phiofx
Ha, ha this.
My take is that we are (mostly) innocent idiots. Or rather, idiot savants that got in serious trouble operating in disconnected silos. We have developed scientific thought and built amazing tech domains, but haven't touched the most critical one: the science of a good society.
Why not? Its just to disruptive to long-dominant social patterns to do so. Social tech is still antediluvian
@gerrymcgovern @jackofalltrades @fifilamoura @jill_the_pill @FantasticalEconomics
phiofx
@FantasticalEconomics @tuban_muzuru @fifilamoura @jackofalltrades @the_Effekt @gerrymcgovern @jill_the_pill
I trust my eyes. When I look around I dont see vicious hominids. I see people living largely peacefully, in very large numbers, in various degrees of hierarchy / inequality.
We can obviously be induced into collective violence. And that agitated state is becoming ever more menacing with ever more lethal technology. But its not our ground state. Its an excitation triggered on purpose.
Kyle Montanio
...
Folks spending years researching the society:
"These people came together to build these incredible monuments, and according to the archaeological evidence, they did it in the absence of any kind of institutional hierarchy, wealth differences, or intensive agricultural systems.”
I'll trust them, even though you once saw a murder.
@fifilamoura @jackofalltrades @phiofx @the_Effekt @gerrymcgovern @jill_the_pill
tuban_muzuru
@FantasticalEconomics @fifilamoura @jackofalltrades @phiofx @the_Effekt @gerrymcgovern @jill_the_pill
The Neolithic culture which build Göbekli Tepe in Anatolia lived a considerable distance from this perhaps-a-temple complex. Like the Poverty Point culture, it didn't live there.
Just because they didn't build a palace doesn't mean they didn't have a hierarchy. Those mounds would have required an intricate hierarchy to get the people there, feed them, house them.
tuban_muzuru
@FantasticalEconomics @fifilamoura @jackofalltrades @phiofx @the_Effekt @gerrymcgovern @jill_the_pill
Ah yes, a mound building culture, of which we have no other record
This is Rousseau-ian horseshit: “In native political philosophy, power works for the collective, not the individual,”
Every native American culture of which I am aware had a hierarchical structure. Name one which didn't
Kyle Montanio
Here's an example from modern day Louisiana:
"These people came together to build these incredible monuments, and according to the archaeological evidence, they did it in the absence of any kind of institutional hierarchy, wealth differences, or intensive agricultural systems. All of that was once thought to be a prerequisite for social complexity.”
@fifilamoura @jackofalltrades @phiofx @the_Effekt @gerrymcgovern @jill_the_pill
tuban_muzuru
@fifilamoura @violetmadder @jackofalltrades @phiofx @the_Effekt @gerrymcgovern @jill_the_pill @FantasticalEconomics
Stop wriggling. Which society manages without hierarchy?
Fifi Lamoura
@tuban_muzuru Sorry, I just don't engage with people personally dedicated to being assholes because they believe everyone else is a baboon. Why are you even on a social network if you're this antisocial? @violetmadder @jackofalltrades @phiofx @the_Effekt @gerrymcgovern @jill_the_pill @FantasticalEconomics
tuban_muzuru
@fifilamoura @violetmadder @jackofalltrades @phiofx @the_Effekt @gerrymcgovern @jill_the_pill @FantasticalEconomics
Where are these societies-without-hierarchy? Name one. They do not exist - they have never existed.
tuban_muzuru
@fifilamoura @violetmadder @jackofalltrades @phiofx @the_Effekt @gerrymcgovern @jill_the_pill @FantasticalEconomics
I believe, based on surviving three wars that mankind is a vicious little hominid whose technology outran his morals about the time iron was first forged.
He roams the earth like so many troops of baboons, making bad excuses for his murders, with appeals to Authority and Duty - that's where my bit comes in.
Not even the Fulani I knew, nomadic people, live without authority.
