Perhaps they feel that tobacco farming and harvesting causes significantly less distress to the tobacco plants than animal farming and slaughter does to the animals.
The plant stays alive once its 'fruit' is remove, true (although I've never picked cotton or tobacco leaves - I assume the process doesn't injure the plant).
But we don't care. We only keep the plant alive so we can make more of the 'good stuff' (cigarettes, jeans, etc.)
Again, low effort and low cost from our side. If it would be cheaper to kill the tobacco plant (I don't know much about tobacco plants, perhaps that at some point/age of the plant it becomes sterile, so we kill the old one and plant a new one?) If this is the case, then kill the old cotton plant, get a new one, start harvesting. We decided that we rule the earth. Until something very dramatic happens (ruin ecosystems, aliens invade, etc.) then we run the show.
I suspect (but cannot prove) that if two children were swapped at birth and placed in a completely different culture on the other side of the world, their behaviour would be very different and would match that culture far more than that of their genetic parents' culture.
They have natural inclinations and their experiences and core memories during early life will form the seed of their personality. Their interactions with their parents will shape their interactions with others (and not all parents treat their children equally). Early trauma will stunt their mental development both in subtle and not so subtle ways.
As they grow older their instinctual inclinations are tempered by cultural and social norms and by whatever reinforcement style the parents and teachers employed. Even entertainment like cartoons and the internet constantly impart cultural lessons upon them.
They are constantly being told what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is bad. Even though they might not necessarily feel like they agree with it. And that is what shapes their morals, which in turn shape their behavior, which in turn shapes their growth, which ultimately shapes their intelligence.
If they developed some behavioral or mental issues, they will learn coping and masking mechanisms to compensate. If they were rewarded for something they were naturally proficient at, they will learn to excel at it.
So I don't see how it's so easy to settle what is obviously not even a debate. Both nature and nurture are important in varying amounts at different points in time because the world is complex.
As for intelligence, it's not surprising to me that some people are just born smarter than others and that this trait carries over genetically. It's how intelligence evolved in the first place. But with persistence and a positive environment it's possible to overcome many unfair setbacks in life (and vice-versa).
Obviously a culture will impact behavior once it's ingrained. But at a very young age, children's personalities will differ vastly even before "core memories" or "parental interactions" will have had a chance to form them. The question is not whether "Nature" or "Nurture" have an impact, it's whether and which one of them is dominant overall, and whether and which one of them is dominant for specific behavioral traits. We certainly do not have an answer to either of those questions.
From what I know, I think intelligence evolved as a result of us being fragile relative to other animals.
Our offsprings are completely helpless for the first year. We aren't as fast, strong, or resilient as most wild animals; So we had to compensate with something. Our total weakness pushed us to use our brain to survive. For example, open confrontation without a plan, even with a pray animal like deer, would result in a total failure. Yes, we are in part endurance hunters, but no amount of endurance would help with something that's categorically faster than you. So we hunted in groups, using tools and schemes to survive.
And here we are now.
Conversations about intelligence, imo, often miss an important caveat. Humans have a unique ability of plasticity, this constant adaptation and growth that all of us are capable of in a single lifetime.
I'm of opinion that if you are capable of speaking a language, that means you are capable of learning and understanding anything. Information, ultimately, is causal relationships and compositions; The more you can see and meaningfully categorise given the circumstance, the more 'intelligent' you are; More specifically - how much can you transcend your cognitive barriers - the way things can be thought of, [permissible/assumed to be valid] modes of engagement with what you experience so to speak.
We sometimes corner ourselves into limitations to maintain a sense of comfort, validity, and alignment with what we think "actually is"; Rather than accepting and understanding things as they are without any stakes and generalisations.
Point I'm trying to make is, sometimes intelligence is stagnant due to inner dissonance, conflict, alterior to understanding motives.
Apart from complex motivations varying from person to person, things like malnutrition, and trauma that takes up cognitive bandwidth and sets limits on cognition, also affect us; What we even think of as good and bad, everything we are that we accumulate over the time of being alive - affect the way we think about what we are experiencing.
