Political THEORY thread (spinoff from Politics thread)

[stanprollyright]

Original discussion

Thank you for the link, and for debating me in a civilized an thought-provoking fashion.  I tire of forum line-by-line refutation, so allow me to post my thoughts in paragraph form once again.

I find the the idea that a nomadic lifestyle makes intergroup violence unnecessary to be far-fetched.  First, being nomads does not mean that hunter-gatherers never stayed in the same place, or returned to somewhere they'd been. It is much more consistent with animal behavior and that of modern nomads to stay in an area for a few days, weeks, or even a whole season, often cycling seasonally in a local area.  Territorialism can be found in nomadic animals, such as wolves, and I do not believe it to be a learned trait in humans, but rather an evolved one; as such, 10,000 years of agriculture would not be enough to change that.  It takes up to 100X the land to feed hunter-gatherers than it does to feed agrarian people, and moving people are infinitely more likely to run into each other than non-moving people. Given all the above, it seems rather likely that violence between groups over resources or land would be common.  Steven Pinker lists several reasons for violence among humans in The Better Angels of Our Nature, all of which would be just as valid for nomadic hunter-gatherers:

Pinker rejects what he calls the "Hydraulic Theory of Violence" – the idea "that humans harbor an inner drive toward aggression (a death instinct or thirst for blood), which builds up inside us and must periodically be discharged. Nothing could be further from contemporary scientific understanding of the psychology of violence." Instead, he argues, research suggests that "aggression is not a single motive, let alone a mounting urge. It is the output of several psychological systems that differ in their environmental triggers, their internal, their neurological basis, and their social distribution." He examines five such systems:

1. Predatory or Practical Violence: violence "deployed as a practical means to an end"[2]:613
2. Dominance: the "urge for authority, prestige, glory, and power." Pinker argues that dominance motivations can occur within individuals and coalitions of "racial, ethnic, religious, or national groups"[2]:631
3. Revenge: the "moralistic urge toward retribution, punishment, and justice"[2]:639
4. Sadism: the "deliberate infliction of pain for no purpose but to enjoy a person's suffering..."[2]:660
5. Ideology: a "shared belief system, usually involving a vision of utopia, that justifies unlimited violence in pursuit of unlimited good."[2]

I also find it hard to believe that hunters (trained killers), armed with weapons, with no laws or doctrines telling them otherwise, would hesitate in the least to use their skills and weapons against other humans if they felt threatened or offended or that they had something to gain from doing so.

Concerning Chimpanzees: Given the complex cognitive mechanisms involved in organized warfare, we could not have taught war to them. While we may have caused the scarcity that led to chimp wars in recent times, they either developed war on their own or received it from this guy.

Overkill hypothesis: The theories of human over-predation and extinction by climate change are not mutually exclusive.  There are several extinctions that are not adequately explained by changing climate alone, but do line up perfectly with human arrival. In all likelihood, both were significant contributors to the extinction of many species.

You might find this article interesting. It's a pseudo-review of Steven Pinker's Better Angels, which makes the case that violence in all forms has steadily declined in all forms (form war to slavery to spankings) since the beginning of history (and pre-history).

No problem, I can stick to this format if you prefer. Usually I find breaking a post up makes it easier to clearly respond to specific points, but as my last post shows, that's not always the case. 

First off, I have to question the line of reasoning that goes from "wolves and other nomadic animals display territorial behavior" to "I don't think this is a learned trait in humans." Why do you assume it isn't a learned trait in wolves as well?

We seem to be getting into the "nature vs nurture" debate here, which is a thorny and deeply contested issue in scientific circles--partially because many scientists tend to divide up along "party lines" based on their fields of study.

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I recall my sociology professor in college calling out the field of genetics as "unscientific" during his introductory lecture, because of it's claims that people can have genetic predispositions to certain diseases and behaviors. I responded with a scathing critique of sociology on the class' online discussion board. We ended up getting along quite well.

My personal position on the matter is that while animals (including humans) might have some natural inclinations, social and environmental factors play a much bigger role in determining behavior.

Regarding your claim that it takes significantly more land to support a hunter-gatherer tribe than an agrarian society, does this statistic assume exclusive use--or is it merely stating the obvious fact that you have to range a lot farther when your food sources aren't all clumped into one place? What about other species that compete for similar foods? How could our ancestors have survived if it really takes all that just to feed a single tribe, with nothing left for any other organisms with a similar diet?

That said, I really doubt that nomadic societies would be particularly territorial except in times of scarcity--because they would have no incentive to try and claim resources beyond what they could use and carry with them. Territorial behavior is counterproductive when you have neither the need nor the ability to utilize that territory.