Fifi Lamoura
@tuban_muzuru What does you witnessing a murder in 1966 have to do with different social systems that you are incapable of imagining? But, whatever, you seem simply to want to affirm your own personal beliefs and not investigate anything else.
@violetmadder @jackofalltrades @phiofx @the_Effekt @gerrymcgovern @jill_the_pill @FantasticalEconomics
tuban_muzuru
@fifilamoura @violetmadder @jackofalltrades @phiofx @the_Effekt @gerrymcgovern @jill_the_pill @FantasticalEconomics
Google, that doth make geniuses of us all. Heh. I saw my first murder in 1966, knelt in the back of my father's little Peugeot, as a group of Yoruba men hacked one of my father's Igbo students to pieces.
No, we're not going there, Fifi. Anthropology is merely educated tourism: they come and visit and act as if they've been there all their lives.
Fifi Lamoura
@tuban_muzuru Google "non hierarchical societies anthropology" and you should find some things to start educating yourself further. You don't have to go very far or search very widely to find all kinds of research into this. Enjoy the adventure of introducing yourself to all kinds of things you haven't thought about yet and to deconstructing some of your own societal beliefs and biases (if you enjoy learning, that is, of course!)
@violetmadder @jackofalltrades @phiofx @the_Effekt @gerrymcgovern @jill_the_pill @FantasticalEconomics
tuban_muzuru
@fifilamoura @violetmadder @jackofalltrades @phiofx @the_Effekt @gerrymcgovern @jill_the_pill @FantasticalEconomics
I'm trying to think about these different kinds of social systems - and though I look far and wide, I cannot find any which might vary from the general ugly trends.
Fifi Lamoura
@tuban_muzuru This is one society and the one we've fetishized and view as foundational (partly based on European myths about itself) but humans have had all different kinds of social systems. @violetmadder @jackofalltrades @phiofx @the_Effekt @gerrymcgovern @jill_the_pill @FantasticalEconomics
tuban_muzuru
@violetmadder @jackofalltrades @phiofx @the_Effekt @gerrymcgovern @fifilamoura @jill_the_pill @FantasticalEconomics
The ancients were awful to each other - to their women, to their slaves.
Carl Sagan lays this out - folks, the only people to say good things of the ancient world were the slaveholders of later generations.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/6518559-a-disdain-for-the-practical-swept-the-ancient-world-plato
violetmadder
@jackofalltrades @phiofx @the_Effekt @gerrymcgovern @fifilamoura @jill_the_pill @FantasticalEconomics
I wonder sometimes if social skills are the real lost technology of the ancients...
Jack of all trades
@phiofx @the_Effekt @gerrymcgovern @fifilamoura @jill_the_pill @FantasticalEconomics
Yes!
When I watched "Don't Look Up" initially it felt unfair to the humans. They had all that technology! They could solve that asteroid problem easily.
However, they lacked the most important technology of all: a way to cooperate globally that prioritized the good of the many over the good of the few.
Alas, we also lack this technology, which is why #ClimateAction looks the way it does.
phiofx
@tuban_muzuru @FantasticalEconomics @fifilamoura @jackofalltrades @the_Effekt @gerrymcgovern @jill_the_pill
If your thesis was true we wouldn't exist. There is the random evil of individuals (bullying, rape etc) that will always be with us in some form but its not an existential risk. And there is the systemic evil of collective narratives and hallucinations. There is nothing unavoidable or pre-ordained about this type. Its a cultural construct. It is explicitly taught.
tuban_muzuru
@phiofx @FantasticalEconomics @fifilamoura @jackofalltrades @the_Effekt @gerrymcgovern @jill_the_pill
The veneer of civilization is very thin. Man's greatest skill is his ability to lie to himself, to make excuses for the evil he does. That includes all that hierarchy / inequality and whatnot - selfishness and cruelty, it's all there, bubbling away, like the contents of our colons.
Time to face facts. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
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