sacrificial, genes in the group.

There are many disadvantages to purely selfish persons in war and peace time (with repeated interaction and cooperation faking is in practice impossible); e.g. in war time others might not help him in different situations and risk for him; not share and give resources to him; not cooperate with him; he might be taken to court and executed; etc.

Jobling: “If ethnies punish free-riders, then ethnic cooperation can be explained in terms of the direct fitness benefits deriving from reciprocity without reference to EGIs.”

• No it can’t. It necessarily must explain part of it (if there is to be cooperation, the fee rider problem must be solved, whatever the group), but there are differences between ethnic ingroup cooperation and e.g. interracial cooperation that can’t be reduced to solving free rider problem. I referred to this in my previous answer. There are several factors influencing cooperation, not just one. Having read so many studies, you should know these things. Do I have to make you a list of studies indicating this.

I wrote: “Having read so many studies, you should know these things.”

More clearly: You have read so many studies related directly to this, so you should know.

Jobling,

Let’s say, hypothetically, that ethnic altruism just makes me happy. I like my co-ethnics, it is a fundamental preference of mine to engage in ethnic nepotism and I don’t care if they are free riding. In what sense is it then irrational for me to indulge in ethnic altriusm?

As I said, you are using a notion of ‘evolutionary rationality’ which is bizarre in that it has nothing to do with our ordinary understanding of rationality, which relates to the optimal fulfilment of our personal desires and goals.

But anyway…I’m fully aware that Salter and others have endorsed the idea that ethnic nepotism is evolutionarily stable, and I’m not too interested in that debate; the issue is with you attempting to delegitimise the concept of ethnic genetic interests in general by failing to distinguish between this side issue, and the more important pro-European content of Salter’s work which is in demonstrating the correspondence between ethnic group(s) and extended family in terms of kinship.

“nor would a rational fitness maximizer sacrifice himself because of ethnic kinship.” [because “any kind of self-sacrifice for ethny runs up against the fact that those who do not sacrifice themselves do better than those who do”].

This is more like it - we are speaking purely in terms of an individual’s fitness maximisation, which is the fundamental issue in EGI, and what you have said is clearly untrue.

The fallacy is in the idea that I can always count on someone else to do the dirty work. Let’s say I have a choice between devoting my time to anti-immigration activism, with the aim of jointly preventing 10 million Bantu from replacing 10 million nordic people, or raising 10 children of my own.

Ideally, I raise the 10 kids and there are in fact enough other people who devote their time to anti-immigration that the 10 million Bantu are all stopped. But if I did choose to do the anti-immigration activism, being smarter than average I reckon I could contribute such that I would be effectively preventing 1000 of the Bantu from replacing us - dwarfing my familial genetic interests.

So if I am wrong, and there is a shortfall of anti-immigration activists, as a fitness maximiser I have done the wrong thing because I could have stopped 1000 Bantu, instead of having the 10 kids.

So you see it is quite reasonable for me to estimate that my fitness interests would be best served by sacrificing my personal reproduction for the sake of my co-ethnics’ reproduction, since it is very plausible that (in our real situation) my defection from pro-European ethnic activism might have a real and large cost to my ethnic group.

Even though it is true that my co-ethnics who do not sacrifice themselves will do better than me, this is immaterial to the calculation that I have to make, which is personal to me: do I contribute to my fitness in a small way by keeping up with my co-ethnics in the familial stakes, or do I let them win at these small stakes and contribute to my fitness, and theirs, at the expense of the Bantu, in a much larger way by being an ethnic activist? Capiche?

Note for realism: But don’t forget that, as Frank Salter tells us in his book, balanced investment across family and ethnic groups is likely to be optimal to the fitness maximiser rather than one extreme or the other.

A side note: I have headache today, so I am not at my best today and can’t see the text properly, but I hope the points of my texts were understandable.

If Jobling asks a list of studies related to what I wrote, I will collect it tomorrow or day after tomorrow.

Lycurgus,

So, using this logic, if it could be shown that the interests real people experience do not correspond well to the interests Salter et all say the genes have, ENT is refuted and we could conclude the genes have no such interests.

Perhaps you mistake my utilization of what is essentially your logic for unalloyed sympathy and agreement with it. Don’t. It is merely to show that by your own logic the conclusions you flesh out do not follow.

They are functionally equivelent claims but they often lead to confusion. I think it’s important to recognise that genes cannot be said to have interests apart from real human interests and behaviours.

You confess preservation of the genetic constitution of the White race tracks very closely to the interests we experience as a result of those very genes! And in so doing, give tacit agreement to the utility of the use of EGI as accomplishing that end. An analogy, those ocular orbs which typically, two of them, reside in a man’s skull, hopefully in yours as well, if you would but open them, are not capable unaided of sighting what we call ‘microscopic’, yet it does not follow that therefore we ought not augment our sight in the pursuit of life interests!

This isn’t about what I personally believe, this is about determining how people really are. I would wager than most people are simply not interested in the “preservation of the white race.”

Nor are many, or in fact most, interested in the goings on of their governments, but it does not follow that they don’t have an interest in not being screwed over by their governments. Or do you disagree?

To address whether ethnic genetic interests are truly genetic interests

Even if there is no evolved mental machinery which more or less automatically dispossess one to act consistent with EGI self-interest dictates that we employ reason to direct our behavior to those same ends anyway. If the ship goes down, you go down with it.

So you see it is quite reasonable for me to estimate that my fitness interests would be best served by sacrificing my personal reproduction for the sake of my co-ethnics’ reproduction, since it is very plausible that (in our real situation) my defection from pro-European ethnic activism might have a real and large cost to my ethnic group.

You’re getting the whole logic of evolution wrong. The strategies that evolve are not those that increase your fitness the most, but the strategies that outcompete others. No matter how much preventing Bantu immigration may serve your genetic interests, if other people benefit more from your sacrifice than you do, they outcompete you evolutionarily. This is the confusion I addressed in the section of the paper called “The trouble with the term ‘adaptive.’”

Ian, are you implying that I am anti-semite and that I have claimed that “logic is all a big Jewish scam”? Is this your normal way of debating?

No, Finn, that is my way of debating people like guessedworker who see in all criticism of their ideas the workings of a Jewish plot. I’ll bet Rushton, Salter, and the rest of them are embarrassed to have supporters like guessedworker.

You still don’t address the main argument of my article, nor do you acknowledge that there are alternative explanations of heroism in warfare.

As I pointed out in the article, if self-sacrifice in warfare really were evolutionarily rational, you would expect it to happen all the time because people would have evolved instincts for it. You’d expect hundreds of thousands or millions of suicide bombings every year. As it is, there are only a few suicide attacks per year.

I’m not sure of the extent to which people actually do preferentially cooperate with co-ethnics, and if they do, under what circumstances. One study I’ve read (the Irwin Silverman article in Indoctrinability, Ideology, and Warfare) found such preferences were very weak. I would like to know more about preferential cooperation among co-ethnics if you have sources. However, EGIs are hardly the only possible explanation of such preferences. For example, if members of an ethnicity differ from others in important respects, whether due to genetic differences or cultural ones, they will naturally tend to want to consort with each other more than with allo-ethnics. For example, say that a given ethny is particularly extroverted. People of this ethnicity will find that their co-ethnics have an intuitive understanding of them and sympathy with their goals in life that will encourage association among them. This is how I explain preferential associations among co-ethnics in Against Genetic Similarity Theory.

Of course, another explanation is that co-ethnics simply tend to live around each other, making it more likely that they will cooperate with each other than with allo-ethnics.

Also, your racial identity influences people’s judgment of you. If your race has a bad reputation, then people will be prejudiced against you. Therefore, it is in the individual’s self-interest to promote the prosperity and success of his race. If your race has a good reputation, then those positive perceptions will aid you individually.

All the phenomena that ENT partisans cite as evidence of their theory have many plausible alternative explanations and ENT partisans have never made much of an effort to prove that their explanation is the right one.

You’re getting the whole logic of evolution wrong. The strategies that evolve are not those that increase your fitness the most, but the strategies that outcompete others. No matter how much preventing Bantu immigration may serve your genetic interests, if other people benefit more from your sacrifice than you do, they outcompete you evolutionarily. This is the confusion I addressed in the section of the paper called “The trouble with the term ‘adaptive.’”

OK, ok. The point I’ve been trying to make is this, simply put:

1. Nobody cares if ethnic nepotism could have evolved*. This is merely tangential to the relevance that On Genetic Interests and ‘EGI’ has to the pro-European movement.