Even allowing for the creation of temporary camps and settlements, the fact that you need to be able to pack up and go discourages accumulating anything beyond what you can travel with. What's the point of stockpiling if you're just going to have to leave it behind? I'm not sure "stockpiling" as a concept would even occur to such people, or seem beneficial if it did.

Similar to the discussion of chimp behavior, I'm not contending that warfare or territorialism were unknown. Rather, I see it as a tool in our ancestors' tool box that only got pulled out when conditions favored it--and that prior to the neolithic revolution those conditions were not particularly common.

Granted, humans have a long, proud history of making stupid, sub-optimal decisions--but I doubt we would have been so successful as a species if we were continually flipping the bird at natural selection.

Also, bear in mind that a stateless society does not necessarily mean a lawless society. It's totally possible for an anarchistic tribe of hunter-gatherers to still have laws and social doctrines that they've agreed upon. The difference is in how those rules are enforced. Instead of doing something silly like making a law that says "no violence" and then using violence to enforce it, you simply rely on social pressures and sanctions to address problematic behavior.

If Ogg is being a violent dick to the other members of the tribe, they just stop helping him. In a group that interdependent, even a subtle snub is likely to get the message across. If he keeps it up, pretty soon he's going to be fending for himself. Sure, he could try using violence to bully them or steal the food they're no longer sharing, but there's many more of them and as you pointed out they are trained killers. They should be capable of defending themselves, and if this plays out enough times it will start to reinforce a tendency to cooperate.

Note that nowhere in this scenario is aggression required to uphold these laws. Refusing to help or cooperate with someone is a purely passive action. Violence may be required to defend against aggression, but maintaining the social order does not require the initiation of force.

By comparison, hierarchical societies reward aggression--whether tacitly or openly. A child raised in such a society learns on a very basic level that violence and intimidation are the legitimate means of getting what you want and becoming successful. Sure, we may tell kids to use their words, but every single authority figure in their life--parents, teachers, police, etc--uses physical aggression, the threat of physical aggression, and social dominance based on the threat of physical aggression to enforce* their will on others.

*

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Notice the root term force in there? Aggression is so ingrained in our culture that it's hard-coded into our language. That's right up there with the sexist implications of our pronoun usage.

Of course, because of this upbringing, we tend to see this behavior as normal and inherent--especially since we're taught (brainwashed really) that violence is bad and our societies are more peaceful now that we have (violently enforced) laws to keep us safe and well behaved. Arguably, the sheer epic-level bluff check involved in flinging that degree of BS constitutes aggression in and of itself. It's a clear violation of the "attempt to obtain from another via deceit what could not be consensually obtained" clause of the NAP.

Trying to claim that modern societies are less violent when everything we do is rooted in violence and rewards further violence is just laughably ridiculous. Of course, a lot of people do make those claims--similar to the way many racists and homophobes vehemently deny being such. My pet hypothesis is that the cognitive dissonance involved in holding irrational beliefs which so directly contradict observable reality messes up one's ability to reason, but I don't pretend to be an expert on psychology and I've never attempted to test it in any rigorous manner.

What our society has done is to partially supplant overt violence with threatened or implied violence, so on the surface our cultures appear less aggressive. For instance, if you get stopped for speeding, an officer may write you a ticket. (Or he might shoot you a bunch of times, it really depends.) Now, on the surface that ticket looks nice and peaceful--but in reality, that ticket is a threat that force will be used against you if you don't comply with the officer's demand for money. Functionally, it's no different than being robbed at gun point--the ticket stands in for the gun the same way paper money is supposed to symbolically stand in for the value of goods and services. Try deciding not to pay the ticket, and see how long it takes for an actual gun to be brought out.

Also, an aside regarding statistics: there are a lot of overt forms of violence that go under-reported for various reasons. Whether it's cases where the victims are hesitant to come forward, such as with rape or domestic abuse, or situations where the violence is not adequately tracked or recorded--such as with police violence against citizens--there is a lot more direct physical harm going on in modern societies than is apparent on the surface.

In short, I think Steven Pinker is mistaking as inherent various modes of behavior which are conditioned into us by the structure of our present society. I also think he's overlooking a lot of subtle but widespread violence in modern cultures, as well as some not-so subtle violence that gets swept under the rug. Even if it were to be proven that these mechanisms are an inborn part of our neurology, I still contend that hierarchical societies reinforce and amplify these tendencies in a way that stateless societies do not.

I don't want to get into "nature vs. nurture" too much, as I consider such debates to be ultimately pointless.  I think "nature" does a lot more than we give it credit for (I do love evolutionary psych), but since we can only control "nurture" it doesn't matter whether it's 5% or 95% of what makes a person, we still should treat every situation like "nurture" is 100%.

