Avery

The chief issue with tribalism is that it results in inaccurate/wrong ideas being pushed. This happens due to: people collectively bargaining (which is an effective evolutionary practice), those people having common ideas, and those common ideas being pushed through collective bargaining. So, the legitimacy of those common ideas can take the backseat to the fact that they are common ideas. This is often seen in victimhood narratives wherein the group has a story about how they were wronged (e.g. Holocaust, African American slavery), thus it excuses them doing whatever to reclaim what is theirs, or at least rebalance the previous injustice. The legitimacy of the victimhood narrative is rarely questioned, especially by those who benefit from it.

However, tribalism does have the positive benefits of preventing freeloading and keeping people loyal to a group. These positive benefits need to be accounted for because freeloading is always a net-negative to a group (i.e. people taking resources without giving back) and keeping people loyal to a tribe means they'll do pro-social things for it, often without cost.

A possible solution to tribalism is to reengineer the human mind to be algorithmic.

This could first involve usage of CRISPR gene-editing to cut parts of the brain which generate tribalism, Genome Editing with CRISPR-Cas9 - YouTube  (although CRISPR currently has limitations regarding the human brain (even a single cut can create toxicity in the braincell, causing it to die) CRISPR and the brain: how gene editing benefits neuroscience | IDT (idtdna.com) . Whilst the genetic sources of tribalism have yet to be discovered (AFAIK), cluster analysis and eventually gene isolation should advance sufficiently to identify the genes that contribute to tribalism  Bioinformatics: Finding Genes (genome.gov) . If cluster analysis is the method used, comparing DNA profiles of differing people to determine their genetic makeups, and then comparing that to their attitudes towards tribalism, could be used to pinpoint the sets of genes generating tribalism. 

The second part is to make the human brain more algorithmic, in order for reason to be at the forefront of decisions. Making rational decisions could be more emotionally weighted, so as to give the emotional impact of tribalism without the shortcomings of it (so that it can compete in a harsh environment, or perhaps the algorithmic mentality would be enough??). Putting reason at the forefront of human decision should drastically improve efficiency of societies. It could also make other inefficiencies, like motivation, obsolete. Theoretically, this could be done by improving overall intelligence ('g' factor) in humans (maybe through manual insertion of genes which are associated with higher intelligence Genetics of Intelligence - I.Q and Human Intelligence (human-intelligence.org) ) and expanding the human brain's memory capacity to overcome memory-shortage issues like Dunbar's number Dunbar's number - Wikipedia , in conjunction with the removal of tribalism. It's possible that other emotional shortcomings will need to be removed, too. This is far more theoretical than the first part.

This reengineering of the human brain is fundamentally different from the historical issue of science, atheism and reason being held up as the solution to problems, because humans are being physically changed to delete/modify the evolutionary baggage, rather than people thinking they can simply think above those shortcomings (i.e. thinking you're above tribalism when you're not, and making decisions based on thinking you are (PDF) Tribalism Is Human Nature (researchgate.net)).

Of course, keep in mind that I'm not a neurologist or geneticist. But these are some theoretical arguments that I've tried to make a bit more practical, in order to move past human tribalism.

Argument 1: There was a lot of preparation and prediction for Covid-19 BEFORE it happened

(1a) Anthony Fauci (who had a leading role at the NIH) predicts a "surprise outbreak" several years before it happened: "there is no question that there will be a challenge to the coming administration [Trump's] in the arena of infectious diseases, both chronic infectious diseases in the sense of already ongoing disease [...] but also there will be a surprise outbreak" Pandemic Preparedness in the Next Administration: Keynote Address by Anthony S. Fauci - YouTube . Hardly a surprise if he's so certainly predicting it.

(1b) The John Hopkins Center for Health Security ran 'Event 201' (a global pandemic simulation) three months before the Covid-19 outbreak Three months before the coronavirus outbreak, researchers simulated a global pandemic - ABC News . This was presented and sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. "Event 201 simulates an outbreak of a novel zoonotic coronavirus transmitted from bats to pigs to people that eventually becomes efficiently transmissible from person to person, leading to a severe pandemic" The Event 201 scenario | A pandemic tabletop exercise (centerforhealthsecurity.org) . That's oddly specific and surprisingly close to Covid-19, isn't it?

