There's an apparent paradox around the policing of sexual norms by saying "X is unnatural" because in some sense one might imagine that if it were unnatural then why would anyone want to do it and thus why would policing even be necessary?
8 tweets · November 2020 · 16 likes · 1 retweets · read on Twitter
There's an apparent paradox around the policing of sexual norms by saying "X is unnatural" because in some sense one might imagine that if it were unnatural then why would anyone want to do it and thus why would policing even be necessary?
Paradox goes away when you realize that while there are undeniably some biological urges, almost all of human behavior is profoundly meme-driven and memetic evolution outclasses biological evolution...
...so fitness of behavior can end up being more efficiently selected for on meme levels, which means the genes no longer select for those behaviors but rather for the ability to follow memes. And for memes' abilities to make people follow them.
Hence sexual policing of "unnatural behavior" is actually part of that process, not a contradiction to it, hence there's not actually a paradox here!
Source #1: The Secret of Our Success by Joseph Henrich for the level of how human biology is optimized for and by meme tech
Source #2: The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch for the level of memeplexes and their attractors amzn: amzn.to/2I5qz6Q
This idea I've had is a few years old; I was prompted to write it up based on someone saying a related thing in a slack I'm on.
humanity is natural humanity is unnatural