I'm not actually sure what you mean by this question: "Regarding your claim that it takes significantly more land to support a hunter-gatherer tribe than an agrarian society, does this statistic assume exclusive use--or is it merely stating the obvious fact that you have to range a lot farther when your food sources aren't all clumped into one place?"

As for other species with similar diets, well, most of them died (the predators anyway). Either we killed them to reduce competition or we were just so much better at hunting that we drove them into extinction by eating all their food. They aren't mutually exclusive, though the second one is most likely the bigger contributor.  That's actually one thing the "overkill" and "climate change" hypotheses agree on, IIRC.

Being nomadic does not mean they never slept in the same place twice. I find this possibility extremely unlikely and it would be really inefficient of them to do so.  But if you're staying in the same place for weeks or months, it would certainly be of benefit to get more food than you can travel with. You also mentioned relative scarcity - with no (or very little) food surplus, one failed hunt constitutes scarcity.  Even if they sometimes had surpluses, they had almost no storage, so a small run of bad luck could easily put the tribe on the brink of starvation.  I'm sure they were well aware of this, so a little bit of stockpiling would make perfect sense to them. For these people, the main activities of every single day were devoted to food - to find another group of people hunting the herd you've been following is very much a direct threat to your continued survival.

While I won't argue with you on what constitutes violence (since I quite agree that implied violence counts), I'd still take implied/threatened/indirect violence over actual physical violence any day. Being injured and killed is a hell of a lot worse than being told what to do. I think most people in any time period would agree ("Give me freedom or give me death" notwithstanding. There are limits). What Pinker is claiming is that real physical violence has declined since before the Neolithic Revolution. I still call that a win, and I still call it less violent in absolute terms.  I also do not see any reason to believe that implied violence would be any less pervasive in primitive societies than it is today. We know how gangs operate, and other organizations outside of the established order; in almost all of them the violence and threat thereof is more overt, if not more present. We also know that many of the primitive tribes we've come across throughout history have had leaders (official or de facto) whose only qualification is being the best warrior. Raising children through the implied threat of violence wouldn't be any different in early societies either.  It took thousands of years for societies to evolve to even the imperfect version of democracy we have today, and previously the threat of force was more overt, and it was actually used much more often.  Violence and threats of violence may be the most reliable way to get someone to do anything, including getting them to cooperate. Not to stir the "nature/nurture" pot, but other animals are the exact same way.  I don't see the social contract as deceitful either, because everyone has a basic understanding of what will happen to them if they refuse to follow it.

[KellKheraptis]

I can't help but be reminded of the book Starship Troopers after reading this.

[bhu]

  I don't see the social contract as deceitful either, because everyone has a basic understanding of what will happen to them if they refuse to follow it.

No, they know what will happen if they're caught.  The social contract is a lie in it's way.  It tells you that if you can convince society as a whole (or at least in majority) that an action is 'evil' or 'immoral', they will willingly cede their right to perform said action on you in return for you not performing that action on them.  In other words "I don't want to be murdered.  Being murdered doesn't advance my goals, therefore I will convince other people that it is an abhorrent act, and no one should practice it."  The problem with this is that it doesn't provide you with safety, it provides you with the illusion of it.  For the social contract to work, everyone has to agree to it, or at least pay lip service.  But when you look at things objectively, people don't.  Most of them would rather be able to indulge themselves rather than practice any form of self restraint.  If the social contract works to keep us safe why do we need law enforcement?  Why do we need judges and the military?  It's because there are plenty of people believe the social contract is nothing short of fiction, but it's a plausible enough fiction that it lulls people into a false sense of security, thereby allowing them to be taken advantage of.

Persons A and B think murder is evil, and convince C to go along, even though he's obviously skeptical.  Mostly because C has always believed B was a huge, rotting asshole, and thought killing him would make the world a better place.  So long as A and B can convince C that punishment awaits him, in either the form of Jail or Hell in the afterlife, he doesn't act.  But if C decides he doesn't believe in Hell (or afterlives), and that punishment only awaits him if he's not careful and doesn't plan his actions through, then B is a very dead letter.  The only thing truly limiting C to obey the social contract is C, and once he realizes that he stops participating depending on his personality. 

The secondary problem is that the social contract assumes there is a universal, or nigh universal, code of ethics or morality.  There is, but it boils down to "What helps me out or advances my cause is good, everything else is evil".   Human beings are at heart selfish and amoral.  They can be taught or brainwashed to behave otherwise, but if not brought up to believe otherwise, they default to that simple idea.  What I want is good, what I dont want is evil.  And since that varies form person to person that makes it hard to say there is a universal standard for morality for a social contract.  It implies that everyone voices belief in whatever standard ethics is used by their particular group, but at heart they truly believe "All for one, and I hope it's me."