(1c) Bill Gates also predicted a massive outbreak of an infectious virus Bill Gates: The next outbreak? We’re not ready | TED - YouTube  Keep in mind that Bill Gates was the 2nd biggest donor to the WHO (World Health Organization) Does Bill Gates have too much influence in the WHO? - SWI swissinfo.ch 

(1d) There was a sudden spike in terms like 'anti-vaxxer' and 'anti-vax' in book usage and Google searches Google Ngram Viewer anti-vax - Explore - Google Trends  How likely is it that this was organic?

(1e) Three months before the Unit, Trump signs an executive order to initiate a vaccine taskforce Executive Order on Modernizing Influenza Vaccines in the United States to Promote National Security and Public Health | The White House (archive.org) In other words, he's responding to the outbreak before it happened.

Argument 2: Fishy activity

(2a) There was an "internal reshuffle" (as stated on Wikipedia) in WHOHEP (a branch of the WHO) just before the Wuhan outbreak Health Emergencies Programme (WHO) - Wikipedia . Except it wasn't an "internal reshuffle" because Peter Salama actually died (of a "suspected heart attack"), rather than being shuffled out Sci-Hub | Peter Salama. The Lancet, 395(10223), 490 | 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30298-1 . Fishier still, Peter died in Geneva. Guess where the WHO is based? Geneva. Peter Salama (an Australian) died on the day Australia started implementing Covid policy (January 23rd) COVID-19 pandemic in Australia - Wikipedia 

(2b) Fauci contradicted himself on a pretty important point, during his conversation with Sen Rand Paul. The contradiction is as follows:

- Fauci has denied being involved in gain-of-function research while also denying that Dr Baric's lab was at all involved in gain-of-function research

Argument 3: The lab leak theory is almost certainly true; the wetmarket theory is nigh impossible

A Bayesian analysis by Dr Steven Quay (MD) makes this case. The shortened video link of him talking through his research can be found here SARS-CoV-2 Bayesian Analysis by Steven Carl Quay MD Phd – The Published Reporter® . The full document can be found here A Bayesian analysis concludes beyond a reasonable doubt that SARS-CoV-2 is not a natural zoonosis but instead is laboratory derived | Zenodo 

(3a) Covid-19 was not found in any sample analysis involving the Huanan wet market:

- None of the 11 patients from the Huanan market had the earliest Covid-19 strain.

- All 4 patients with the earliest genetic version of the virus had no contact with the Huanan market.

- The first patient with the earliest Covid-19 sequence was treated at a hospital roughly 3kms from the Wuhan Institute of Virology

- None of the environmental specimens in Huanan had the earliest strain (which means it probably came into the market initially)

- 457 animals from Huanan market were tested and found negative for Covid-19

- 616 animals from suppliers to the Huanan market were tested and found negative for Covid-19

- 1086 wild animals of the type found in the market were also negative for Covid-19

- 80,000 samples tested from 209 species from other markets, farms and wildlife areas throughout did not find Covid-19. The probability of this for a community-acquired infection is "about 1 in 1 million".

- After testing 9,952 stored human blood specimens from hospitals in Wuhan from before December 29 (2010), there was not a single case of Covid-19 in any specimen. It was expected that around 250 would be positive. The probably of this for a community acquired infection is also "about 1 in 1 million".

- For Sars-Cov-2, 249 cases were examined genetically, and they were all human-to-human transmission. For a community acquired infection, this is the probability of 0.5 to the power 249 (seeing that there is half a chance of the transmission coming from an animal, and the other half from a human). That's the same as getting heads on a coin toss 249 times in a row. 

(3b) Sars-Cov-2 has a unique trigger on a surface called a "Furin Cleavage Site" and a unique code in the genes for that site called a "CGG-CGG-diimer". These two features are two independent levels of uniqueness. The Furin Cleavage Site is why the virus is so transmissible. The entire group of coronaviruses (i.e NOT Covid-19) do not contain a Furin Site or the CGG-CGG-diimer code. Since 1992 in "gain of function" experiments, Furin Cleavage Sites have been inserted repeatedly. This CGG-CGG code is "commonly used around the world, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology". You can order this code from a supply company on the internet.

