Ultimately it comes down to might makes right. That’s the final argument of kings (the barrel of a gun). For all the progress we’ve made we still can’t escape the account of Thrasymachus.
So by definition, since no human is more powerful than 3 or more (average) humans combined, might makes right should translate to majority rule.
Now if we had a superman flying around that could honestly take on millions of people at a time, then yeah might makes right makes him king. Besides that, it always comes down to fooling the majority.
The argument doesn’t specify how one achieves might. That’s an exercise for the reader. One guy sitting in a bunker with his finger over the red button of a doomsday weapon is rather mighty. A million people all working together in a coordinated hive mind would also be mighty.
The main issue for a group of humans is coordination. In general, smaller groups are easier to coordinate than larger groups. I think this is one of the biggest reasons elites can form and take control over larger groups in society. Wealth has a big effect too but this coordination problem has always existed and so have elites, at least since the dawn of agriculture.
One guy sitting in a bunker with a red button is only possible because of society and our cumulative technology.
I think you missed my point, what I meant is that some having more power than others is a product of modern society, not an inherent value one is born with. So big power imbalances only exist because we let it be possible. We only let it be possible by convincing enough people that’s the only way we can have a functioning society.
I actually think that used to be true until the last few decades.
That’s simply not true. Read about the Egyptian pharaohs or ancient kings like Sargon of Akkad. Huge power imbalances have been with us for thousands of years. They don’t depend on modern technology, just agriculture and organization.
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.
In the same token, this is how revolutions are successful. The “might” of power in number. The escape from tyranny is realizing that the bottom of the pyramid is a lot heavier than the top.
As a first step. Really, it’s the easiest step along that path.
The hard part is building the new order among the ashes of the revolution. The leaders of the revolution will in all likelihood want to claim the spoils of victory for themselves. Who could blame them? It’s human nature.
Selfishness is not “human nature”. Is it in the coal miners nature to have black lung? Humans are a product of their environment and our current environment rewards the most selfish behavior it can so you are gonna have a highly selfish population. Capitalism has made us sick but there are those of us who can do better. The selfish human nature you have been taught is a lie meant to justify current systems and dismiss any alternative. Something incredibly important I have learned as a history student is that humans have a great capacity to come together under adversity. It is our greatest strength. Civilizations do not form under abundant conditions, they form when we are forced to work together for a collective good. We can cooperate, we can work together on massive scales for the benefit of all.
Are there any evidence that human selfishness is not innate? I think almost all organisms are selfish, except in the case of parent-child relations sometimes and collective animals, like ants.
Let me put it another way. Selfishness is no more human nature than cooperation is. If we can build a civilization based on rewarding selfishness we can build one off rewarding cooperation.
Yes, both selfishness and cooperation are traits of human behavior but it seems natural that humans only cooperative if it benefits them i.e. Bob helps his village now because Bob is fairly confident the village will help him in the future if he needs help. In situations where there are not enough resources for all, don’t people usually fall back to every-person-for-themselves?
I’ve been watching past seasons of the US reality show “Survivor” and it’s a common strategy to stay in alliances throughout the competition but it’s not uncommon for these alliances to breakdown towards the end in the form of backstabbing, because there can only be a single winner. I’ve only seen a handful of seasons so far and it seems split at best that the winner of a season won with little/or no use of deceit and backstabbing.
My point is, when there’s lots to go around, sure, people will help each other. But when resources are scarce, it’s every person for themselves. And scarcity is a feature of life itself, therefore, human selfishness is natural and I’d guess is prioritized over cooperation when things get really tough.
Thats not selfishness though. It isn’t selfish to contribute to a group that benefits you. Its selfish if you contribute to a system that harms others because it benefits you. These are very different things.
In the various crucibles of civilization people came together precisely because resources were scarce. Yes they would eventually collapse when resources became too scarce to sustain whatever system they had built and infighting wasn’t uncommon but resources are not scarce now. We produce enough food, we have enough homes, we have enough water (for humans not for our current technological setup). The issue we are currently struggling with is not scarcity its distribution. The technology produced by the capitalist era is more that sufficient to provide for us all.