Human beings have always been violent, and we will always be violent,  unless there's some way of eradicating it through genetic manipulation.

[stanprollyright]

  I don't see the social contract as deceitful either, because everyone has a basic understanding of what will happen to them if they refuse to follow it.

No, they know what will happen if they're caught.  The social contract is a lie in it's way.  It tells you that if you can convince society as a whole (or at least in majority) that an action is 'evil' or 'immoral', they will willingly cede their right to perform said action on you in return for you not performing that action on them.  In other words "I don't want to be murdered.  Being murdered doesn't advance my goals, therefore I will convince other people that it is an abhorrent act, and no one should practice it."  The problem with this is that it doesn't provide you with safety, it provides you with the illusion of it.  For the social contract to work, everyone has to agree to it, or at least pay lip service.  But when you look at things objectively, people don't.  Most of them would rather be able to indulge themselves rather than practice any form of self restraint.  If the social contract works to keep us safe why do we need law enforcement?  Why do we need judges and the military?  It's because there are plenty of people believe the social contract is nothing short of fiction, but it's a plausible enough fiction that it lulls people into a false sense of security, thereby allowing them to be taken advantage of.

Persons A and B think murder is evil, and convince C to go along, even though he's obviously skeptical.  Mostly because C has always believed B was a huge, rotting asshole, and thought killing him would make the world a better place.  So long as A and B can convince C that punishment awaits him, in either the form of Jail or Hell in the afterlife, he doesn't act.  But if C decides he doesn't believe in Hell (or afterlives), and that punishment only awaits him if he's not careful and doesn't plan his actions through, then B is a very dead letter.  The only thing truly limiting C to obey the social contract is C, and once he realizes that he stops participating depending on his personality. 

The secondary problem is that the social contract assumes there is a universal, or nigh universal, code of ethics or morality.  There is, but it boils down to "What helps me out or advances my cause is good, everything else is evil".   Human beings are at heart selfish and amoral.  They can be taught or brainwashed to behave otherwise, but if not brought up to believe otherwise, they default to that simple idea.  What I want is good, what I dont want is evil.  And since that varies form person to person that makes it hard to say there is a universal standard for morality for a social contract.  It implies that everyone voices belief in whatever standard ethics is used by their particular group, but at heart they truly believe "All for one, and I hope it's me."

Laws have a lot less to do with morals and ethics than they do with facilitating large-scale cooperation. These concepts are fairly hard to extricate, for reasons I'll get to.  Most laws deal with property, a morally ambiguous concept, and what you can do with said property, where it can be, how much you owe the government for protecting said property for you, etc. - all morally absent things. But necessary for cooperation between lots of individuals.  Without these laws, it would be well nigh impossible to get large groups of people to trust each other enough to specialize their labor and give the fruits of said labor to others in exchange for the things they need.  Laws don't have eliminate the behavior they prohibit to be effective, they just have to change the incentives so that it may not be in your best interest to go around killing people. So now we can trust each other that you're not going to kill me and I'm not going to kill you, because it's not in either of our best interests. But maybe you decide you don't care about laws so you kill me anyway. The police come and either kill you or imprison you. Either way you are no longer part of society. So now the rest of us can still afford each other some trust even though murderers exist.

Now I will admit that my ethical perspective is humanist moral relativism. Basically, moral behavior is that which benefits the most amount of people the most. Because other people are our best resource, we all stand to gain from doing things that benefit others as well as ourselves. So, the function of morals is the same as the function of laws: getting people to cooperate.

I hope there are no religious people who will get offended by this, but here's a story we all know:
Moses frees a bunch of slaves and then goes up on a mountain and comes down with 10 laws that form the basic moral tenets of what are now three of the biggest religions in the world. But let's unpack that for a second. Moses was a prince, and is the only person in this story with any education. In the society he came from, religion and government were one and the same. The ruler was considered a god, though Moses probably knows that his dad is not actually a god. The other characters in this story have been slaves for generations, are completely uneducated, illiterate, and probably have no idea how to be a law-abiding citizen of a nation. Their entire lives, the only rule was "obey your master or die" so when someone comes along and says "you're free, you have no master" some confusion on what is now expected of them is natural. So anyway, Moses's people are lost in a desert, bickering among themselves, and presumably killing and stealing from each other left and right. Nothing is being accomplished. So Moses (the only literate person in this story) goes up the mountain by himself and comes down, saying, "GOD wrote down some stuff on a rock. You should follow these rules." And a civilization is born.

Human beings have always been violent, and we will always be violent,  unless there's some way of eradicating it through genetic manipulation.

I agree with this. But do we even want to?  Because whenever the shit hits the fan, so to speak, we need young aggressive men to save the day.