2. What is important is that a rational fitness maximiser would typically choose to engage in some degree of ethnic altruism; undoubtedly he would in our present situation. This is what is persuasive about EGI, and what is meant by ethnic genetic interests: the fact that it’s basically the same thing as promoting your familial reproduction. We feel that this will be a source of rationalisation for guilty, but potentially ethnocentric Europeans.

3. What a fitness maximiser chooses to do has absolutely nothing to do with evolutionary stable strategies, or whether ethnic nepotism is an evolved behaviour. He is just trying to maximise his fitness - trying to maximise his genetic material in future generations of humans. This may involve being outcompeted by his co-ethnics if necessary. I state again, a fitness maximiser doesn’t care if he is being outcompeted evolutionarily by his co-ethnics, provided he is maximising his genetic continuity overall (and being outcompeted in this way may be a necessity for him to maximise his fitness, as I showed in my last post.

4. So I am trying to ensure that naive pro-Europeans won’t be misled by your intentional attempt to delegitimise the useful EGI argument (persuasive truth, source of memes…) by conflating it with something basically different (ENT, the question of whether ethnic nepotism behaviours have evolved or could evolve) that is far more disputable in its veracity.

5. Additionally you have said things, i.e. “nor would a rational fitness maximizer sacrifice himself because of ethnic kinship.”, that do in fact go beyond arguing that ethnic nepotism could not evolve, and into the domain of arguing that ethnic nepotism does not help an individual to pass on his genes. Blatantly.

And that is what I addressed in my last post - only for you to respond as though I was trying to argue about the potential for ethnic nepotism to evolve, which I certainly wasn’t.

*Exaggerated for purposes of getting the point across

Captainchaos,

You’re misunderstanding here. You don’t need to pursuade people to take interest in their children, they just do. This can be said to be properly instinctive. Concern for the race is not. The weight of self interest always overrules extended altruism. Evidence suggests that altruism towards even cousins is weak and drops off sharply beyond that.

Have you read Jobling’s articles at all?

Even if there is no evolved mental machinery which more or less automatically dispossess one to act consistent with EGI self-interest dictates that we employ reason to direct our behavior to those same ends anyway. If the ship goes down, you go down with it.

This is the crux of the matter. What isn’t properly innate cannot be said to be an interest of the genes. Case closed.

The reality is our general behaviours and instincts correspond to furthering our individual genetic interests above all else.

Beyond kin, the basis of cooperation is called reciprocal altruism. So, in some cases it might suit people to work with co-ethnics, but in other cases it would suit them to work with less related people. This is how people really behave.

This understanding best explains our overall observations in the real world. It can account for ethno centrism and it’s exceptions while ENT’ers are at a loss to explain the rise of our multi-racial societies and the broad discrimination against racists without resorting to some conspiracy theory.

The first step is to settle what “is.” The next question is what we “ought” to do. We can discuss the full implications of living an EGI worldview if you’d like in a next post and let’s see if we really want to live in such a world.

What is important is that a rational fitness maximiser would typically choose to engage in some degree of ethnic altruism; undoubtedly he would in our present situation. This is what is persuasive about EGI, and what is meant by ethnic genetic interests: the fact that it’s basically the same thing as promoting your familial reproduction.

No, my whole argument is that sacrifice for ethnic interests is always irrational from an evolutionary point of view, even if it is motivated by rational choice. If someone is concerned about maximizing the prevalence of his genotype, he will not sacrifice himself because in doing so, he will be aiding competing genotypes more than his own.

And I’m not saying that anti-immigration or pro-white activism is always irrational. It may be quite rational in some cases, but never because of EGIs. For example, other whites may be grateful to you if you help them out, and this gratitude may translate into increased fitness for a pro-white activist—for example, women may find you more sexually attractive because of your efforts. But it is only rational to be an activist if that is likely to increase your own fitness.

Also, your racial identity influences people’s judgment of you. If your race has a bad reputation, then people will be prejudiced against you.

Excellent point. For example, not only are Whites more wary of Blacks, but Blacks are also more wary of other Blacks, due to the general criminality associated with the race.

It is not the case that Blacks feel safer if they bump into a group of co-ethnic Blacks in a dark alley at night…

WN’s like to cite examples where Whites show preference for other Whites but they ignore evidence that shows other races also showing preference for Whites, such evidence runs contrary to what EGI would seem to predict.

I think what Ian is trying to get across is that strategies that in principle could benefit the collective gene pool of an ethny are not neccessarily optimal survival strategies. And ultimately only the strategies which have survival value really count because maladaptive strategies regardless of how they might in principle benefit the gene pool of an ethny, get selected out.

No, my whole argument is that sacrifice for ethnic interests is always irrational from an evolutionary point of view, even if it is motivated by rational choice. If someone is concerned about maximizing the prevalence of his genotype, he will not sacrifice himself because in doing so, he will be aiding competing genotypes more than his own. And I’m not saying that anti-immigration or pro-white activism is always irrational. It may be quite rational in some cases, but never because of EGIs. For example, other whites may be grateful to you if you help them out, and this gratitude may translate into increased fitness for a pro-white activist—for example, women may find you more sexually attractive because of your efforts. But it is only rational to be an activist if that is likely to increase your own fitness. By Ian Jobling on 2/20/10 at 3:58 pm

So you are indeed disputing the idea that someone who is trying to pass on his genes (crudely speaking) should ever sacrifice having children in order to promote the reproduction of his ethnic group.

This is false. You say that he would be aiding competing genotypes more than his own, but what is really happening? Let’s say an individual has this choice: prevent 1000 Bantu from replacing 1000 Englishmen and have no children, or have 10 children but allow 1000 Bantu to replace 1000 English co-ethnics.

In scenario A, he is aiding competing genotypes by failing to have children. However, he is aiding his own genotype by promoting the reproduction of his ethnic group, who are essentially like his children when they are compared to Bantu.

In scenario B, he is aiding competing genotypes by allowing Bantu (relatively different to his genotype) to replace Englishmen (relatively similar to his genotype). However, he is aiding his own genotype by having children.

So the only question is, what is the relative magnitude of these benefits vs. losses to the prevalence of his genotype in each of the two scenarios?

Salter provides ‘child-equivalent’ tables for reproductive losses due to replacement migration between ethnic groups, specifically for this purpose of comparing fitness gains due to having children to fitness gains due to supporting ethnic reproduction - and referring to those tables, the ethnic genetic interest at stake far exceeds the familial genetic interest in this case.

So it is untrue to say that in scenario A he will be aiding competing genotypes more than his own, basically because although he is aiding all others just a little by not having children, and that means he loses out slightly to all of his co-ethnics, he is benefiting his own genotype (as well as those of his co-ethnics) a great deal at the expense of the Bantu.

In relative terms, considering just the possible outcomes from scenario A or scenario B, in scenario A his co-ethnics are huge winners, he is merely a big winner, and the Bantu are huge losers whereas in scenario B he and his co-ethnics are equally huge losers and the Bantu are huge winners.

So scenario A is the best for the fitness maximiser. The outcome of scenario A is that the average genotype of the human population in general is more similar to the individual than it would be had he chosen scenario B, and that is all that the fitness maximiser is concerned with.

Ian, if we always act with our own genealogy in mind verses our “ethnies” then why is the white population breeding significantly less?

It would seem that this fact invalidates the belief that the majority of the population always acts in a “evolutionarily rational” manner or that we innately act with our own genealogy in mind.

In scenario A, he is aiding competing genotypes by failing to have children. However, he is aiding his own genotype by promoting the reproduction of his ethnic group, who are essentially like his children when they are compared to Bantu.

Co-ethnics share many genes with the altruist, but not all, so they are genetic competitors. The people who outcompete the altruist are co-ethnics who do not sacrifice themselves but free-ride on the sacrifice of the altruist. The free-riding co-ethnics get the same indirect fitness benefits as the altruist from his sacrifice but do not pay the same cost.

Salter provides ‘child-equivalent’ tables for reproductive losses due to replacement migration between ethnic groups, specifically for this purpose of comparing fitness gains due to having children to fitness gains due to supporting ethnic reproduction - and referring to those tables, the ethnic genetic interest at stake far exceeds the familial genetic interest in this case.

The whole point of the article (have you read it?) is to show why this type of thinking is wrong, not only in theorizing ethnicity but also kinship. Please stop asking me questions that I have already answered.

