Humankind neither nasty nor brutish

Post by bleepblorp » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 10:17 PM UTC

wahern wrote: post #92

bleepblorp wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About 40% of humans are predisposed, either through biology or upbringing, to blindly follow socially dominant people. This is why authoritarianism happens. A disproportionate percentage of socially dominant people are sociopaths who are unfit to lead. This does not matter to authoritarian followers, however, and this is why things like Naziism happen.

Do you have a citation for such a figure, or is it something that appeared self-evident, like sticky electoral support for historical, authoritarian leaders?

Post by disown » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 11:48 PM UTC

fancyfredbot wrote: post #8

I think this article is rather unfairly quoting poor Hobbes out of context. Hobbes didn't say humankind was nasty and brutish, he said the life of man would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" in the absence of a community... Which is not contradicted by the examples in the article!

Post by thatcat » Wed, Sep 09, 2020, 2:23 AM UTC

082349872349872 wrote: post #52

luckylion wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To have a We, you need a They. An alien threat would be the best thing ever for human cooperation. I'm not sure whether the aliens need to be real, as long as they feel real.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 is real, but apparently insufficiently alien? Or maybe too alien to suffice as a subanthropomorphisable They?

Post by 082349872349872 » Wed, Sep 09, 2020, 6:12 AM UTC

luckylion wrote: post #67

082349872349872 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 is real, but apparently insufficiently alien? Or maybe too alien to suffice as a subanthropomorphisable They?

Yeah, I think it has to be something that can be considered an enemy, not something that'll do us harm because that's how things are but has no mind of its own. A virus, diabetes or global warming aren't going to work as good (my intuition is that men need it to be an actual enemy more than women, but I have no idea). I do believe that e.g. Americans would be much more compliant in corona-mitigation-things like weari…

Post by thursday0987 » Wed, Sep 09, 2020, 1:17 PM UTC

vermilingua wrote: post #96

munificent wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Children ages 2 and 3 are a strong counter-example to this "inmate human goodness" hypothesis and Rousseau's thinking in general. Children younger than that are strong counter-examples to claims that humans are bipedal and have sophisticated verbal skills. I think there is a more, useful understanding of "innate" that doesn't literally mean "from the moment of birth" but more means "absent other sufficiently strong…

The trick isn’t in the meaning of the word “innate”, but in your definition of child and human. Children are not fully human at birth, their brains are entirely undeveloped; so it’s perfectly valid to say humans have innate goodness, and children do not, because they are not yet entirely human.