[oslecamo]

I would disagree with that.

In average it may be true, but there's human beings out there who honestly care about others and would rather give an helping hand. Madre Teresa as an extreme example, willingly living in a shitty place to help the poor despite basically everybody else telling her she was doing the wrong thing at one moment.

Some people enjoy seeing others suffering, but some people honestly enjoy seeing other people happy.

Even when people were living in caves, some humans took the time to carefully make elaborate paintings instead of engaging in some violent behavior.

Humanity started farming because enough people realized that it paid off to be patient and plant seeds/grow crops. We could've remained as hunters-collectors, but we decided to start settling down, have some peace and stability instead of living in the edge.

Also there's some things that everybody agrees as right (or at least everybody that's not batshit insane agrees), like "Turning our only planet in a nuclear wasteland would be a pretty bad idea, so let's not shoot nukes at each other now that more than one country has them k?"

War and conflict have been kinda overglorified over the centuries, but at the end of the day, there can't be professional soldiers or fancy weapons without a crapload of peaceful workers growing food and building stuff in the background.

[stanprollyright]

I would disagree with that.

Disagree with what?

[SolEiji]

I would disagree with that.

Disagree with what?

That humans are (presumably largely or inherently) violent and selfish beings, from the looks of it.

[stanprollyright]

I don't know about selfish, but we're definitely the most violent species on the planet. We are an apex predator, one of two vertebrates that wars with itself, and we've never met a single living thing we could not and did not kill. Including microbes.

[SolEiji]

I don't know about selfish, but we're definitely the most violent species on the planet. We are an apex predator, one of two vertebrates that wars with itself, and we've never met a single living thing we could not and did not kill. Including microbes.

While "most violent" is [citation needed] since I am certain there are animals out there designed to question how they haven't gone extinct, we are certainly an apex predator, no argument there.  We have DETERMINATION. 

[stanprollyright]

We even kill atoms. And mountains. At the same time, if we wanted to.

[bhu]

I would disagree with that.

In average it may be true, but there's human beings out there who honestly care about others and would rather give an helping hand. Madre Teresa as an extreme example, willingly living in a shitty place to help the poor despite basically everybody else telling her she was doing the wrong thing at one moment.

Some people enjoy seeing others suffering, but some people honestly enjoy seeing other people happy.

If you truly believe that, you have not researched into the live of Theresa, who was by all accounts a monster in human form.  She dwelt among the poor because she was one of a segment of Catholicism who believes that suffering is noble because it brings you closer to Christ, and should therefore be spread as widely as possible.  By all accounts she exploited her work with the poor for fame and recognition.  She rose huge sums of money, very little of which she spent on the poor so much as herslef and building new convents in her name.

Charity is not evidence of morality.  Even the bible, flawed as it is, recognizes the difference between actual charity and charitable acts designed to curry favor.  If I donate to the poor, am I doing it to ease the suffering of the poor?  Or am I doing it to get a break on my taxes and good PR?  And even more important am I self-aware enough to realize the difference?  There are people who enjoy making others happy but at some point you realize many of them simply feel the need to expiate their own guilt, have their self-worth tied into charitable acts, or are a genetic deviation from the norm.

Even when people were living in caves, some humans took the time to carefully make elaborate paintings instead of engaging in some violent behavior.

Those people were advanced enough to see beyond their own immediate needs.  That puts them apart from the crowd, but it doesn't suggest that they are in any way mor or less moral.

Humanity started farming because enough people realized that it paid off to be patient and plant seeds/grow crops. We could've remained as hunters-collectors, but we decided to start settling down, have some peace and stability instead of living in the edge.

]

Humanity began farming because it had advanced enough to realize that a hunter/gatherer existence was shitty and often led to starvation.  It merely shifted them from fighting over hunting territory to fighting over water and good farmland.

Also there's some things that everybody agrees as right (or at least everybody that's not batshit insane agrees), like "Turning our only planet in a nuclear wasteland would be a pretty bad idea, so let's not shoot nukes at each other now that more than one country has them k?"

War and conflict have been kinda overglorified over the centuries, but at the end of the day, there can't be professional soldiers or fancy weapons without a crapload of peaceful workers growing food and building stuff in the background.

Indeed there cannot.  But those peaceful farmers don't look so peaceful when you realize their existence is there to fuel a professional group of murderers.  Enabling violence makes you complicit in it, and war is no less a form of murder than common crime, it's just wrapped up in patriotism to make the people forced to participate in it at the whim of their rulers turn a blind eye.

[MrWolfe]

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I don't want to get into "nature vs. nurture" too much, as I consider such debates to be ultimately pointless.  I think "nature" does a lot more than we give it credit for (I do love evolutionary psych), but since we can only control "nurture" it doesn't matter whether it's 5% or 95% of what makes a person, we still should treat every situation like "nurture" is 100%.

