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Humankind neither nasty nor brutish

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Re: Humankind neither nasty nor brutish

#61

Post by bambax »

_greim_ wrote: post #47
bambax wrote: post #44

We help our own, and destroy and torture with great pleasure and no remorse everything else, including animals, whole ecosystems, and other human beings we decide, for some reason or another, are "aliens". The moment we give another human community a special name is the first step towards abomination. Being territorial and aggressive towards others is a trait we share with other species, but we are also superpredator…

> We help our own, and destroy and torture with great pleasure and no remorse everything else... When you say "we" do you mean you personally partake in all these activities, or do you count yourself as an exception to the rule?

We includes the person talking, of course. I don't see how I could say this and not include myself. I'm human (for better and worse).

Re: Humankind neither nasty nor brutish

#62

Post by bambax »

chillacy wrote: post #58
bambax wrote: post #44

We help our own, and destroy and torture with great pleasure and no remorse everything else, including animals, whole ecosystems, and other human beings we decide, for some reason or another, are "aliens". The moment we give another human community a special name is the first step towards abomination. Being territorial and aggressive towards others is a trait we share with other species, but we are also superpredator…

Humans (sapiens) are very altruistic to their in-group and downright brutal to their out-group. The easiest trick may just be to adjust these boundaries over time. If sentient aliens showed up to wage war, I'm sure the different human nations on earth would suddenly find themselves to have a lot more in common.

Yes, agreed.

Re: Humankind neither nasty nor brutish

#63

Post by growlist »

arethuza wrote: post #53
seneca wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - C. S.…

I agree with Orwell more on the motivation behind tyranny: "No one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."

It's funny how attempts at creating utopia always seem to end in horrific bloody violence.

Re: Humankind neither nasty nor brutish

#64

Post by arethuza »

growlist wrote: post #63
arethuza wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with Orwell more on the motivation behind tyranny: "No one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."

It's funny how attempts at creating utopia always seem to end in horrific bloody violence.

Almost certainly because the attempts at creating "utopia" aren't anything of the sort - they are simple power grabs by whoever happens to be the most ruthless bunch of thugs.

Re: Humankind neither nasty nor brutish

#66

Post by soledades »

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!

You are misrepresenting Hobbes here to say that he was referring to the absence of a community... Sapiens have always lived in communities. He was referring specifically to humans in the condition in the absence of state power:

Hereby it is manifest that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man.

The "nasty brutish, and short" bit follows in an elaboration of this condition in the next paragraph.

and THIS is contradicted, if not by the article, then by the book it is reviewing. In particular:

To date, some three thousand Homo sapiens skeletons unearthed at four hundred sites are old enough to tell us something about our 'natural state'. Scientists who have studied these sites see no convincing evidence for prehistoric warfare. In later periods, it's a different story. 'War does not go forever backwards in time,' says renowned anthropologist Brian Ferguson. 'It had a beginning'

Re: Humankind neither nasty nor brutish

#67

Post by luckylion »

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?

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 wearing masks if the narrative was "China has sent us a Virus to destroy us". But that would obviously also create serious issues because they'd demand revenge.

A secretive alien enemy has sent us a Virus, and they're also trying to cook us alive by heating up our planet. Are you going to just let them do it to us, or will you stand up and fight for our way of life, against the intergalactic threat? Now that's a They that can provide a We for Team Humanity, Leaders Of The Free Universe.

Re: Humankind neither nasty nor brutish

#68

Post by throwanem »

falcolas wrote: post #17
throwanem wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point may be that systems which produce such behavior are perversions, rather than expressions, of whatever essential nature humanity may be said to have.

And yet he has no answer for why people will willingly kill people over getting wrong answers in a quiz. Perhaps his hypothesis is wrong.

Hasn't he?

> Bregman's digging into subsequent critiques of the [Milgram] experiment revealed that it was not quite as bad as it seemed: a substantial proportion of the "torturers" had figured out that it was not real. Several more protested that it was wrong. Those who did continue were convinced by the researchers that what they were doing was for the greater good. Bregman, with something of a leap, goes from there to the Holocaust and the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Bregman is horrified by the Holocaust, as anyone who believes in the goodness of humankind must be. He suggests that people will indeed do nasty things on a mass scale if they are convinced that it is for the greater good. It was not inherent nastiness that led to the Holocaust, Bregman suggests, but years of indoctrination.

Himmler complained obliquely in one of his Posen speeches, I believe, about how difficult this indoctrination was to enforce and maintain. While that's not a source I would ordinarily be happy to cite, this complaint in particular seems not without relevance here.

Re: Humankind neither nasty nor brutish

#69

Post by soledades »

One thing I found very interesting from the book (which is worth a read):

The notion humans might have rose to supremacy among the apes, not by brainpower alone, but by a combination of brainpower and mirroring, i.e. our almost magical ability/tendency to copy others.

This then, goes the hypothesis, allowed a thicker channel of intellectual transmission, and faster development of species technology, even though Neanderthals had 20% larger brain mass and appear to have made many of the hallmark human discoveries first.

Re: Humankind neither nasty nor brutish

#70

Post by growlist »

arethuza wrote: post #64
growlist wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny how attempts at creating utopia always seem to end in horrific bloody violence.

Almost certainly because the attempts at creating "utopia" aren't anything of the sort - they are simple power grabs by whoever happens to be the most ruthless bunch of thugs.

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