Co-ethnics share many genes with the altruist, but not all, so they are genetic competitors. The people who outcompete the altruist are co-ethnics who do not sacrifice themselves but free-ride on the sacrifice of the altruist. The free-riding co-ethnics get the same indirect fitness benefits as the altruist from his sacrifice but do not pay the same cost.

Right, but the point is that it may be necessary for the individual in question to put up with this unfairness, if he is to maximise his fitness. If, as may well be the case (for reasons already stated), he has the choice between ethnic altruism and being exploited by his co-ethnics, or ethnic indifference and suffering race replacement, as a fitness maximiser he is going to have to accept being outcompeted either by his co-ethnics or by ethnic aliens, and in an age of mass migration it will tend to be the case that the former causes less of a fitness harm to him than the latter does.

I don’t have anything more to say, unless you come up with something new, because I’ve proven you wrong: a rational fitness maximiser will sometimes engage in varying degrees of ethnic altruism.

Ian, if we always act with our own genealogy in mind verses our “ethnies” then why is the white population breeding significantly less? It would seem that this fact invalidates the belief that the majority of the population always acts in a “evolutionarily rational” manner or that we innately act with our own genealogy in mind.

Easy: Birth control

Remember, our interests/instincts evolved in different circumstances than we’re living in now. Birth control and access to abortions has never been so easy. This is a novel challenge.

This in no way refutes Ian’s thesis though. It still doesn’t make it rational to sacrafice yourself for your ethnic group. Although, I wouldn’t mind being proven wrong by some of the more radical WN’s suicide bombing themselves.

Evolution isn’t a perfect process, it’s largely trial and error.

he has the choice between ethnic altruism and being exploited by his co-ethnics, or ethnic indifference and suffering race replacement, as a fitness maximiser he is going to have to accept being outcompeted either by his co-ethnics or by ethnic aliens

Those aren’t the only two possible outcomes. If he doesn’t sacrifice himself, he has a chance of outcompeting everyone, that is, a chance of evolutionary success, so that’s the only rational choice.

Those aren’t the only two possible outcomes. If he doesn’t sacrifice himself, he has a chance of outcompeting everyone, that is, a chance of evolutionary success, so that’s the only rational choice. By Ian Jobling on 2/20/10 at 6:28 pm

I already addressed this point. Sure, that would be the ideal, but this ‘chance’ of fitness perfection might be very small. Take an extreme example: you’re a genius, the potential Habermas of the pro-Europeans, whose persuasive writing could determine whether or not one million Bantu get to replace one million nordics.

Do you invest time in writing, meaning that you only manage to raise one child but have a good shot at radically altering the demographic fate of your ethnic group, or do you concentrate on raising a larger family and hope that someone else will emerge to do the job that you could be doing?

The best imaginable fitness outcome would be one in which you concentrated on raising a family, and enough other great pro-European thinkers emerged such that your contribution to ethnic reproduction would be roughly nil if you did write, because your ethnic group is burgeoning - but rationality would demand that you assess the probability of different outcomes, in which case you would see that there’s a 99.99% chance that your fitness will be maximised by writing and having a small family - therefore ethnic altruism would be the rational behaviour.

lycurgus, that doesn’t answer my question, the availability of birth control is not important, the fact that its being consciously used is.

If you use Ians standards the population is acting irrationally. This is why I consider the argument over what is “evolutionarily rational” ultimately irrelevant, because what is “evolutionarily rational” from our perspective has no effect on what the population actually does.

I don’t think the lack of suicide bombing has any impact on the validity of self sacrifice given that suicide bombing will not likely advance our cause at this point. Should a scenario present itself where there was likely gain from doing so I am sure suicide bombings would occur.

Etch,

No people don’t always act in ways that are evolutionarily rational, but I never claimed they did. I merely said that ethnic altruism was not evolutionarily rational. And it is far from the case that what is evolutionarily rational has no effect on what we do. Every single one of our instincts (eating, loving our children, sexual attraction) exists because it served to promote our fitness in the past. People who act in evolutionarily rational ways now will win out in the evolutionary game: future generations of humans will be more like them than people who act in evolutionarily irrational ways. Salter and I are proposing alternative strategies of winning that game.

Etch,

The desire and enjoyment of sex is what drives reproduction, not an abstract purpose of gene propagation, although that happens as consequence. Our more innate tendencies give us clues as to what our “genetic interests” really are, or rather what served as adaptive strategies in our past.

Again, genes don’t really have interests, strictly speaking. Simply, an organism with the best survival strategy will out-compete others and the characterestics that make up that organism will therefore persist. That is how this process works.

It does not follow, that serving one’s ethnic interests automatically amounts to the most rational survival strategy though, infact as Ian has pointed out, it clearly isn’t the optimal strategy. Rather, “self centeredness” has been predominantly selected for in nature, and is at the core of our behaviours.

Also, guys, don’t get me wrong. I’m not at all advocating that we act selfishly in total disregard of others. That wouldn’t be rational.

I’m pro-(rational-)altruism. I’m pro-cooperation. Only I recognise the basis of that cooperation between individuals is conditional, and is optimally conditional. No free riders.

I’ll be very busy with work from now, so I’m going to just make a quick summary of my thoughts and then bow out of the debate until later.

As I said before, the first step is settling what “is.”

This scenario I present here is what I currently think is the more accurate description of what is.

• Beyond a mild degrees of ethnic preference, it is clear that individual instincts/behaviours in humans do not correspond with any significant broader concern for ethnic genetic interests. Rather, self interest dominates.

• It appears that people care primarily about themselves, and their immediate families, especially their children, but not much beyond that. Altruism towards even cousins is weak and thereafter drops off sharply.

• The basis for cooperation beyond kin is best explained by reciprocal altruism. In some circumstances it would benefit an individuals self-interest to help more related individuals, but in other circumstances it might benefit him more to help less related individuals.

• Group interests appears contingent on individual self-interests, which as discussed above, do not neccessarily correspond to ethnic interests. A good example of this is in our society: racists now represent an outgroup and are discriminated against by the majority.

Now, this all makes perfect sense because in our ancient past the majority of our competitors would have looked the same and been of the same race, therefore, any significant degree of instinctive racial altruism would have been selected out.

The evolutionary process is simple: An organism with the better survival/reproductive strategy will out-compete others and the characterestics that make up that organism will therefore persist. And, as pointed out in Ian’s articles (read them!), it does not follow that strategies that in principle could optimally benefit the collective gene pool of an ethny be neccessarily optimal survival strategies.

So, based on this understanding of nature, the next step is determining what we “ought” to do. What then should our purpose be and on what principles do we derive that? Do we align our purpose on what can be determined as an evolutionarily optimal strategy? What type of world do we want to live in? This is the next big question and the answer requires some thought.

Thanks for the debate everyone. Will pop in again.

Ian,

There are two main problems with this article:

One is that the title is profoundly misleading. You don’t even make the claim within the article that you are proving the irrelevance of ethnic genetic interests! Rather you merely claim that there’s a barrier to the evolution of Self-Sacrificial Ethnic Nepotism, making the title a misnomer that should be changed in the interests of basic honesty.

The other problem is that your entire argument is based on the lie that “Doing Nothing as Someone Else Sacrifices Themselves for the Ethny” is an Evolutionary Strategy.

It is NO SUCH THING, as there’s no way for the Genes to know whether someone else is going to sacrifice themselves for the Ethny or not.

Rather the Evolutionary Strategy that bears the closest resemblance to the one you describe is the “Do Nothing to Help or Save the Ethny No Matter What” Evolutionary Strategy.

And here’s the thing, to evaluate the success of the Do Nothing Evolutionary Strategy you have to look at EVERYONE following it, including people in Tribes where no one risks themselves for the good of the racial group, including Tribes where the entire racial group suffers devastatingly lowered fitness.

Let’s say there are two strategies, the Jephthah Strategy, which involves self-sacrifice for the sake of gaining victory for your Jewish Tribe over the Ammonites, and the Selfish Strategy. Of what benefit is it to the Selfish Strategy if a Tribe with a member following the Jephthah Strategy defeats a Tribe without any members following the Jephthah Strategy?

From the Standpoint of the Selfish Strategy, all the benefits Israeli followers of the Selfish Strategy got out of Jephthah’s victory were made up for by the harm done to Ammonite followers of the Selfish Strategy.

