Are Behaviors Learned or Inherited?
Algorithms and Behavior
Behavior can absolutely be influenced by the environment (or algorithms).
Let’s face it, the algorithms control our lives now.
We all get YouTube videos pushed to us based on our viewing history.
I challenge you to create a brand-new YouTube channel, open a Chrome browser in incognito mode, and open that channel. What videos do you see on that dashboard? They’re the “vanilla flavor” videos. I bet that YouTube doesn’t know what to give you, so it will just give you a “baseline”, and go from there. It might have some of your background information, such as your age and gender if you’ve let it know—that’s about it.
The Child Learns
So if this brand-new YouTube channel of yours is your child, it will “inherit” your DOB, gender, address, and some other online information Google may have about you. Or, if YouTube’s code doesn’t want to build on this data, your child will have a true blank slate—but I doubt that’s the case.
Over time, this child will grow into a “good” or “bad” channel based on what you “feed it.” If you watch a lot of horror movies, it will turn into a horror-video bonanza. If you watch a lot of weather with it, it will be the weather guru of your life.
Inheritance and Environment
Everything online now has your signature.
So all our apps “behave” according to:
- Algorithm - I'd say inherited
- Environment - your data and your history
There are many other examples where behavior is both inherited and influenced by the environment. Think about dog training.
Human societies are, of course, more complicated than dog training. If a society is closed, think about the old times when transportation was hard, you would see a lot of homogeneous societies. But in today’s world, you might find the most westernized person in a remote region somewhere simply because they have access to the internet.
Conclusion
In the end, behavior is constantly influenced by our environment — just like YouTube’s suggested videos constantly change based on your last search. So I’d say, be careful what you wish for, and be aware of what your thoughts are. That’s why I believe that religious praying is the best way to stay sane in this modern world — and to stay rooted. That’s probably what the child might need as well: to be rooted.
What you let in to influence you cannot be taken out easily.
Thanks for reading!