Yes, we invented power imbalances when we got domesticated by wheat. We haven’t solved that yet.
That’s the last 10,000 years, for a good 70,000 years before that we lived without civilization, so civilization is still far more brief in terms of evolutionary timescale.
I don’t find appeals to nature persuasive. Nature is full of terrifying, disgusting, and deadly things. Most of what people associate with nature (lush forests, beautiful meadows, butterflies, birds, gently flowing clean rivers, gorgeous mountains) is biased to our needs.
Nature also includes foul-smelling swamps teaming with disease-carrying insects, unclean water full of deadly pathogens, harsh deserts with no shade, no water, but plenty of deadly scorpions and snakes, hot savannahs full of powerful lions, leopards, cheetahs, and hyenas, coral reefs full of jagged rocks, deadly stonefish and box jellyfish….
You get the point. Moral judgement of humanity as a whole is silly. Your energies are much better spent trying to make things better in a smaller area around you. Oh, and a lot of human power is illusory: people refusing to act because they don’t think anything will change.
By definition, a living thing is meant to live in a certain environment. Evolution is all about adapting to your environment. So imo the best way to judge a living thing is to take its natural habitat into account to figure out what it is designed to do.
So the issue with humans and all our modern problems is that we are not used to this environment, we have been evolved for more hunter gatherer lifestyles. Even if we got used to the Industrial Revolution, the computer age changed all that.
Imo that’s one of the basis of socialism, it’s the recognition that capitalism makes a terrible environment. And that we must ask, how do we design our economic system to provide a better environment for humans (one that works better with what the body and mind expect).
So this is why I brought up my original point. Humans are not designed for huge power imbalances, it’s why the extremely powerful lack empathy. It’s our invention that is doing more harm than good.
Evolution does not care about our happiness. If an elite group of wealthy cannibals took over the world and created a vast breeding farm to produce trillions of humans, selecting for diverse genetics to produce the widest variety of flavours, textures, sizes, and strengths, then that would be evolutionary advantageous over our current situation. Domestic cattle have a huge evolutionary advantage over their wild cousins who struggle to survive at the margins of civilization.
Humans evolved culture, which at its core represents the storage and transmission of information, much of which may provide survival advantages (culinary and cleanliness practices for example). Since that point, we’ve developed vast amounts of technology which facilitate and accelerate the transmission of information, allowing us to organize ourselves on larger and larger scales, some of which had enhanced our fitness (food production, medicine, improvements in shelter and sanitation) while others have reduced our fitness (contraceptives have pushed population growth below replacement levels).
On that last point, I think it will ultimately be a temporary blip. Evolution does not care about happiness, so a large empire with no birth control and a growing but oppressed and unhappy population is evolutionarily advantageous relative to a liberal democratic society where everyone is happy but the population is shrinking.
Nature is cruel. Living things aren’t “meant” to do anything, they just exist and try to survive. Humans aren’t the only living things on the planet that change their environments. Microorganisms, plants, social insects, and beavers are other examples.
Try creating a new sourdough starter from flour and water to see what happens. It goes through a really cool progression of different stages which are each dominated by different species of bacteria, before settling on a mixture of wild yeasts and lactobacillus bacteria that are adapted to the acidic environment (which the micros themselves created)!
Similar things happen with the progression of forest ecosystems from early lichens and pioneer grasses to conifers and finally deciduous trees in a mature forest. It all seems beautiful and pleasant but there is much life and death going on all the time. Oh, and if you spend enough time living near forest with your window open then you’ll definitely hear the screaming of small animals being killed by predators.
None of that has anything to do with my point. I never brought up happiness or morality, simply that:
Humans are not designed for huge power imbalances
I honestly don’t know how you went from that to nature is cruel.
My point is more like: humans are not designed to take a lot of radiation so it’s not a mystery that there are problems when they are in a high radiation environment.
Gonna stop responding here unless you have a direct rebuttal to the point above and not about morality or nature being cruel.
My second point above contains the seeds of what you’re looking for: humans evolved culture which enables us to function in a wide variety of organizational styles across a large range of population sizes. Huge power imbalances, the most extreme being dictatorships, are not a barrier to human survival.
The fact that humans evolved in an environment without huge power imbalances is no more relevant than the fact that humans also evolved in an environment without huge temperature variations and yet are thriving on every continent save Antarctica (we could thrive even there but we have no reason to try). We are extremely good at surviving, even if we’re not always happy about it.
The fact that humans evolved in an environment without huge power imbalances is no more relevant than the fact that humans also evolved in an environment without huge temperature variations and yet are thriving on every continent save Antarctica
We did though, losing our fur gave us that ability and then we went all around the globe around 50,000 years ago.
Huge power imbalances, the most extreme being dictatorships, are not a barrier to human survival.