In contrast, the Jephthah Strategy benefited from the victory, because Genes that weren’t related to an example of the Jephthah Strategy were replaced by the Genes that were related to an example of the Jephthah Strategy.

Thus the Genotype of the average Human in the area was pushed at least a little towards the Jephthah Strategy, and at least a little further away from the Selfish Strategy.

Now, of course, in most cases out and out sacrifice is stupid from an evolutionary perspective because there’s usually no benefit from it, due to the fact that after you’re dead there isn’t anything you can do to help your Family and/or Tribe. (I suppose this may be changing somewhat in recent times because of the phenomenon of Muslim Suicide Bombing.)

However, there have been many cases in History people have been able to help their Ethnic Kin by risking their life and/or the lives of their family members.

It is this behavior that has been, to an extent, selected for.

To put it simply: Salter is right, and you are completely wrong.

Reginald,

Not only do I prove that self-sacrifice for ethny is evolutionarily irrational, but I also examine the possibility of ethnic nepotism without sacrifice and conclude that it is unlikely to be evolutionarily rational often enough to make any difference. So I think I’ve proven that EGIs are irrelevant to human behavior.

The rest of your comment I already answered in our previous discussion.

Jobling: “If someone is concerned about maximizing the prevalence of his genotype, he will not sacrifice himself because in doing so, he will be aiding competing genotypes more than his own.”

• Jobling assumes that there is absolute contradiction between the self and other ethny members and the relation is nothing but pure competition, unless strictly reciprocated. There are many degrees of altruisms. Jobling might have 50 children, but if his ethny has become extinct, there will be no future Joblings. Jobling’s genes will soon disappear without a trace to the sea of brown and black. However, if Jobling’s ethny is alive and well, even if he doesn’t have children at all, his ethnic genetic sea will produce many better versions of Jobling. Thus Jobling’s long term interests, if he is rational, is in his ethny.

Developmental psychological studies have found that even very young children show clear and often quite rigid disdain for children whose ethnic and racial heritages differ from their own, even in the apparent absence of experiental and socialization effects (Aboud, 1988)

The preference people have for ethnic, cultural and other group similarity together with methods that ensure cooperation and reciprocity make it more likely that the people to whom a person is sometimes, if need be, altruistic, are as similar as possible, including the altruism.

Altruism should be perceived also as caring for other people’s best interests, not just giving with partial reciprocity, indirect reciprocity or without reciprocity (Wilson and Sober, 1998). This can be manifested in many ways. E.g. person X maybe a multibillionaire, who could altruistically buy everything for his cousins, so that they would not have to work, and without affecting X financially. But it would spoil the cousins. If X cares about his cousins, he let’s them earn a living, generally requests reciprocity in some ways if he gives, and gives altruistically without reciprocity only if it is (absolutely) necessary.

Self sacrifice for ethny in war is not done lightly. It often happens in compelling situations, when ethny is under grave threat (See my previous comments for possible explanation why possible free riders won’t succeed in overwhelming the group). If group is large enough, say a national group, there are always some number of free-riders despite (normal or austere) group methods that create disadvantages to them.

Although more acts of everyday altruism are directed to friends than to relatives (e.g., Stewart-Williams, 2007), things go differently when the costs of altruism are higher. If help is biologically significant (for example, donating a kidney rather than simply giving someone a little spare change), people do indeed prefer to help relatives—not only more than nonrelatives (Burnstein, Crandall, and Kitayama, 1994; Sime, 1983), but also more than friends (Stewart-Williams, 2007). This suggests that, in agreement with the principle of inclusive fitness, the relationship between genetic relatedness and helping behavior depends crucially on the costs (and proportional benefits) of the altruistic act.

Jewish group has survived as a group over five thousand years through extreme conditions, longer than any other group. They are known for ingroup charity and self-sacrifice in extreme situations. Clearly free riders don’t overwhelm partial and/or ultimate altruists, otherwise these traits would have been selected out. I prefer this seriously tested strategy over Jobling’s strategy

Lycurgus: “WN’s like to cite examples where Whites show preference for other Whites but they ignore evidence that shows other races also showing preference for Whites, such evidence runs contrary to what EGI would seem to predict.”

• Whatever the preference percentages, they don’t tell directly about the efficiency of Egi as strategy. To be truly efficient, it has to be materialized with certain group methods, including perhaps selection for more propensity towards endogamy. This is necessary because Egi requires coordination, solving free rider problem, more independence from outside institutions, etc. Liberal society strives towards atomization, and differentiation of individual identities and preferences, so that they are easy to rule centrally.

Dating preferences in very liberal and actively indoctrinating Columbia university:

FISMAN ET AL. RACIAL PREFERENCES IN DATING, 2008

Fraction Yeses for female and male subjects

  White      Black      Hispanic   Asian      All Races

Female subjects White 0·38 (1238) 0·27 (95) 0·27 (133) 0·16 (299) 0·33 (1765) Black 0·48 (141) 0·89 (9) 0·63 (16) 0·31 (35) 0·48 (201) Hispanic 0·39 (221) 0·42 (19) 0·50 (26) 0·23 (71) 0·37 (337) Asian 0·45 (470) 0·40 (40) 0·42 (55) 0·44 (131) 0·44 (696) All races 0·40 (2070) 0·36 (163) 0·36 (230) 0·25 (536) 0·37 (2999) Male subjects White 0·49 (1238) 0·41 (141) 0·50 (221) 0·35 (470) 0·46 (2070) Black 0·59 (95) 0·67 (9) 0·63 (19) 0·43 (40) 0·56 (163) Hispanic 0·49 (133) 0·38 (16) 0·46 (26) 0·29 (55) 0·43 (230) Asian 0·53 (299) 0·37 (35) 0·38 (71) 0·47 (131) 0·48 (536) All races 0·50 (1765) 0·41 (201) 0·48 (337) 0·37 (696) 0·46 (2999)

“Not only do I prove that self-sacrifice for ethny is evolutionarily irrational…”

No you didn’t.

If doing something makes it so there’s more copies of your alleles than there would’ve been otherwise, then it IS evolutionarily rational.

How hard is that to understand?

“The rest of your comment I already answered in our previous discussion.”

But that answer was based on a failure on your part to understand the nature of additive inheritance.

Also, you completely failed to answer the response to your answer I gave that began with me writing: “Your missing my point that I think Self-Sacrifice is a genetically influenced Spectrum…”

BTW, don’t censor this and therefore confirm the stereotype that all Philosemites are Free Speech suppressing Communists who run away from open debate.

WNs,

Neither me or Jobling has denied a degree of preference in mating pattern for one’s own race, it’s broad instinctive racial altruism that we’re questioning. Also, atleast in my case, I don’t deny ethnic bias, I just observe that it’s not particularly significant and generally overruled by other real life interests. As a result, it’s not a priority for people and even Salter/MacDonald will admit this to some extent, the dispute is rather over what we “ought” to be doing.

Now, there is evidence that people generally prefer their own race for mating, actually, to take it further, there is evidence women are biased in favour of mates that resemble the father, even when adopted, this is largely driven by sexual imprinting (socialization with the father at a young age.)

That being said, the degree of interracial attraction and pairing is non-trivial and has dramatically increased over the last few decades. Nearly half of Native born UK Black males have White partners and Whites and Blacks are about as different as you can get. It’s easy to claim multicultural propaganda is to blame, but we could also blame racist propaganda for patterns prior to these trends.

It’s clear racial attitudes are hugely influenced by culture. For example, in a charity experiment (Fong, Luttmer 2007), on average Whites gave equally to Whites as they did Blacks, but what’s interesting here, is that we came to that average from a segment of Whites hugely biased against Blacks, but then an equally significant segment of Whites hugely biased against Whites!

The study explains that, on average, charitable giving to Katrina victims is not affected by the perceived race of the recipients. Racial bias does, however, exist within certain subgroups of whites. Whites who say they identify with their ethnic or racial group give significantly less to blacks, and whites who say they do not identify with their ethnic or racial group give significantly more to blacks.

Also, on theoretical grounds, wouldn’t the consequence of us preferring our own race for mating require that most of our competitors for this prime resource be of the same race too, and as such, select against ethnic nepotism? Ethnic bias therefore cannot be explained as an extension of kin selection for this reason (intra-ethnic competition) and I can’t see how ENT can get around this.

Actually, it’s sad that it’s not the only game in town. White people would not be in such dire straits if it were a stronger force. ~Kevin MacDonald

I concur and that isn’t far off from what we’ve been saying all along!

