About Religion

The value of a religion should be judged, not by its doctrines, but by the quality of the children and young adults raised within its community.

Yogi Bera was right

"You can see a lot just by observing."

That is definitely true.  On the plus side, it is a good way to learn, accurately and for yourself.  On the minus side, there is a very good chance that others won't like what you observe, and will deny it and condemn you for saying it."  The of course is the lesson of the story "The Emperor's New Clothes."

Basic reading

The single most important book, one that everyone should be familiar with, is Charles Darwin's The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872).  It is the bedrock for the consideration of psychology and philosophy.

Early times

There has been agriculture and civilization for about 10,000 years. That is, these started roughly 8,000 years before Christ.  The two go together.  Cultivation of plants and animals makes possible a settled way of life.  Cities need agriculture in order to feed their growing population.

And, cities--large numbers of people living together--need rules and structures that weren't necessary in a hunting and gathering, nomadic band.

Human origins

Everyone, every person, is ultimately a child of Africa.  That is where "human" life began, perhaps 100,000 years ago.

The widespread effects of irrationality have been greatly underestimated

In the social sciences, particularly economics but also political science, there has been a "myth of rationality," a belief that individuals make choices that are at least quite good (if not necessarily absolutely maximal). For themselves, and hopefully also for society at large.

This is, however, almost completely untrue. People often don't know what is good for them, and even if they had any such conception, often don't act on it, but do completely otherwise.  Many difficulties (individual and societal) stem from this fact.

Women are far more important than men

This is one of my first and most basic premises. I'm not sure when I arrived at it, but I think a little argumentation can easily demonstrate its truth.  Imagine a society (a primitive band) with 100 people, 99 men and 1 woman.  Turn the clock forward by 20 years.  At that point, that society might have increased in size to perhaps 110 people, minus any deaths that occurred.

(I am imagining that for some reason the 99 men didn't fight each other, kill each other, over access to the lone woman).

Now consider a society of 100 composed of 1 man and 99 women.  Twenty years hence, it might increase in size to around 1,000 members.  (Unless, of course that one male died!).

This same logic applies exactly in breeding many animals.  A breeder needs only a few males to service a large number of females.  (The ram-to-ewe among sheep ratio might be 1:40 or so).  And indeed, extra males may be a waste, since they are costly to feed and care for without producing any additional "value added."

The same is true for people.  That is the reason that men (and not young women) are the ones mostly sent off to war.  That is why the most dangerous jobs are typically allocated to males.  That is why there is a rule in dealing with emergencies to save the "women and children first."  Those are good ideas, in almost any society and almost any situation, because the women are more important than the men.

A group that is trying hard to increase its numbers might for these reasons encourage polygamy (as the Mormons did) or condemn birth control (as Catholics have done).

In a society that is running out of resources, however, the opposite circumstance might apply.  Then, you don't want too many fertile women producing too many children.  And I suppose that we on Earth are perhaps approaching that situation now.  Still, social customs take a very long time to change.