I'm not actually sure what you mean by this question: "Regarding your claim that it takes significantly more land to support a hunter-gatherer tribe than an agrarian society, does this statistic assume exclusive use--or is it merely stating the obvious fact that you have to range a lot farther when your food sources aren't all clumped into one place?"

As for other species with similar diets, well, most of them died (the predators anyway). Either we killed them to reduce competition or we were just so much better at hunting that we drove them into extinction by eating all their food. They aren't mutually exclusive, though the second one is most likely the bigger contributor.  That's actually one thing the "overkill" and "climate change" hypotheses agree on, IIRC.

Being nomadic does not mean they never slept in the same place twice. I find this possibility extremely unlikely and it would be really inefficient of them to do so.  But if you're staying in the same place for weeks or months, it would certainly be of benefit to get more food than you can travel with. You also mentioned relative scarcity - with no (or very little) food surplus, one failed hunt constitutes scarcity.  Even if they sometimes had surpluses, they had almost no storage, so a small run of bad luck could easily put the tribe on the brink of starvation.  I'm sure they were well aware of this, so a little bit of stockpiling would make perfect sense to them. For these people, the main activities of every single day were devoted to food - to find another group of people hunting the herd you've been following is very much a direct threat to your continued survival.

While I won't argue with you on what constitutes violence (since I quite agree that implied violence counts), I'd still take implied/threatened/indirect violence over actual physical violence any day. Being injured and killed is a hell of a lot worse than being told what to do. I think most people in any time period would agree ("Give me freedom or give me death" notwithstanding. There are limits). What Pinker is claiming is that real physical violence has declined since before the Neolithic Revolution. I still call that a win, and I still call it less violent in absolute terms.  I also do not see any reason to believe that implied violence would be any less pervasive in primitive societies than it is today. We know how gangs operate, and other organizations outside of the established order; in almost all of them the violence and threat thereof is more overt, if not more present. We also know that many of the primitive tribes we've come across throughout history have had leaders (official or de facto) whose only qualification is being the best warrior. Raising children through the implied threat of violence wouldn't be any different in early societies either.  It took thousands of years for societies to evolve to even the imperfect version of democracy we have today, and previously the threat of force was more overt, and it was actually used much more often.  Violence and threats of violence may be the most reliable way to get someone to do anything, including getting them to cooperate. Not to stir the "nature/nurture" pot, but other animals are the exact same way.  I don't see the social contract as deceitful either, because everyone has a basic understanding of what will happen to them if they refuse to follow it.

Sorry for the delay. Beginning of the month is generally errand/bill paying time for me, plus my group's kingmaker campaign is starting tomorrow, and I've been busy helping a new player finish their character. I'll try to keep my responses briefer that usual so I can catch up without completely text-walling everyone to death. 

First to clarify my question about "exclusive use": You claimed it takes 100x the land to support a hunter gatherer society, compared to an agrarian one.  Are you saying that it requires all the human-edible food in that territory to support the tribe? Or simply that it takes that much territory to feed the tribe in a sustainable manner, leaving room for other species and regrowth? I'd love to see a source for this "100x" figure that offers some clarification.

Honestly, a lot of what you've said here contradicts what I've learned/been taught. That doesn't mean it's wrong, but it does require careful analysis.

Regarding cohabitation: Nature is full of examples of animals with common diets sharing overlapping territories. There may be conflict and competition, but you don't see, for example, vultures going extinct due to the presence of lions in the African Savanna. Ditto for hyenas, wild dogs, cheetahs, leopards, etc. Generally an equilibrium is reached--even if it is a constantly shifting and adjusting one. It is only when something drastic disrupts this balance, such as a major climate shift, that some species are unable to adapt and major die-offs occur.

There also appear to be numerous objections to the overkill hypothesis.

Leisure: My understanding is that primitive societies actually had more leisure time prior to the development of agriculture. Studies of modern hunter-gatherer tribes have apparently shown that they were able to meet their dietary needs with only 3-5 hours of work each day. In short, the notion of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle as a desperate, full-time struggle to survive is false.

In addition, such tribes have fewer material wants. The drive to accumulate resources is a product of our society, which values wealth as a means to achieve domination over others. By contrast, hunter gatherer societies have been shown to value equality over stratified dominance, and actively work to maintain it. As a result, they have no interest in wealth beyond what is necessary to satisfy their immediate needs.

On the other hand, our society fosters an endless desire for wealth and power. It sets up an "arms race" where everybody has to constantly acquire more and more just to maintain their position. The result of this competition is poverty, suffering, and death for those who can't keep up. It might not be violence in the "punch you in the face" sense, but it kills more people than direct physical aggression.