Let's not forget the effects on who you are during developmental period in womb and the circumstance of said womb (overall hormonal and chemical circumstance).
I believe, in some cases, we are eager to explain intelligence away as mostly genetic because it's easier to understand variance that way, rather than having to swift through circumstantial nuances and complexity; Sometimes as means of not changing anything about ourselves and our conduct with eachother, the way we organise; Sometimes to maintain a sense of superiority and inferiority relative to others. List goes on.
Nah. Just don’t want to work with negative Nancy. You bring everyone down.
Are you aware that your attitude also affects everyone in a negative way (and you just don't care?), or are you oblivious to the damage you do to people?
Or maybe for you it's all about the output and how good your numbers look, and damaging people is just a price to pay?
It can be so very valuable. I was at a conference in the last quarter discussing the effects of the Houthis on shipping in the Red Sea. There has long been rumour that it's possible to pay a few hundred thousand dollars, funneled to the Houthis, for which your ship will be granted safe passage through the Red Sea without being shot at with anti-ship missiles, or attacked by drones. There was rumour that some of the insurers in the Lloyds shipping insurance markets were open to these negotiations. Not long ago the UN pushed out a report discussing this sort of payment.
A bod there whose situation in life made him one of the most likely people in the world to know if anyone in the Lloyds markets was engaging (except anyone actually doing it), and has a long reputation of saying truthful things under the Chatham House rules in such conferences, said he'd not seen any of that and not heard of anyone doing it. It's not the same as fact, but with his long-term reputation and his position in life, it signficantly changed my working calculus on the subject. He didn't want to be professionally quoted on it, hence the CH rule.
Nothing at all to do with having the freedom to be a dickhead or anything like that. Nothing to do with wanting to lie to people without consequence.
If you really believe something, say it loudly and proudly and sign your name to it.
And then wait for the lynch mob to come round because they disagree that {people shouldn't be property / women should be allowed to own property / etc }.
I recall back in 2020, when Pakistan International flight 8303 belly landed at Karachi, slid down the runway, and then took off again and had a go at going around, the investigation showed that between them, the pilots just screwed up on having the landing gear down and had a go at landing without it for no other reason than they fumbled it.
The PIA pilots totally fucked up the approach, missed that they were very high late in the approach, dive bombed down to the runway at the last minute instead of going around. CRM issues -- the senior pilot plausibly couldn't actually fly (he had a history of bad approaches with unsafe descents) and the first officer failed to raise major problems or push back at all on unsafe decisions. When they first touched down gear up, they had dual stick inputs (one pilot was pushing down, one was pulling up) -- this is a huge no no. Communication in the cockpit was awful. Just lots of awful.
After the incident, PIA pilots were audited and determined like 1/3 had fake or suspicious pilot licenses(!!!). Lots of paying other people to pass tests for you. Internationally, PIA has been banned from landing by like all first world countries.
I sometimes wonder if feeling good about "ancient culture" and "proud history" creates an attitude that there's no need (or no point) to add to any of that in the present. For how long can a people use the achievements of those who died a thousand years previously as a crutch to not to live up to those achievements.
Kinda tracks. India, Italy, Greece, pride themselves on culture and lacks in development compared to peers. US, China (after cultural revolution), Germany don't and are top among their peers.
I'd dispute the claim on China, at least for today's China. Anecdotally, the Chinese are very conscious of their/our "ancient culture" and "proud history".
`Xi said that the Chinese Dream is the "great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation"`
If more literally translated, this is pretty much the Chinese version of "Making China Great Again".
You're probably correct that this doesn't apply during the cultural revolution (and maybe for the most of the 20th century), but that's like a long gone boomer era.
They get round this by what's called "intercompany eliminations".
UHC and chums simply buy the medical providers, and can then use them to launder people's premiums. UHC et al can only keep a maximum of 20% (? - I forget the exact figure) of the premiums; but if UHC simply own the hospitals, then money laundered through those hospitals via very high profit procedures etc become permitted profits for UHC.
