The Idiot Ancestor Theory

The STEM community takes a specific metaphysical stance. While many people are familiar with it, we should address some of its consequent ideas.

Scientism derives the following philosophical framework to explain our present state of existence:

  1. Humanity came from the evolution from a less-complicated species.
  2. Cave people, millions of years ago, were the evolution of apes. They used rudimentary tools with limited skill to operate them.
  3. From that point, there have been millions of years of development. This development has culminated in the past few thousand years of civilization we understand today.

I call this the Idiot Ancestor Theory: that humanity was originally inferior and evolved upwards over time to this point.

The consequence

This is “common knowledge” for many in STEM. While people believe it to be infallible truth, it presumes the following bias when taken as fact:

  1. Everyone that came before us is less evolved than we are, and their cultural values reflect that.
  2. Anything we can learn from history is inferior to our present, advanced information and technology.
  3. Since we are changing toward something (potentially) superior, we must cast off the old ways that bogged us down.

This value system has vast implications. It would mean that politically conservative values are inferior to liberal ones, and usually extends to a politically leftward slant.

As a caveat, this doesn’t affect STEM the same amount. Math is radically abstract, and engineering is radically practical. Therefore, politics don’t touch them much. However, science and technology connect heavily with the not-really-science “social sciences”. Therefore, they constantly bias toward the left.

The impact goes farther in a society that has replaced moral terms with clinical language. We see this value structure among many domains including pop culture, public opinion, and often public policy.

Refutation

There is little evidence to believe the Idiot Ancestor Theory without intentionally believing the secular myth. Multiple obvious observations demonstrate its debatable basis:

  1. Ancient archaeological excavations demonstrate people back then were not stupid. A few examples include Incan/Mayan temples, Giza pyramids, and Stonehenge. To this day, we still don’t understand how they built many of those structures.
  2. We can compare how typical people have changed in their consuming preferences. As an example, look at 19th-century penny dreadfuls versus FreeBooksy’s free horror books. If anything, people are dumber.
  3. Given its presumptions and novelty, we shouldn’t see cultural Marxism radically depopulate humanity faster than any other political system has.
  4. Instead of an exploitative information harvesting vehicle, the tech industry should be a source of comfort and general transparency.

Without further evidence, continuing to believe the Idiot Ancestor Theory would require some level of faith.

A counter-proposal

There’s a differing view from this presumption, though it has plenty of associated baggage because it’s not a new idea:

  1. Ancient humanity is a created, not evolved, being. Their initial state is relatively similar to what we recognize today.
  2. Our progenitors had an equal level of intelligence. In some ways, it may have been greater because they had to invent the knowledge we simply inherited.
  3. Our development may not be so clearly upward. It’s entirely possible we’re morally decaying in proportion to our usage of tools and technology.

Naturally, this explains quite a lot of the above holes:

  1. Our ancestors made ancient structures, and probably knew some things we have now forgotten or refuse to understand.
  2. As we gain information, we are developing more technical idiots and professional victims, which will be our eventual societal undoing.
  3. Cultural Marxism is a new type of moral cancer. It rose that has arisen in the face of the public becoming increasingly entitled and irrational. Their attitude then veers toward people who promise to give them stuff.
  4. Big Tech is doing exactly what any other group of morally unscrupulous people would do in their situation.

How to fix it

Historically, the Idiot Ancestor Theory rose more into prominence in the 19th century (in particular, during the Progressive Movement). There should be enough evidence to justify moving on from it by now.

However, this would be a politically devastating move. Western society has pushed toward “new” ideas under this presumption for quite a while.

Therefore, it’s likely that we won’t see anything significant come from this development. The only thing that will likely happen is that its proponents will look increasingly silly trying to defend it.