Similarly, gangs are a product of government, not a symptom of it's absence. They don't operate outside the established order but embrace it--following the same pattern of aggression-based dominance. In fact, you could reasonably argue that governments are simply gangs that have risen to the top of the power structure. There's nothing inherently more legitimate about a government's claim to power. Like any group their authority it is dependent solely on their ability to enforce it.

As for the social contract, it is inherently deceitful in statist societies. The government is saying "Let me be in charge, and I will protect you from aggression" but the very act of being in charge is a form of aggression. The basic premise is a con.

If you truly believe that, you have not researched into the live of Theresa, who was by all accounts a monster in human form.  She dwelt among the poor because she was one of a segment of Catholicism who believes that suffering is noble because it brings you closer to Christ, and should therefore be spread as widely as possible.  By all accounts she exploited her work with the poor for fame and recognition.  She rose huge sums of money, very little of which she spent on the poor so much as herslef and building new convents in her name.

Those are some pretty bold claims. You got any evidence to back them up?

Also, you probably don't want to use the phrase "by all accounts" when making claims that the overwhelming majority of accounts do not support. 

[Solo]

Those are some pretty bold claims. You got any evidence to back them up?

Penn and Teller (And Christopher Hitchens) on Mother Teresa

Also, you probably don't want to use the phrase "by all accounts" when making claims that the overwhelming majority of accounts do not support. 

Let's be careful about the overwhelming majority opinion, comrade. Last I checked, anarchism isn't exactly popular aside from the odd V for Vendetta fan.

[stanprollyright]

(click to show/hide)

Sorry for the delay. Beginning of the month is generally errand/bill paying time for me, plus my group's kingmaker campaign is starting tomorrow, and I've been busy helping a new player finish their character. I'll try to keep my responses briefer that usual so I can catch up without completely text-walling everyone to death. 

First to clarify my question about "exclusive use": You claimed it takes 100x the land to support a hunter gatherer society, compared to an agrarian one.  Are you saying that it requires all the human-edible food in that territory to support the tribe? Or simply that it takes that much territory to feed the tribe in a sustainable manner, leaving room for other species and regrowth? I'd love to see a source for this "100x" figure that offers some clarification.

Honestly, a lot of what you've said here contradicts what I've learned/been taught. That doesn't mean it's wrong, but it does require careful analysis.

Regarding cohabitation: Nature is full of examples of animals with common diets sharing overlapping territories. There may be conflict and competition, but you don't see, for example, vultures going extinct due to the presence of lions in the African Savanna. Ditto for hyenas, wild dogs, cheetahs, leopards, etc. Generally an equilibrium is reached--even if it is a constantly shifting and adjusting one. It is only when something drastic disrupts this balance, such as a major climate shift, that some species are unable to adapt and major die-offs occur.

There also appear to be numerous objections to the overkill hypothesis.

Leisure: My understanding is that primitive societies actually had more leisure time prior to the development of agriculture. Studies of modern hunter-gatherer tribes have apparently shown that they were able to meet their dietary needs with only 3-5 hours of work each day. In short, the notion of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle as a desperate, full-time struggle to survive is false.

In addition, such tribes have fewer material wants. The drive to accumulate resources is a product of our society, which values wealth as a means to achieve domination over others. By contrast, hunter gatherer societies have been shown to value equality over stratified dominance, and actively work to maintain it. As a result, they have no interest in wealth beyond what is necessary to satisfy their immediate needs.

On the other hand, our society fosters an endless desire for wealth and power. It sets up an "arms race" where everybody has to constantly acquire more and more just to maintain their position. The result of this competition is poverty, suffering, and death for those who can't keep up. It might not be violence in the "punch you in the face" sense, but it kills more people than direct physical aggression.

Similarly, gangs are a product of government, not a symptom of it's absence. They don't operate outside the established order but embrace it--following the same pattern of aggression-based dominance. In fact, you could reasonably argue that governments are simply gangs that have risen to the top of the power structure. There's nothing inherently more legitimate about a government's claim to power. Like any group their authority it is dependent solely on their ability to enforce it.

As for the social contract, it is inherently deceitful in statist societies. The government is saying "Let me be in charge, and I will protect you from aggression" but the very act of being in charge is a form of aggression. The basic premise is a con.

Humans evolved and spent most of our time in the Pleistocene, a epoch with frequent glacial periods.  So what you're saying is that peaceful primitive people in a long interglacial with reduced resource competition are examples of humans from the ice age, while violent primitives don't count because of the potential influence of civilization. It's a bit inconsistent.