BTW, don’t censor this and therefore confirm the stereotype that all Philosemites are Free Speech suppressing Communists who run away from open debate.

Is this accusation really fair and does it belong in this debate?

I think the whole problem with debates like these is that they are so politically charged on all sides, result being a loss of objectivity. Let’s try to keep our agenda’s out of it, and focus on the science.

“Also, on theoretical grounds, wouldn’t the consequence of us preferring our own race for mating require that most of our competitors for this prime resource be of the same race too, and as such, select against ethnic nepotism? Ethnic bias therefore cannot be explained as an extension of kin selection for this reason (intra-ethnic competition) and I can’t see how ENT can get around this.”

It is better to lose to someone who is like yourself, then someone who is not.

While I will do what I can to avoid losing, I will also put myself in a position so if I do lose the damage will be minimized.

Like I said, I think you guys have a myopic view.

Anyway, Ian and lycurgus, what do you want done?

Additions to the liberal Columbia university dating table:

a)The participants were self selected to be tolerant, because they were informed about multiracial potential partners of the “dating service”.

b) Men are in general more interested in casual sex than women, who are more interested in forming relationship. This explains part of the interracial partner choices of men.

c) Shared interests didn’t affect same race preferences.

d) The study didn’t control how many dates were followed by marriage or long relationship. Marriage and long relationships reduce interracial partnerships.

Other things:

Free riding is based on mostly on saving energy and resources. That is useful and crucial quality and it turns into bad quality only in certain social contexts. The movement from saving energy to cooperation could be seen as threshold. People save their energy and resources until they see the social cooperation to be worthy and compelling enough to use their energy. Without this threshold groups would consume people’s energies to worthless tasks. This threshold makes it more likely that groups fulfill certain necessary conditions in their functions.

Studies and statistics, as useful they are, lead quite often astray too. E.g. on average something with certain limiting factors and givens. This doesn’t necessary tell us much about the underlying reality or possibilities.

That ethnic interests doesn’t steer society doesn’t tell us about the usefulness of it or it’s potential. In the same way low trust in a group doesn’t mean that it is desirable or that there are no other possibilities. Atomized, distantly centrally and hierarchically governed Western individuals don’t have the necessary social bonds and the consequent commitments and convictions to resist the manipulation of liberal society. In modern society power is mostly embedded in environment and things that just seem to happen to be or happen, so people don’t know about their existence.

Let’s say there are about 20% people who have such strong propensities that they are highly likely to stay endogamous despite environmental factors, 60% people who could go either way depending on environmental influences and personal situation, despite certain propensity to endogamy and 20% people who are either mildly endogamous or have propensity to intermarry, and thus are likely candidates of mixed marriages in the pressures of liberal society. Everybody in liberal society is heavily primed long time towards liberalism before marriages, business transactions, research participations and other events in life. People often don’t tell their true thoughts publicly and might act in expected ways to please e.g. scientists/ other authorities. If then research is done about what is on average, there is no reason to accept this situation as given. Also it is likely that when people are loose individuals in society, they are more willing to punish generally their own people, partly because they are not coherent and cooperative, but in liberal society this predisposition might be distorted to become destructive towards their own people, because liberal society favors that and punishes contrary expressions (anti-White policies).

If White groups and communities are formed, where people are on average more ethnocentric than Whites in general, these can be cores from which positive change radiates to the environment. It is likely that we will lose the most of the least ethnocentric Whites (~20%), but most of the others are eventually within reach. The remaining Whites have on average more propensity to ethnocentrism than the original population, which makes cooperation etc. easier.

Addition to my comments on altruism. Apart from the consideration when it is good to the recipient and when not, there are other questions. How much resources person can give? Potential recipients are countless and limited resources are quickly dealt away (even quite close relatives are numerous). Does the giver have any control over the use of given resources? How much there is immaterial reciprocity to counter the material resources given; thank yous, lasting friendliness, joy in seeing a positive outcome from the well used resources etc.? How well the giver and recipient know each other and how often they meet? How close friends they are? How much they have revealed from themselves to each other (one measure of closeness)?

Clearly altruism is a special method that should be used in special cases, because as a generalized method it would be destructive to both givers and recipients. Reciprocity is a norm and altruism can sometimes supplement it if necessary.

The operation of kin selection requires that we discriminate in favour of our kin, even if this comes at a cost to our racial group.

The best evolutionary survival strategy wins, period, regardless of how it may or may not benefit the gene pool of an ethnic group (variously defined.) The line is drawn around close kin, because genuine extra-kin altruism is maladaptive. Why is it maladaptive? Because the majority of our competitors come from the same racial group.

Even if there is a type of mild (no-cost) racial altruism, the weight of self-interest will always overrule it, rendering the force weak and irrelevant when pitted against the multitude of competing interests individuals face all the time in the real world. %0

a Finn

The debate isn’t strictly about mate preference, but rather about racial altruism and to what extent it could have been selected for, if at all.

Just some comments in regard to people willing to sacrafice for their groups.

We shouldn’t underestimate the complexity of in/outgroup formulation.

Now, I agree that people clearly show preference and are willing to risk their lives for their group, that isn’t the issue, but membership is not neccessarily defined by how people look, but rather by shared interests, not neccessarily shared ethnic interests either.

eg. I’m an Ex-skinhead, we struggled violently against anti-racists, many of which were White, along with other races and they were just as willing to risk their lives, on behalf of their anti-racist groups, in efforts against us! Many skins (and even more moderate racialists) around the world have similar experiences as mine.

This scenario of broad discrimination against racists is just unthinkable unless you admit EN as a low priority force. Moreover, there are strong scientific objections to this sort of group selection that have still not been answered.

Anyway, Ian and lycurgus, what do you want done?

Very good question, and I think this question of yours can actually move our debate further.

I don’t have the answer to this one, so I’ll give it more thought, however, through a process of elimination I can tell you that telling people they must obey their EGI’s is not going to be effective. It’s completely at odds with peoples real interests and desires. People don’t behave that way and nor are they going to respond that sort of reasoning whatsoever.

Perhaps Ian’s website is intended to come up with such an answer, though.

Lycurgus: “The operation of kin selection requires that we discriminate in favour of our kin, even if this comes at a cost to our racial group.”

• What is a racial group? It is an abstraction if it is not realized somehow. People have an ability to know well about 150 people. That is real to people. Race as a real factor needs socialization, groups, hierarchies, organizations, perhaps government; or some kind of community network structure (the latter is what I recommend) etc. Left to their own people operate from their small view and as a default position favour their relatives, even if this comes at a cost to their race. This can go so far, that the race is destroyed by interactions of the small views of people; people destroyed along with the race (Hardin, 1968).

A small list of studies, which talk about factors that among other things facilitate intraethnic cooperation: (Otten and Bar-Tal, 2002)(Otten and Wentura, 2001)(Greenwald et. al., 2002)(Talaska, Fiske and Chaiken, 2004)(Dovidio, Brigham, Johnson and Gaertner, 1996)(Duckitt, 2001)(Stephan and Stephan, 2000)(Neuberg, Smith and Asher, 2000)(Schaller and Conway, 2001)(Ruscher, 2001)(Tajfel, 1970)(Pettigrew, 1979)(Swin and Sanna, 1996)(Hewstone, 1990)(Simon, 1992)(Maas, Salvi, Alcuri and Semin, 1989)(Allport, 1979)(Rojahn and Pettigrew, 1992)(Stangor and McMillan, 1992)(Fiske, 1998)(Fiske 2000)(Taylor, Fiske, Etcoff and Ruderman, 1978)(Hewstone et. al., 2002)(Spencer et. al., 1998)(Wilder and Shapiro, 1989)(Crocker, Major and Steele, 1998)(Richeson and Shelton, 2003)(Rubin and Hewstone, 1998)(Vorauer and Kumhyr, 2001)(Hart et. al. 2000)(Phelps et. al. 2000)(Brown, 2000)(Capozza and Brown, 2000)(Leyens, Yzerbyt and Schadron, 1992 and 1994)(Bodenhausen and Macrae, 1998)(Brewer, 1988)(Fiske and Neuberg, 1990)(Kunda and Spencer, 2003)(Kunda and Oleson, 1995)(Ditto and Lopez, 1992)(Yzerbyt and Leyens 1991)(Brewer and Lui, 1989)(Park, Wolsko and Judd, 2001)(Macrae, Bodenhausen, Milne and Jetten, 1994)(Macrae et. al. 1996)(Sherman et. al. 1997) Etc.

a Finn

What is a racial group? It is an abstraction if it is not realized somehow. People have an ability to know well about 150 people. That is real to people. Race as a real factor needs socialization, groups, hierarchies, organizations, perhaps government; or some kind of community network structure (the latter is what I recommend) etc. Left to their own people operate from their small view and as a default position favour their relatives, even if this comes at a cost to their race. This can go so far, that the race is destroyed by interactions of the small views of people; people destroyed along with the race (Hardin, 1968).

