"it's human nature, i wonder what its evolutionary purpose is," wonders guy who has not checked whether anyone was doing it 100 or 1000 years ago
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my vote for best reply
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Replying to @QiaochuYuan
"i can't believe capitalism would make us do this," says guy who has not checked whether hunter-gatherers do it too
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So many things
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people who think they didn't have twitter in the stone age just have a very narrow definition of the concept "twitter"
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I think that maybe for something to count as human nature, it must be able to manifest across time and space, in different times and cultures maintaining continuity.
So tweeting viewed a status or mating strategy, is the surface manifestation.
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working out what's human nature and what's cultural software is tough
let's apply the QC test which are cultural and which is human nature:
- 3 meals a day
- love
- education
- home ownership
- "freedom"
- greed
they all feel natural, but some only depending on who/where/when
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I also chuckle ruefully whenever the phrase βevolutionary purposeβ is used unironically.
Do you go around trying to find atomic phlogiston? Have you looked through your 23 and Me results to see what sort of humour imbalance your family is prone to?
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?? "Evolutionary purposes" or adaptive functions are as real as anything in biology
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