Growth as an end
mojo_raisin @ mojo_raisin @lemmy.world Posts 2Comments 555Joined 1 yr. ago
mojo_raisin @ mojo_raisin @lemmy.world
Posts
2
Comments
555
Joined
1 yr. ago
Without ambition and drive people would still be living in caves.
And we'd have a planet to live on indefinitely rather than letting a few thousand rich people destroy our world causing massive suffering. But really, there's a world between living in caves with zero progress and letting capitalists destroy our world while we praise them, I'm not suggesting we live in caves, I'm suggesting we don't let ambitious assholes kill us all while blaming us for the problems they create.
I don’t need some jabbering moron with an agenda to tell me how I should feel about things I can observe with my own eyes.
And you don't have an agenda of driving civilization in the direction you want? Are you that blind to your own behavior? You're engaging in a conversation about it and pushing a point, that's an agenda.
It’s always a situation where the few are carrying the many
That's very likely due to different people having different tolerance for exploitation. Just because you don't mind being exploited try to be a good boot licker doesn't mean others are bad because they don't want to be exploited. Maybe in a different situation you'd be viewed as the lazy one. It's not selfish to not work harder for another's gain.
I think that would cause a different confusion. I don't know that this is a concept that can be expressed in a single existing word. Sometimes concepts take time before the right word arises. No sense blaming people for using the language available to them to express a novel idea.
Anti-work is anti-exploitation.
It's not about people wanting to be lazy yet still have all the niceties, it's about not being coerced into a lifetime of labor to enrich the ones coercing you. A person's labor should enrich themselves and those they choose.
LROUS
I say ambition, drive, greed, etc are personality issues that cause harm to others and the environment.
While I'm sure there are a few individuals that would rather sit and die than go get some food, this is not something to actually be concerned with. You watch too much right wing TV telling you there's a whole class of people that just want to take from you, but what's actually happening is that this group is being stolen from and what you see as laziness is often just an unwillingness to facilitate being stolen from.
Sorry for the late reply, I've been away.
Animal behavior is the product of both genetics and environment (including the environment affecting the genes, epigenetics), and feedback loops are real but any neuroplasticity is limited to what our genetics will allow and what level of change is genetically possible over a given number of generations.
Since people’s behavior changes the environment, it creates a feedback loop; societies form a semi-artificial environment where people learn that domination is successful behavior, and are rewarded for continuing it. Thus, the behavior is propagated across generations, no instinct required.
This is what will cause genetic changes over time and turn learned behavior into innate behavior. Like the non-bonobo chimps probably started out that way (or maybe vice-versa) and over millennia or even millions of years, no longer have the capacity to behave like the other regardless of environment. If we took a non-bonobo family and put them with regular chimps I don't believe the non-bonobo children would behave like bonobos because they are around bonobos.
Even if the "dominator instinct" is purely behavioral and not based in biology at all, it doesn't change my point. My point is really a game theory point, that our species chose cooperation as a general strategy because it works out best for everyone in our situation at the time. But because we vary (whether genetically or a person's learned behavior) an occasional individual comes along that tries out a different strategy.
Here's a game that demonstrates my point.
Imagine a form of this game is played in early humans that have a cooperative culture. The cheater is likely to be ostracized or beaten up/killed allowing the cooperative culture to continue. But then you throw money into the game (ability to hoard resources, and create artificial scarcity by taking things from others and allowing selective "paying" of individuals that back you up. Now when a cheater comes along, they have tools (money and artificial scarcity) that allow them to break out of the normal game rules and dominate others -- a dominator instinct was born.
I hear you on Busdriver, I tend to not listen to the words and just hear it as a sort of instrument so it doesn't matter what he's saying. But for those that do, I could see it being too much, same with Kool Keith.
I'll check out Brother Ali, I've heard of him but not his music.
Well, an orange calf at least.
I'll let you know how it goes, I'm coming up on about 30 years of smoking the sweet sweet cheeba.