Okay yeah this is a direct response. Your claiming huge power imbalances help us survive. It’s not true though, as authoritarian states are far less stable.
Also, lots of inequality leads to fertility rates plummeting, now I’m not saying that’s morally good or not, but it’s direct evidence that huge power imbalance does affect survival negatively.
IMO the best example is climate change. With huge power imbalances, we are literally killing our own future.
Some power imbalance can work, the extreme just makes sure there is less resources for the majority to actually thrive, pure and simple.
Yes, we invented power imbalances when we got domesticated by wheat. We haven’t solved that yet.
That’s the last 10,000 years, for a good 70,000 years before that we lived without civilization, so civilization is still far more brief in terms of evolutionary timescale.
Yes, I just wouldn’t characterize ancient Sumeria as “modern society.” Modern society, to me, began with the Industrial Revolution.
Your right, should have used the word civilization and pointed out how the Industrial Revolution super charged it.
But my point still stands, big power imbalances within a species is not natural and 100% a human invention.
I don’t find appeals to nature persuasive. Nature is full of terrifying, disgusting, and deadly things. Most of what people associate with nature (lush forests, beautiful meadows, butterflies, birds, gently flowing clean rivers, gorgeous mountains) is biased to our needs.
Nature also includes foul-smelling swamps teaming with disease-carrying insects, unclean water full of deadly pathogens, harsh deserts with no shade, no water, but plenty of deadly scorpions and snakes, hot savannahs full of powerful lions, leopards, cheetahs, and hyenas, coral reefs full of jagged rocks, deadly stonefish and box jellyfish….
You get the point. Moral judgement of humanity as a whole is silly. Your energies are much better spent trying to make things better in a smaller area around you. Oh, and a lot of human power is illusory: people refusing to act because they don’t think anything will change.
Not sure what you mean by that.
By definition, a living thing is meant to live in a certain environment. Evolution is all about adapting to your environment. So imo the best way to judge a living thing is to take its natural habitat into account to figure out what it is designed to do.
So the issue with humans and all our modern problems is that we are not used to this environment, we have been evolved for more hunter gatherer lifestyles. Even if we got used to the Industrial Revolution, the computer age changed all that.
Imo that’s one of the basis of socialism, it’s the recognition that capitalism makes a terrible environment. And that we must ask, how do we design our economic system to provide a better environment for humans (one that works better with what the body and mind expect).
So this is why I brought up my original point. Humans are not designed for huge power imbalances, it’s why the extremely powerful lack empathy. It’s our invention that is doing more harm than good.
There’s a few things here:
Nature is cruel. Living things aren’t “meant” to do anything, they just exist and try to survive. Humans aren’t the only living things on the planet that change their environments. Microorganisms, plants, social insects, and beavers are other examples.
Try creating a new sourdough starter from flour and water to see what happens. It goes through a really cool progression of different stages which are each dominated by different species of bacteria, before settling on a mixture of wild yeasts and lactobacillus bacteria that are adapted to the acidic environment (which the micros themselves created)!
Similar things happen with the progression of forest ecosystems from early lichens and pioneer grasses to conifers and finally deciduous trees in a mature forest. It all seems beautiful and pleasant but there is much life and death going on all the time. Oh, and if you spend enough time living near forest with your window open then you’ll definitely hear the screaming of small animals being killed by predators.
None of that has anything to do with my point. I never brought up happiness or morality, simply that:
I honestly don’t know how you went from that to nature is cruel.
My point is more like: humans are not designed to take a lot of radiation so it’s not a mystery that there are problems when they are in a high radiation environment.
Gonna stop responding here unless you have a direct rebuttal to the point above and not about morality or nature being cruel.
My second point above contains the seeds of what you’re looking for: humans evolved culture which enables us to function in a wide variety of organizational styles across a large range of population sizes. Huge power imbalances, the most extreme being dictatorships, are not a barrier to human survival.
The fact that humans evolved in an environment without huge power imbalances is no more relevant than the fact that humans also evolved in an environment without huge temperature variations and yet are thriving on every continent save Antarctica (we could thrive even there but we have no reason to try). We are extremely good at surviving, even if we’re not always happy about it.
We did though, losing our fur gave us that ability and then we went all around the globe around 50,000 years ago.
Okay yeah this is a direct response. Your claiming huge power imbalances help us survive. It’s not true though, as authoritarian states are far less stable.
Also, lots of inequality leads to fertility rates plummeting, now I’m not saying that’s morally good or not, but it’s direct evidence that huge power imbalance does affect survival negatively.
IMO the best example is climate change. With huge power imbalances, we are literally killing our own future.
Some power imbalance can work, the extreme just makes sure there is less resources for the majority to actually thrive, pure and simple.