No disagreement there. Infact that’s precisely what we observe.

We were clearly built for living in very small tribal units. Although, even at perhaps a cost of trust and charity, Nation-states have provide tremendous benefits of their own, economically, militarily and I don’t think small tribal societies can compete with that. Nationalism requires to some extent the subjugation of our tribal loyalties in favour of something (unatturally?) bigger.

Thanks for the studies.

“The best evolutionary survival strategy wins, period, regardless of how it may or may not benefit the gene pool of an ethnic group (variously defined.) The line is drawn around close kin, because genuine extra-kin altruism is maladaptive.”

Lycurgus,

If it makes sense for me to side with my Brother over my Cousin, than it also makes sense for me to side with my Cousin over an unrelated member of my Racial Group.

In the exact same way, it makes sense for me to side with an unrelated member of my Racial Group over a member of another Racial Group.

Ethnic Altruism is Context Dependent, which is what you don’t seem capable of understanding.

Now maybe if I see a White Man fighting a Black I should run out, get my Brother, have by Brother take the place of the White Man, and then side with my Brother against the Black.

In theory that might make sense, but it would never work from a practical standpoint.

And if you doubt people are programmed to side with unrelated members of their Tribe over members of other Tribes, just take a look at what happens in Jail!

Almost always the Prison Gangs segregate by Race, and when there’s an interracial fight all the Blacks will be on the same side, all the Hispanics will be on the same side, and all the Whites will be on the same side.

I think the only fair conclusion here can be that racial altruism is not significantly innate.

The interesting thing about that charity study was that the biggest predicting factor in regard to how much was given to Blacks was one’s social identification with race, rather than race itself.

Therefore, if we wanted people to respond in ways favourable to race, it would need to be socialized into them, cuz it’s not happening by itself. The problem is, because EN is such a weak force, people aren’t going to respond to broad appeals for racial altruism, especially when there are other games in town that they can benefit more from.

Personally, I firmly reject the ideal of putting EGI’s above everything else. That would undermine Nationalism and every benefit that it brings, especially in a diverse place as the USA. I am more interested in exploring ways and means that would allow people’s to cooperate better on a National scale. That’s all I have to say for now.

Reginald,

If you were even halfway correct a multi-racial PC society like ours could not exist.

In your example of a White and Black guy fighting, who we ultimately would support will depend on the circumstances. Who the belligerent was for example. Here, perceptions of right or wrong are more important than race. There is seldom a case of “all things being equal we’d support our race” and in conflicts of interests and values, ethnic concerns get overruled.

The truth is, we aren’t programmed to side with our racial group. We’re programmed to side with whatever group serves our self-interest and personal values the best. Sometimes that’s our racial group, and sometimes it isn’t. If there is a personal reward attached to betraying your race, that is exactly what people will do and without a second thought.

…and I can cite examples of this too. There are many racially mixed anti-racist groups (eg. ARA)who stand AGAINST white racialist groups, and by extension AGAINST white ethnic interests. You read about them all the time and infact, that is even true in my own experience and Skins all throughout the USA and Europe can relate. I’ve fought far more with Whites than I’ve ever with Blacks over the very issue of white ethnic interests.

Concede like MacDonald has, that ethnic nepotism is weak and more often than not, overruled by other interests.

My main concern is not about whether ethnocentrism could evolve. I’ve already stated my predominant objections to this ill-intentioned piece.

Nonetheless, I shall make the following comments:

a) Lycurgus, would you not agree that the instinct to have children is very strong? And yet this instinct is often thwarted in the modern West, such that many are childless and many more have only 1 or 2 children when they could easily support more. In particular, proximate instincts related to reproduction (e.g. lust for sex) can be subverted from reproductive purposes.

It follows that although many Europeans do not behave ethnocentrically, this is not evidence that ethnocentric instincts (instincts that evolved - assuming they have evolved - because of benefits from diverting altruism to more rather than less to ethnically similar people) are necessarily ‘very weak’. Again, strong proximate drives are often subverted in the modern world (e.g. in our evolutionary past, tribal adornments, rituals and demarking behaviours would have denoted ethnic descent group membership, but now potential ethnocentrism related to this is diverted to constitutional patriotism, support for a football team etc.)

What I am providing here is not really a comment about the likelihood of the evolution of ethnocentrism, but the fact that by your logic childbearing must also be a fairly weak instinct (which I’m sure you don’t believe).

b) Another problem is that your examples aren’t true! Multi-racial societies are not unified, trustful and ‘colour-blind’ by any means. People try to escape racial diversity when possible, even if they say otherwise (although immigrants can move in amongst Europeans, secure in the knowledge that they’ll soon be surrounded by co-ethnics). And it’s well known and seen by everyone that racial and ethnic groups tend to side with each other in fights and confrontations, and liberal whites are really the exception to the rule. You can selectively point to modern, urban NW Europeans as your example, but it is not as though there aren’t a lot of serious factors that might be keeping a fairly strong ethnocentric nature in check where they are concerned.

If ethnocentrism is such a weak inclination, then why are we treated to invasive indoctrination, restriction of liberty, and constant negative conditioning towards ‘racism’ (e.g. frequent regurgitation of the Holocaust narrative nearly 70 years after the event, and a related association of all Euro-ethnocentrism with Nazism)? It seems that a huge amount of effort goes into suppressing ethnocentrism in Europeans, given that it is supposedly a very weak inclination.

c) Again to Lycurgus, you are wrong when you say ‘I can tell you that telling people they must obey their EGI’s is not going to be effective. It’s completely at odds with peoples real interests and desires. People don’t behave that way and nor are they going to respond that sort of reasoning whatsoever.’

How do I know? Because the EGI concept played a significant role in easing me into a state of mind in which I am comfortable with European ethnocentrism and ethnic advocacy - an emphatic counter-example.

EGI combats harmful memes such as ‘race does not exist’; it helps potentially ethnocentric Europeans to combat the socially-instilled guilt and inhibition that such memes help to maintain in them. It is not something that is likely to move the average Joe who has no trace of ideological dissent in him, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t highly important to the pro-European movement.

I’m tired of debating in circles and repeating myself.

So I will recommend that if you have any further objections to the concept of altruism not being stable beyond kin, and the conclusion that the force of EN is innately weak, then please take it up with Kevin MacDonald.

Thank you.

Lycurgus, there is a decent case to be made that it would be difficult for ethnocentric drives to evolve. However, you are also trying to argue that human behaviour as we see it today proves that ethnocentric drives are weak, and this is dubious for the reason that I gave: in the modern world, other strong human inclinations such as personal reproduction are demonstrably diverted or cancelled by ideology and/or changes in our environment.

Positively excellent points Guy.

The galling thing about the Anti-EGI people to me is that they are actually parochial enough to hold up Modern Day Whites as some kind of proof that Evolution doesn’t favor Ethnic Altruism.

But what they completely fail to notice is that Modern Day Whites are going extinct and having their lands taken over by highly Ethnocentric Racial Aliens!

It would be like if someone had the theory that eating food is a good evolutionary strategy, but then someone came along and said: “But look at that guy over there! He doesn’t eat food practically at all!”

But of course the guy not eating food will be in the process of dying, as are all races that fail to sufficiently practice EGI maximizing behaviors.