Look into underground hip hop, there's all sorts of awesome music of much higher caliber than mainstream rap/hip hop.
Mf Doom, Busdriver, Kool Keith (and his many many aliases), Aesop Rock (not ASAP Rocky or whatever), and I'm sure lots of newer stuff I'm not even familiar with. Digable Planets are pretty big and they're good (and old, like me)
.
I tend to hear the vocals as an instrument and often have no idea what the words are. It's happened before where once I learn the words I don't like the song as much anymore either because the meaning of the words is distracting or the meaning is way different than the meaning I'd put on the song.
Then how come cannabis doesn't have the same cancer profile?
The chimp/bonobo thing does have a scientific basis. I'd say genetic variation that causes modulation of personality traits is pretty well established as having a scientific basis. The fact that mainstream science doesn't view things in terms of a "dominator instinct" doesn't mean anything other than that those funding the science don't have motivation to view things that way.
mmmm universe
Is this “dominator instinct” backed up by science, or vibes?
Vibes, mainstream science is a product of capitalism, why would it vilify itself?
Is it not more likely that...
These things are not mutually exclusive. The dominator instinct is not a metaphysical thing. Every species chooses (by evolving) a life strategy. Think about Bonobos vs non-bonobo chimps, same biology for the most part but they chose different strategies at the species level, chimps went with the dominator strategy and bonobos didn't. The dominator instinct probably pops up in some individuals the bonobo populations but is kept in check by the bonobo culture.
Seriously: I don’t think the cost benefit is there to intentionally make a maneuver like this.
You might be right
They can’t let short-term greed get in the way of long-term greed!
lol
Actually I'm an ROUS.
Good thing people like me exist that will not only feed the "freeloaders", but take care of you too when you break your leg.
I don't necessarily disagree with any of that, don't necessarily agree either though.
I don't think class conflict (that drove feudalism etc) arose just from there being grains around that "needed protection". Without the dominator instinct, grain storage just means insurance, food security (security against bad weather, not finding the herd to hunt, or outside groups raiding).
I think class conflict was due to individuals who both desired power over others and understood that grain provided a means of attaining power because it provided a hoardable resource that allowed paying others to back them up. "You want to eat good? Then protect me and my hoard" That then sets up a situation where the grain holders become the upper class, those they pay for protection become class traiters, and everyone else ends up exploited.
I posit that humans as a species are a generally good cooperative species but due to natural variation, some individual's brains are wired to think in a more exploitative way. But this exploitative person would be viewed negatively by their community and without a state to protect them, would be vulnerable to the direct consequences of their actions; and so this exploitative strategy was kept in check and unable to grow.
The ability to hoard grain allowed those with the dominator instinct to gain the upper hand against their community and take power. Feudalism evolved from that.
The rare dominator instinct + hoardable resources evolved into large scale exploitative economies of various types where the dominator instinct then became common and is now in most of us.
Absolutely, but it's our genome that programs this adaptability.
Consider humans vs giant pandas for example. Our genes programmed our (brains and) bodies to be highly adaptable, some can be vegans, others carnivores, some can live in the snow, others in the tropics, we can learn new languages throughout life, and build novel tools and learn to use them. A giant panda might die if eats anything other than bamboo and will do poorly in any environment different than what it's evolved for. This is because we evolved for adaptability while giant pandas evolved to be fit in a mostly unchanging environment.
Giant pandas probably don't have the genetic adaptability built in for a dominator instinct to arise in them, while in humans, the dominator instinct can arise within our mental adaptability. It might start as meme (in the Dawkins sense) and then the brain can evolve to facilitate the behavior (to be honest, I think this is what is happening in our species currently, generations living under exploitative economic systems might be driving our brains to be less sympathetic to others rather than viewing others as part of our environment).
It's not that say giant pandas have evolved a genetic limiter really, it's that humans have evolved to be able to survive in various and changing environments and a brain that can learn is a key part of this ability. Giant pandas have not had the selective pressure to evolve a genome tolerant of change able to produce a brain that can adapt on the fly to new environments.