Don’t disagree with this. From what I understand, from a tech point of view and ignoring existing systems we use to distribute resources, we can technically provide a decent life for everyone on Earth but resources aren’t distributed in a such a way, for various reasons.
Even collective animals have to fight against selfishness. Worker bees detect and kill upstart queens. Human cells are being destroyed all the time (apoptosis). Cancer is the result when that mechanism fails.
Not sure what this has to do with selfishness. Is the worker bee killing an upstart-queen from its own hive? If so, what’s its motivation to kill the upstart-queen? How does this benefit the worker bee, causing the behavior to be selfish?
Human cells are being destroyed all the time (apoptosis)
In the case of body cells and apoptosis, I’d view the actual human being as equivalent to the entirety of the hive/the queen bee, in which case, the process of apoptosis is selfless from the point of view of the cells killing themselves or other cells - in theory it’s for the good of the human being as a whole.
Yes, the upstart-queen is from within the bee’s own hive. The hive permits only 1 queen and others are destroyed. The selfishness is not on the part of the worker who kills it, it’s on the upstart-queen who is trying to replace the main queen.
In the case of body cells and apoptosis, I’d view the actual human being as equivalent to the entirety of the hive/the queen bee, in which case, the process of apoptosis is selfless from the point of view of the cells killing themselves or other cells - in theory it’s for the good of the human being as a whole.
Yes, apoptosis is selfless. Cancer is the selfishness it fights against: a group of cells in selfish rebellion against the body.
Yes, the upstart-queen is from within the bee’s own hive. The hive permits only 1 queen and others are destroyed. The selfishness is not on the part of the worker who kills it, it’s on the upstart-queen who is trying to replace the main queen.
Ah, OK. I’m assuming at some point the upstart-queen does take over the existing hive, maybe once the existing queen dies from sickness or age or the upstart-queen escapes or moves somewhere else to start its own hive?
Yes, apoptosis is selfless. Cancer is the selfishness it fights against: a group of cells in selfish rebellion against the body.
I agree with this. Though, it’s a bit odd talking about ‘selfishness’ in the context of body cells, which I think most people don’t think are sentient. But I think we both understand the gist of what we’re talking about.
Ultimately it comes down to might makes right. That’s the final argument of kings (the barrel of a gun). For all the progress we’ve made we still can’t escape the account of Thrasymachus.
So by definition, since no human is more powerful than 3 or more (average) humans combined, might makes right should translate to majority rule.
Now if we had a superman flying around that could honestly take on millions of people at a time, then yeah might makes right makes him king. Besides that, it always comes down to fooling the majority.
The argument doesn’t specify how one achieves might. That’s an exercise for the reader. One guy sitting in a bunker with his finger over the red button of a doomsday weapon is rather mighty. A million people all working together in a coordinated hive mind would also be mighty.
The main issue for a group of humans is coordination. In general, smaller groups are easier to coordinate than larger groups. I think this is one of the biggest reasons elites can form and take control over larger groups in society. Wealth has a big effect too but this coordination problem has always existed and so have elites, at least since the dawn of agriculture.
One guy sitting in a bunker with a red button is only possible because of society and our cumulative technology.
I think you missed my point, what I meant is that some having more power than others is a product of modern society, not an inherent value one is born with. So big power imbalances only exist because we let it be possible. We only let it be possible by convincing enough people that’s the only way we can have a functioning society.
I actually think that used to be true until the last few decades.
That’s simply not true. Read about the Egyptian pharaohs or ancient kings like Sargon of Akkad. Huge power imbalances have been with us for thousands of years. They don’t depend on modern technology, just agriculture and organization.
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.
In the same token, this is how revolutions are successful. The “might” of power in number. The escape from tyranny is realizing that the bottom of the pyramid is a lot heavier than the top.
Yeah thats why this requires revolution to accomplish
As a first step. Really, it’s the easiest step along that path.