Lycurgus,

Although you agreed with me, you did it because of wrong reasons. Objections:

• Children are born selfish as a default position, but they have strong innate social and ethnic instincts that can and will overwhelm the selfishness, if activated. Selfishness, and social and ethnic instincts are equally natural. Social proof; continuity and commitment; authorities in the group; reciprocity; extension from the self to the ethnic group; automatic ethnic categorization, rebound to ethnic categorization and the resilience of ethnic categorization; ethnic preference and favoritism (even if these are in liberal societies often esconced under so called “aversive racism” [racism is pejorative, not descriptive word and thus should not be used]); perceived ethnic ingroup similarity with individualization of members; perceived ethnic outgroup negative homogeneity without individualization; attribution of good in ethnic ingroup to permanent and general ingroup qualities and bad to temporary and individual qualities; attribution of good in ethnic outgroups to temporary and individual qualities and bad to general and permanent qualities; etc., are examples of factors that facilitate or can facilitate ethnic cooperation. Because of human cognitive and the consequent emotional limitations, people can form maximum intensity social bonds in ethnicly similar communities of about 150 people. Fortunately these can form tightly knit networks and network of networks, which can expand fairly close to the size of ethnic group and society, but never to the size of ethnic group and society. The dichtonomy of modern (liberal) society /tribal society is false liberal propaganda. The possibilities of communities and community networks are far from fully utilized. I leave this discussion to other time, though.

Child has to be selfish, when born, because:

• It is a safe position. Child can trust the selfishness to defend himself, but it is unclear to which and what kind of group/ groups child will or can gain access to and belong to, who are their competitors and what is their environment. Social cooperation is constructed by the selfish-selfish selfish-group group-group interactions and environmental demands. Thus instincts facilitates and favors ethnic cooperation, but the ethnic instinct can’t be default position or only possible option. Unfortunately this gives enough room for manipulation to liberal power.

• Selfishness enables a child or person to fight, negotiate, influence, manipulate, conform, accept, compete etc. for a position in social group, but selfishness will eventually be balanced by stronger social concerns, if the group is viable.

• To claim outright that selfishness or self interest outcompetes ethnic interests without anything else is like saying pressure valves outcompetes thermometers. In what kind of group, what are the rules in the group, what kind of members are in the group, what kind of selections the group uses, in what situations, what are the functions of the group, what are the tasks of individuals, etc? Ultimate selfishness would be that X does nothing for anybody, but receives what others produce and uses others like disposable goods, perhaps based on spontaneous whims. Between that and self sacrife for ethnic group is large spectrum of things. When man is a member of ethnic community, he has to limit his selfishness in many ways. Still, the normal, average and ideal situation in such a group is that the self interest of man and his group are aligned, coherent and tilled to be compatible. Because man is a temporary product of his group and group is an everlasting representation of man’s interest, man maybe called in extreme (perhaps random) situations to make a self sacrifice for the ethnic group and this is in his interest, despite that the group loses an excellent member and man’s sacrifice may give advantages to some free riders along with good men. It is the task of surviving good men to always make the free riders’ life a hopeless uphill to honor those that self sacrificed and to ensure that the group has the ability to protect itself in the possible future extreme situations.

Addition, perhaps in this part agreeing with Lycurgus, but again because of different reasons:

States should never use Egi as an organizing principle, or for that matter any single principle. States are temporary, distant and corruptable entities. States should protect borders, make the environment friendly for those who care about Egi, and use a variety of non-liberal principles. Egi is preserved when it is inseparable part of people’s daily local life. Bureaucrats purpose is to be detached from things and people to produce impartial regulation and realization of laws. They might preserve Egi 100 years and then without blinking an eye start supporting liberal principles because government wind blows from another direction or because detached bureaucratic interests has transformed into liberalism, which is it’s natural expression. Liberalism provides bureaucrats with maximum regulation/ job opportunities (despite eventual self destruction), so bureaucracy always has a tendency to degenerate into liberalism.

Also, in general, lives of people are so complex that one principle is never enough, whether used in local or international level or in anything between. To use one principle would mean coercion, disruption and eventually some form of dictatorship. Liberalism uses two organizing principles, individual will and equality, which in practice have the same effect as one.

My latest thoughts:

EN (defined as a broad concern for one’s race/ethnicity) cannot be instinctive.

Why?

1) It could not have evolved. It’s not evolutionarily stable. Most of our competition (even now) will be of the same race.

2) The scale of race is too distant from people’s every day experience. As Finn suggested, people have the capacity at most, to know about only 150 people. Of those, we probably only care about a handful. This is what is real and important to us.

Any broader concerns beyond this scale, whether it be for god, race, Nation, whatever, would need to be grasped in intellectual terms. EN is therefore, something that must be learnt. The strength of this force would then depend on how much weight the ideology was given within the social/cultural context. It’s a meme.

As for our inter-personal relationships, people do feel more comfortable amongst people like themselves. GS, however, is one criterion among many. People assort on the basis of race, religion, culture, class, shared interests, and so on. You won’t find many nerds hanging out with football players for example. In/outgroup behaviour in humans is extremely complicated.

Moreover, if somebody just has one non-White as part of their social-ingroup (increasingly the case) or happens to know of a decent non-White, their broader concerns and politics will be biased against egi’s. That one non-White they are fond of is more real and significant to them than their entire racial group in the abstract.

EN (defined as a broad concern for one’s race/ethnicity) cannot be instinctive.

Ethnic nepotism is not tied to any particular conception of ‘race’. I don’t see why ethnocentric instincts that (might have) evolved within a context of humans living in small tribes, with the tribe as ethnos, could not transfer themselves to larger descent groups given sufficient prompts (although with this comes the fact that ethnocentric instincts can also be applied to non-kin groups, if these stimulate the individual in a way that mimics our tribal behaviour in the past).

You are right that ethnic nepotism tends to require socialisation to nurture it, but this does not mean that it lacks any innate aspect. You’ll find that plenty of ethnocentric Europeans did not have a particularly ethnocentric up-bringing, have been mired in the liberal zeitgeist and have had ethnically distant friends and associates, yet they have come to be ethnic nepotists. How would you explain this? The parsimonious explanation, if we were to assume that humans have an innate potential for ethnic nepotism, would be that some people are naturally more ethnocentric than others, and require less socialisation to develop this inclination.

While checking up on data relevant to our discussion I came across the following study which might be of interest:

Coalitional computation and Social categorization

Robert Kurzban, John Tooby, and Leda Cosmides (2001)

Here we report experiments, using unobtrusive measures, showing that categorizing individuals by race is not inevitable, and supporting an alternative hypothesis: that encoding by race is instead a reversible byproduct of cognitive machinery that evolved to detect coalitional alliances.

More importantly, when cues of coalitional affiliation no longer track or correspond to race, subjects markedly reduce the extent to which they categorize others by race, and indeed may cease doing so entirely.

These results suggest that racism may be a volatile and eradicable construct that persists only so long as it is actively maintained through being linked to parallel systems of social alliance.

Ethnic nepotism is not tied to any particular conception of ‘race’.

Now, in-group favouritism I acknowledge as strongly innate, but that doesn’t equal EN. What defines and constitutes a group and it’s goals is largely socially constructed. It does not neccessarily correspond with ethnic (genetic) interests and certainly not racial interests. Catholics for example are pro-immigration and universalist. ARA’s are against all forms of EN.

“Now, in-group favouritism I acknowledge as strongly innate, but that doesn’t equal EN.”

It correlates very strongly with it. Two people are far more likely to be a part of the same group, and far more likely to form an impromptu alliance, if they are more genetically similar.

“Catholics for example are pro-immigration and universalist.”

As a generalization, that is not true at all.

There was a recent poll which showed that among American Catholics, 69% think Immigration is too high and only 4% think it is too low.

It certainly is not universalist for people to be in favor of deliberately cutting down on the immigration of racial aliens!

If you actually believe the universalist position that people everywhere are interchangeable, it is simply an impossibility that you’re going to be in favor of cutting down on the immigration of other races into your Country.

You clearly nothing about the average Catholic.

I admit that the Catholic Elite of celibate weirdoes are Immigration Loving Race Traitors, but they are a tiny minority.

The question is whether certain behaviours or inclinations have evolved specifically because it was evolutionarily profitable to favour co-ethnics (i.e. people related by tribal descent) as an in-group, rather than random humans. This is what I understand by the concept of ‘evolution of ethnic nepotism’. Given this definition, in the modern world these ethnocentric drives need not be reliably expressed as EGI-conserving behaviours.

This contrasts with the idea put forward in the Tooby paper, which looks at somewhat ethnocentric (ethnically categorising) behaviours and suggests that these might be the result of inclinations that evolved independently from ethnicity.

Since shared ethnic descent could have been demarcated by many things other than facial structure, for example clothing, in the modern world ethnocentric drives would often be aroused by non-descent groups. This leads me to be skeptical about whether that Tooby paper proves the point it is trying to make; is it legitimate to sharply distinguish between ‘racial’ facial colour/structure-based distinctions and ‘non-racial’ t-shirt colour-based distinctions? Consider this in conjunction with the very limited nature of the experiment that they conducted.

