Why We Dominate the Earth
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Why We Dominate the Earth
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Re: Why We Dominate the Earth
#2> Surprisingly, it’s not our shared language or even our ability to dominate other species that defines us but rather, our shared fictions.
I read his book where he talks about this. It makes some sense: you can operate at varied scales if you have shared fictions.
When you meet a complete stranger, you're both members of the human race, sharing a desire for a better future. Meet a fellow countryman, and there are songs and stories that bind you together. Work for the same company and there's internal culture as well as the glorious leader you both work for. Support the same football team and you both remember that night in Istanbul. You were sitting at home in Liverpool, he was in Malaysia.
Hard to tell as with anything historical whether this is the most convincing explanation though. I'm sure there's other things that separate us from the animals? But a compelling enough story and he tells it well.
Re: Why We Dominate the Earth
#3I saw an interesting, related theory in an ecology book I read recently. Most native peoples were very in tune withe the earth (Pagan Europe, Native American tribes, Hindu India, Tribal Africa, Aboriginal Australia, etc).
The rise of Abrahamic religion, with man as the most important creature on the planet and everything on earth created for man, is a factor for why we "dominate" the earth.
Re: Why We Dominate the Earth
#4> Surprisingly, it’s not our shared language or even our ability to dominate other species that defines us but rather, our shared fictions. I read his book where he talks about this. It makes some sense: you can operate at varied scales if you have shared fictions. When you meet a complete stranger, you're both members of the human race, sharing a desire for a better future. Meet a fellow countryman, and there are so…
That night in Istanbul was a fiction? Isn't that just a shared story?
Re: Why We Dominate the Earth
#5Sapiens is a must read for anyone who wants to better understand the fabrics of humanity. It's one of my most favourite books and reading it definitely has opened up my eyes to the world.
An example:
Humans are the "creators of the world", the most dominant species on the planet and at the top of the food chain by a long distance and yet we are the most jumpy/scary species of all.
If a tiny spider would crawl up the leg of a lion they wouldn't give a bit of a shit. A lion would remain calm, knowing that the spider cannot do anything and it wouldn't even bother to entertain the spider for a split second.
However if the same tiny spider would crawl up the leg of a human there's a real chance that this person would start jumping up and down, perhaps trying to kill the spider or maybe even rush out of the room until the spider is gone.
This is completely irrational for someone like us - the species who literally dominates everything on this planet - and yet so common. Why is that? Because lions had millions of years to climb the ladder to the top of the food chain and therefore had the time to develop a nature which reflects their strength, whereas humans have jumped to the top so quickly that we still have the fears and behaviour of someone who is extremely weak and vulnerable. It's actually quite scary and also explains why humans often respond to tiny issues with violence, bombings and other out of proportion threats when things could just be ignored.
Re: Why We Dominate the Earth
#6We are great at coordinated actions on varying scales, but I wonder whether we can also do coordinated actions at global scales that outspan an individual's lifespan. Like in preventing climate change. Or in making sure that we don't nuke each other. The nuking experiment has been running for a few decades only. Can we avoid rocking the boat so hard that it keels over?
Re: Why We Dominate the Earth
#7I saw an interesting, related theory in an ecology book I read recently. Most native peoples were very in tune withe the earth (Pagan Europe, Native American tribes, Hindu India, Tribal Africa, Aboriginal Australia, etc). The rise of Abrahamic religion, with man as the most important creature on the planet and everything on earth created for man, is a factor for why we "dominate" the earth.
Or maybe the starting point is that sapiens' DNA really is shaped for ruling.
That sapiens mostly preferred 'Abrahamic religion' to others is then a consequence to this starting point.
Re: Why We Dominate the Earth
#8I saw an interesting, related theory in an ecology book I read recently. Most native peoples were very in tune withe the earth (Pagan Europe, Native American tribes, Hindu India, Tribal Africa, Aboriginal Australia, etc). The rise of Abrahamic religion, with man as the most important creature on the planet and everything on earth created for man, is a factor for why we "dominate" the earth.
The Chinese don't follow an Abrahamic religion and yet they've built huge urban empires.
It's unlikely this is a factor.
Re: Why We Dominate the Earth
#9Sapiens is a must read for anyone who wants to better understand the fabrics of humanity. It's one of my most favourite books and reading it definitely has opened up my eyes to the world. An example: Humans are the "creators of the world", the most dominant species on the planet and at the top of the food chain by a long distance and yet we are the most jumpy/scary species of all. If a tiny spider would crawl up the…
I don't agree. I lived in the Caribbean for a while and the longer i was there the less i cared about spiders or flies crawling on my face.
If you see other peoples freak out from spiders, you think thats the correct reaction and so you do it.
Re: Why We Dominate the Earth
#10I saw an interesting, related theory in an ecology book I read recently. Most native peoples were very in tune withe the earth (Pagan Europe, Native American tribes, Hindu India, Tribal Africa, Aboriginal Australia, etc). The rise of Abrahamic religion, with man as the most important creature on the planet and everything on earth created for man, is a factor for why we "dominate" the earth.
The Chinese don't follow an Abrahamic religion and yet they've built huge urban empires. It's unlikely this is a factor.
It could be a factor everywhere else I mentioned, though. This is a logical fallacy.