The hard part is building the new order among the ashes of the revolution. The leaders of the revolution will in all likelihood want to claim the spoils of victory for themselves. Who could blame them? It’s human nature.
Selfishness is not “human nature”. Is it in the coal miners nature to have black lung? Humans are a product of their environment and our current environment rewards the most selfish behavior it can so you are gonna have a highly selfish population. Capitalism has made us sick but there are those of us who can do better. The selfish human nature you have been taught is a lie meant to justify current systems and dismiss any alternative. Something incredibly important I have learned as a history student is that humans have a great capacity to come together under adversity. It is our greatest strength. Civilizations do not form under abundant conditions, they form when we are forced to work together for a collective good. We can cooperate, we can work together on massive scales for the benefit of all.
Are there any evidence that human selfishness is not innate? I think almost all organisms are selfish, except in the case of parent-child relations sometimes and collective animals, like ants.
Let me put it another way. Selfishness is no more human nature than cooperation is. If we can build a civilization based on rewarding selfishness we can build one off rewarding cooperation.
Yes, both selfishness and cooperation are traits of human behavior but it seems natural that humans only cooperative if it benefits them i.e. Bob helps his village now because Bob is fairly confident the village will help him in the future if he needs help. In situations where there are not enough resources for all, don’t people usually fall back to every-person-for-themselves?
I’ve been watching past seasons of the US reality show “Survivor” and it’s a common strategy to stay in alliances throughout the competition but it’s not uncommon for these alliances to breakdown towards the end in the form of backstabbing, because there can only be a single winner. I’ve only seen a handful of seasons so far and it seems split at best that the winner of a season won with little/or no use of deceit and backstabbing.
My point is, when there’s lots to go around, sure, people will help each other. But when resources are scarce, it’s every person for themselves. And scarcity is a feature of life itself, therefore, human selfishness is natural and I’d guess is prioritized over cooperation when things get really tough.
Thats not selfishness though. It isn’t selfish to contribute to a group that benefits you. Its selfish if you contribute to a system that harms others because it benefits you. These are very different things.
In the various crucibles of civilization people came together precisely because resources were scarce. Yes they would eventually collapse when resources became too scarce to sustain whatever system they had built and infighting wasn’t uncommon but resources are not scarce now. We produce enough food, we have enough homes, we have enough water (for humans not for our current technological setup). The issue we are currently struggling with is not scarcity its distribution. The technology produced by the capitalist era is more that sufficient to provide for us all.
Don’t disagree with this. From what I understand, from a tech point of view and ignoring existing systems we use to distribute resources, we can technically provide a decent life for everyone on Earth but resources aren’t distributed in a such a way, for various reasons.
Even collective animals have to fight against selfishness. Worker bees detect and kill upstart queens. Human cells are being destroyed all the time (apoptosis). Cancer is the result when that mechanism fails.
Not sure what this has to do with selfishness. Is the worker bee killing an upstart-queen from its own hive? If so, what’s its motivation to kill the upstart-queen? How does this benefit the worker bee, causing the behavior to be selfish?
In the case of body cells and apoptosis, I’d view the actual human being as equivalent to the entirety of the hive/the queen bee, in which case, the process of apoptosis is selfless from the point of view of the cells killing themselves or other cells - in theory it’s for the good of the human being as a whole.
Yes, the upstart-queen is from within the bee’s own hive. The hive permits only 1 queen and others are destroyed. The selfishness is not on the part of the worker who kills it, it’s on the upstart-queen who is trying to replace the main queen.
Yes, apoptosis is selfless. Cancer is the selfishness it fights against: a group of cells in selfish rebellion against the body.
Ah, OK. I’m assuming at some point the upstart-queen does take over the existing hive, maybe once the existing queen dies from sickness or age or the upstart-queen escapes or moves somewhere else to start its own hive?
I agree with this. Though, it’s a bit odd talking about ‘selfishness’ in the context of body cells, which I think most people don’t think are sentient. But I think we both understand the gist of what we’re talking about.