(3c) Sars-Cov-2 was pre-adapted for human-to-human transmission from the very first patient (i.e. this reeks of lab engineering). To put this in perspective, "the part of the virus that interacts with human cells was 99.5% optimized. SARS1 was 17% optimized".

(3d) The Bayesian Analysis of SARS-Cov-2 Origin found that a zoonotic Origin was 0.2% likely, whereas a lab origin was 99.8% likely. 

Argument 4: Research was being done into making coronavirus better able to attack humans

(4a) NIH research (in America) into coronavirus involved seeing if the spike proteins from bats could harm humans. This research had an "unexpected result" of actually making the mice test subjects (since they couldn't legally use humans) sicker, and hence would have made humans sicker (because they share the ACE2 receptor). Whilst it wasn't necessarily the intention of the research, the research made the virus better capable of attacking humans NIH-Document-Production-Cover-Letter-2021.10.20_McMorris-Rodgers.pdf (house.gov) 

The NIH is known to have funded the Wuhan Virology lab through EcoHealth Alliance's grant money, of which can be seen here GRANT to ECOHEALTH ALLIANCE INC. | USAspending . It's awfully suspicious that the NIH, who was (arguably accidentally) doing research into making coronavirus better able to attack humans, just so happens to be giving money to Wuhan where the Covid-19 outbreak took place. Perhaps there was another "unexpected result" at Wuhan, too?

Conclusion:

Due to: (1) there being a lot of prediction and preparation for Covid-19, (2) some fishy activities involving Covid-19, (3) the lab leak being an almost certainty, if we observe various genetic samples and Bayesian analysis, and (4) research into attacking humans via coronavirus was being done with companies associated with Wuhan (i.e. the outbreak are), it's completely reasonable to agree that Covid-19 was a plandemic lab leak. 

I find it fascinating he managed to get Singapore to work.

It had no natural resources and was effectively a 3rd world country. Somewhat authoritarian methods were used to enact policy and silence opposition. It's got a mix of ethnic groups, one of them being Han Chinese who are known for being very patriotic to China.

And yet he's made it all work AND make Singapore prosper into a first world country.

What is your opinion on him and Singapore?

Functionally, regardless of whether the religion in question is true, it will solve issues that humans face. Namely:

(1) Creating an untouchable, unseeable leader who can never be caught in a scandal, contradiction or anything untoward (something that humans will never be able to rectify if they themselves are leaders, due to their imperfection).

(2) Adds mystical magic to morality so that it seems divine, rather than just an impulse. This is especially important for cause-driven people who want to feel like they are living with a real purpose. It also helps to prevent crimes of all natures.

(3) Quells fear of the unknown with answers to queries that scare humans (e.g. what happens after death? You go to Heaven or hell; you are reincarnated; you enter paradise etc.).

(4) Creates free labor as a religious zealot will gladly do things in the name of the divine, all the whilst making them feel good for doing so.

Without religion, there are important holes to fill, and I don't think Atheism or Agnosticism fill them. I think it could be said that humans currently need religion to function.

It's theoretically possible and desirable that the human brain could be redesigned to remove its tribal elements. Perhaps something as simple as removing the more ancient part of the human brain would suffice, maybe by manually recoding human DNA to make the RNA not produce it (or to have it non-functional). Although, it's likely (if possible) going to be rewiring many parts of the brain to ignore or circumvent the tribalistic parts (I'm not sure how integrated tribalism is in the human brain).

This should have drastic implications for politics, given that tribalism basically drives the voting decisions for most people. Ideas should become the leading way that politics is conducted, instead of group self-interest. This would allow for rapid, unified development in technology and critical thought as no time would be lost on race-based politics (and other tribal battles).

I do worry about the free-loader problem (i.e. people not contributing their part to group activity). Tribalism does seem to protect against it. I doubt making humans non-tribal would also make them selfless.

I'm interested to hear other people's thoughts on this. I'm not a neuro-scientist so I'm not sure how grounded in reality all of this is.