Are there things worth forfeiting your genetic interests for

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I might also ask some version of this question on Quora because I want people thinking about this one explicitly.

In my own case - hard yes.

If you don't feel comfortable explicating no worries, just hit a bubble in the poll for anonymity.

Also I get that it's kind of a dark topic but - it's an important one as well, particularly when a lot of the worst things in the world are spooled around it.

Also if you can think of a really important poll option that I missed call it out and I'll try adding it.

A small addendum to the topic, why I'm curious about it:

I get the sense that a lot of the problems we have with NT's is that we're not Darwinian enough. Especially with males on the spectrum, a large part of why they see us as subhuman is that we show, in our behavior, that we place things over Darwinian imperative and they have a sense that they should be able to dominate, torment, even destroy any men who'd say 'yes' to any of these bubbles. I try to think of where the almost psychopathic entitlement to use, abuse, and destroy comes from and I can't help but think this is, if not the precise issue, very close to it.

I don't quite understand the question. What do you mean by genetic interests? Or by social conformity over internal truth?

Sure so...

The psychopathic way of looking at life - procreation and positioning your children to dominate other people's children are all that matters, anything else is unreal. You can see that demonstrated firmly with a lot of people, I need to stop short of saying 'most' but a significant enough minority (double-digit %) are at that end and everyone else is on a spectrum where the people at the opposite end, lets say, care more directly about integrity, honesty, internal progress (in some of those cases they do consider the likelihood of an afterlife and needing to deal with the consequences of your own behavior - even later on - worth taking seriously).

If a person sees all of that and realizes that much of the world is judging them, not just where they slot on the social hierarchy but to some degree their right to dignity, based on how well they've done in the acquisition, social climbing, and mating games, it's an ultimatum - either join that race and run harder, set yourself diametrically against it, or effectively get mugged / rolled over because you weren't paying attention to what other people are doing with their time and focus.

The question is - when you get that cold chill, that wave of nausea, and realize that this is kind of like a death-sport arena where the central game that no one has any ability to refuse without getting trampled (ie. the status game), where do you personally draw your lines? Social success and integrity seem in most cases to be inverse, not because social skills are bad but because you have to consider who it is you're getting charisma with and if the people who glom on to you are scum it's not a good signal.

I really feel like we need better answers to how social climbing as the be-all-end-all / winner-take-all-of-everything isn't just a crap model but it's one that can be beat because most people really don't want it, it's just the dominant thing going on right now that infects everything and rebuilds any place, any culture it makes contact with, in it's own image. I consider this question important because if people aren't serious enough about answering it we'll likely keep having more of the same. While the psychopathy of nature game is always here the degree to which we centralize it as a core value or try to separate ourselves from it varies from place to place, generation to generation, and I think we've swung too far into Neo-Darwinism as a complete value system and a way out life rather than just a claim about what our building blocks are.

Social conformity vs. internal truth is the question of the following:

Have you developed yourself to be someone you would like on morality and integrity grounds?

How much of that person do you want to amputate in order to fit in, in order to be liked, in order to impress the opposite sex?

It seems like a big swatch of the NT world goes in the direction of 'Amputate anything I can! Heck - I'd service Satan if he were real!'.

The more hyperfixated our world is on those destructively-competitive games the worse things get. Seeing those things for what they are and being aware of them, IMHO, is critical because unlabeled / misunderstood problems can't even be addressed. The expression 'A problem adequately defined and understood is half-solved' comes to mind here.


Apologies in advance if that seems like a lot for two one-sentence questions but at least one of those was effectively 'I don't have the ontology - unpack it for me'.

Thank you for clarifying. I believe I understand now. This seems to be a conversation about the individual VS the collective. Genetic interest perhaps being more than just the biological drive to continue the human race but rather also, in some cases (but not all), the selfish desire to exist in the world after death in the form of descendants. A legacy. Despite the fact that a legacy never lasts. We all fade into obscurity after a while after our deaths, unless perhaps you are a historical figure. I find the notion that nothing matters aside from procreation to be short-sighted.

Of course there's a discussion to be had regarding the right reasons someone might want children compared to the wrong reasons. It ultimately takes a village to raise a child and the child will become a part of said society. So a parent who is somewhat of an outcast may struggle. Personally my mum's always been the socialite, whereas my dad is more of the loner type.

I suppose it's a difficult question to answer for me because I don't view it as a race. A race typically has clear winners and losers. Can success truly be so easy to define? There's also something that irks me about the idea of a 'mating game'. Perhaps it is because I am somewhat of an idealist. I like to believe in romance. Granted, I understand that there are social rules in the world such as shaking hands in an interview and networking. However, I believe that it is trickier to apply rules to dating. What works for one person may not work for another. I think that the advice 'just be yourself' should more accurately be 'try to be the best version of yourself- acknowledge that your sense of self is temporary and ever-changing. Consider your weak areas and try to improve for the sake of personal growth without sacrificing who you are at your core' but that's less catchy.

Unfortunately, some people do lose sight of themselves, of their identity, in order to impress a potential partner. Personally I would advise against such behaviour.

I prefer the expression 'A problem adequately defined and understood is half-solved' compared to one I always heard growing up - 'A problem shared is a problem solved'. That one always bugged me, but I digress.

i can't find a ppr video thread, so far, then saw this, maybe fitting (as well as the GPCHAT, don't know about that but there was an overlapping mention)

Me, I'd like to reproduce but don't see reproduction solely in a genetic way. We are creatures of culture in addition to creatures of biology, after all. Language has its own propagating logic, just as genes propagate.

I would like to pass something of myself into the future. But it doesn't have to be children, necessarily. Writing a great novel, paper, etc, also transmits something of myself into the future.