Furthermore, ethnocentric drives (assuming they exist) compete with drives to form non-ethnocentric social coalitions, and the fact that ideological/social/environmental conditions (constructed intentionally to some degree) can tip the balance in favour of the latter need not lead us to conclude that the former are especially weak. Yes there are groups such as those you mentioned, but there are also a multitude of ethnocentric communities, organisations and states.

This can be taken as a further criticism of the conclusions of the Tooby paper. Why should the outcome of a very specific (and unreal) ‘social interaction’ (in which non-ethnocentric coalition formation is stronger than potentially ethnocentric coalition formation) be generalised to all of our social interactions, including those more closely related to ethnic interests e.g. territorial defence?

This will represent my closing statement and then I will stop arguing in circles with you guys. Thanks to everyone for the debate. I hope we all learnt something from the exchange.

—

To clarify, I do recognise group dynamics arose in a tribal context. As I understand it, group coalitions would arise out of the need for individuals and small tribes to band together for mutual benefit. This does not imply altruism. However, the instincts (urge to belong?) and other processes, including rational processes, behind these sort of group behaviours manifest widely and are certainly not confined to serving ethnic genetic ends. The contrary is very often true.

In conclusion: group bias is certainly innate but what defines one’s identity, purpose, ethics, ingroup, outgroup, friend, foe etc. is socially constructed and must be learnt.

Now, seeing as most of our enemies would have been of the same race (even now), cooperation between tribes would have been determined on the basis of percieved mutual benefit more than anything else.

Moreover, the consequences of our default group instincts and behaviours do not lead to EN either. It leads to a self/small group bias even to the expense of one’s race. An example of this would be how Whites will often enlist Minorities (and their interests) as weapons against other Whites even to the cost of the race as a whole. Democrats are masters of this.

This may explain the puzzling findings of the paper ‘War and Relatedness’ (Enrico Spolaore, Romain Wacziarg) where they suggest populations that are genetically closer are more prone to go to war with each other even after controlling for a wide set of measures of geographic distance.

—

Personally, I think EN is wishful thinking on the part of some WN’s. In general, people just don’t care. People do however care about pursuing their personal self interests and those of their kin. In this regard, GS is but one competing factor amongst many others. And, all it takes is for one non-White to slip through into a persons ingroup or tribe and that will bias that person against their entire racial group in the abstract.

To add:

“To the contrary, if there is a close relative in the vicinity, there is no reason to give a distant relative any cake at all. Subject to other complications like laws of diminishing returns, the whole cake should be given to the closest relative available.” ~Dawkins

Sharing your cake with everybody on the basis of their relatedness puts you at a marked disadvantage Vs somebody who keeps the cake all for themselves. The more you share the less you will have for yourself.

So clearly, the line must be drawn somewhere. Liberals suggest humanity. White Nationalists suggest race. White Nationalists are quick to point out that helping another race at the cost of one’s own race is maladaptive. What they don’t seem to grasp is that racial altruism is also maladaptive and fraught with the same problems.

Essentially, the problem with Liberalism and their suggestion that we help other races even at the cost of our own race (putting human genetic interests first) and the White Nationalist suggestion that we should help our race even at our own personal cost (putting ethnic genetic interests first) is essentially the same: Neither strategy is evolutionarily stable, and for similar reasons.

Lycurgus, if people can care about saving Whales and other animals that they will never see and which are basically irrelevant to their quality of life and food supply, they can damn well care about preserving Europeans.

I’m satisfied that:

a) People can have multiple ethnically distant friends and associates whilst holding ethnocentric views encompassing their whole ethnic group(s). Personal experience.

b) It is perfectly possible for ethnic groups to mobilised with ethnic nepotistic objectives. How else did National Socialist Germany happen? Did someone just make up the history of an explicitly race-based white America? No, I do not believe that these were the product of purely individualistic motives. And if NW Europeans don’t care at the moment, things can change.

About the cake analogy: Dawkins’s simple analogy does not hold for the complicated situation when close family vs. random others is not the only kinship difference in question.

There are cakes that you cannot give to your family. The ‘cake’ of the right to residence in your finite national territory is not something that you can attempt to share amongst only your relatives; no-one has millions of brothers and uncles. No, you have a choice of helping your co-ethnics keep this cake, or letting a mass of people with whom you have significantly less kinship take it.

Also, universal altruism does not further one’s genetic interests, because humans have no competition at all for territorial/reproductive dominance on Earth. It is therefore not at all comparable to ethnic nepotism.

guy,

The point is this: Any genuine Nepotism extended beyond kin is maladaptive and could not have evolved. The line is drawn around kin.

As Dawkins points out, kin selection is not a mechanism for some infinite behavior of expanding genetic favoritism, (which would actually contradict the possible benefit of close relatives and therefore nullify any kin selection!) for the reasons addressed in the cake problem, and thus [this model] couldn’t be adaptive. ~Jason Malloy

The point is this: Any genuine Nepotism extended beyond kin is maladaptive and could not have evolved. The line is drawn around kin.

a) Kinship is a relative concept. It can be defined as ‘similarity in excess of random gene sharing’, which applies as much to co-ethnics as it does to your family. Where you refer to ‘kin’ you mean ‘close family’.

b) ‘Maladaptive’, in the normal use of the word, means that something does not help to pass on one’s genes in general. This is an entirely separate issue from whether it would help genes for ethnic nepotism to be passed on, or whether these genes could have become established in the population in the first place. You have not actually raised any objection to the idea that ethnic nepotism is adaptive.

c) I already pointed out an issue with the cake model. But yes, Malloy, Brigandt and others may well be right about the evolution of ethnic nepotism - you should read Brigandt’s paper - nonetheless some of the reasons that you personally have been giving are spurious.

As Dawkins points out, kin selection is not a mechanism …”

• It is wrong to speak about close kin selection or even self selection in terms of absolutes. Brothers have murdered each other in competition (E.g. when fighting for power in different royal families); brothers have fought against each other in civil wars; brothers have ceased all cooperation and friendliness between them because of different views, religions or ideologies, etc. The selection of good qualities is also dependent on ethny, ultimately more so than on the individual and the closest kin. Any small scale close kin development is easily lost, if there is not some larger backing for it in larger scale, e.g. communities (D.S. Wilson and Sober, 1994)(Ridley, 1996).

guy & others,

Indeed. Jobling, Brigandt, Malloy etc. are right. And, it doesn’t matter that you can make an analogy on the basis of relative genetic distance. Kin selection does not apply to something like race, period.

My argument is not that a State could not be constructed in favour of ethnic interests (or other interests, for that matter) only that humans aren’t naturally inclined to pursue nor care about their genetic interests at that scale (eg. race, Nation.)

PS- I reject egi’s as the guiding principle too but that is for another debate.

There is not enough clarity to state that Brigandt or anyone else is definitely correct. I place weight on the human behaviour that I see, as well as theorising based on (understandably) incomplete information, and perhaps incomplete understanding.

Still, so long as you are capable of discriminating the fair point that specific ethnic nepotism drives may not have evolved in humans from any atttempt to diminish genetic identity as a centrally important factor in European ethnic advocacy, then we have little disagreement.

Again, all this misses the point that all that “in-group favoritism” when it comes to actual procreative act, has not been proved. Nor has societal in-group favortism been confirmed. In fact, the American cities have seen a population shift of the young because they are attracted to the diversity of experiences provided by multiple ethnic groups. They just don’t want the crime to go with it.

All these things which the racialists argue are genetic are easily explained by the physical impossibility to mate with outsiders in pre- modern society, and when that stricture is removed, the “racial” kin group expands (but the close kin group contracts as the multi-generational relationships between cousins become less important). When it comes to actual mating, a European will mate with a beautiful Asian, Jew or mixed race person. A single beer will remove the societal constructs and reveal the true genetic drivers.

Altruism, as defiend in these papers, is a post breeding overlay, and there is no statistical evidence that it increases or decreases a population’s ability to survive. But even all that misses the point. The manifestation of the genetic drive is the momentary act of copulation with some you find attractive, and the definition of beauty seems to be nearly universal, and many non whites fulfill that definition. But, as most of us are not beautiful ourseleves, it doesn’t really matter, as we settle for the available, and not the most desirable.