The 100X land-use is my extrapolation of commonly cited estimates of population density before and after the Neolithic Revolution.  So, the amount of territory to sustainably feed one person would be roughly one square mile, based on the estimate that the population density hovered around one person per square mile for most of the Pleistocene, and then increased a hundredfold once agriculture caught on. The "1 person/sq mile" comes from here and the "hundredfold" I read here.

While the author of that section on the Quaternary Extinction Event seems pretty biased, most of the objections to the Overkill hypothesis are countered in the entries that bring them up. Also, most of these objections seem to be assuming that humans cause the extinctions by themselves, which I do not claim whatsoever. Like I said, climate change and overkill are not mutually exclusive. They helped each other along.

As for the rest: Humans are inherently violent.  Governments are not the cause of that and  one of the major functions of government is reducing and redirecting actual violence (as opposed to metaphorical indirect violence) and I don't think the social contract is dishonest because we all know what's expected and we all get something out of it.

EDIT: I was really tired when I wrote this.

[bhu]

Those are some pretty bold claims. You got any evidence to back them up?

Penn and Teller (And Christopher Hitchens) on Mother Teresa

Also, you probably don't want to use the phrase "by all accounts" when making claims that the overwhelming majority of accounts do not support. 

Let's be careful about the overwhelming majority opinion, comrade. Last I checked, anarchism isn't exactly popular aside from the odd V for Vendetta fan.

Dammit I got ninja'd...

For further viewing:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/02/25/why-to-many-critics-mother-teresa-is-still-no-saint/

http://www.listland.com/10-misconceptions-about-mother-teresa-she-was-no-saint/

http://mic.com/articles/28746/mother-teresa-not-a-saint-new-study-suggests-she-was-a-fraud

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Mother_Teresa

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/04/mother-teresa-myth_n_2805697.html

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/the-hot-button/mother-teresa-was-anything-but-a-saint-new-canadian-study-claims/article9317551/

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2003/10/mommie_dearest.html

I'd keep going but this is hardly news to anyone who hasn't lived in a cave, and you can find hundreds of such articles with a simple google search.  Teresa was a fraud who spent her time jetting around the world while glorifying human suffering.  She was by no means a saint, she was a cold-hearted sadist who deserved the slow and painful death she urged others to endure to be closer to an imaginary sky fairy she apparently at some point lost her own faith in (as evidenced by her own writings).  This is so well known I shouldn't bother to have to post reports on it.   

[Solo]

Can we ask Mr. Wolfe to give his perspective on why organized religion came about?

[oslecamo]

If you truly believe that, you have not researched into the live of Theresa, who was by all accounts a monster in human form.  She dwelt among the poor because she was one of a segment of Catholicism who believes that suffering is noble because it brings you closer to Christ, and should therefore be spread as widely as possible.  By all accounts she exploited her work with the poor for fame and recognition.  She rose huge sums of money, very little of which she spent on the poor so much as herslef and building new convents in her name.

Which meant that money wasn't being spent on weapons/tanks/bombs/crusades, so not too shabby.

Even if Madre Teresa's intentions weren't the best, she left a pretty nice legacy behind. Believe the ideal, not the idol, as they say.

Charity is not evidence of morality.  Even the bible, flawed as it is, recognizes the difference between actual charity and charitable acts designed to curry favor.  If I donate to the poor, am I doing it to ease the suffering of the poor?  Or am I doing it to get a break on my taxes and good PR?  And even more important am I self-aware enough to realize the difference?  There are people who enjoy making others happy but at some point you realize many of them simply feel the need to expiate their own guilt, have their self-worth tied into charitable acts, or are a genetic deviation from the norm.

I consider that acts are more important than intentions. I'll rather have someone who is helping me so that they can feel better themselves than someone who'll treat me like shit because they "just want what's best for me".

Even when people were living in caves, some humans took the time to carefully make elaborate paintings instead of engaging in some violent behavior.

Those people were advanced enough to see beyond their own immediate needs.  That puts them apart from the crowd, but it doesn't suggest that they are in any way mor or less moral.

Art is probably one of the most moral actions humans can take. It doesn't hurt anybody else and often inspires those around you. There's a reason they say the pen is mightier than the sword. A rich education makes societies better.

Unless you're painting with baby blood or something like that.

Humanity started farming because enough people realized that it paid off to be patient and plant seeds/grow crops. We could've remained as hunters-collectors, but we decided to start settling down, have some peace and stability instead of living in the edge.

]

Humanity began farming because it had advanced enough to realize that a hunter/gatherer existence was shitty and often led to starvation.  It merely shifted them from fighting over hunting territory to fighting over water and good farmland.

On the other hand when nobody is in risk of starving, then you actually have less conflicts. Why risk your life attacking the other village when you can farm your land for a much safer survival?

Of course then you have bad crops and overpopulation because humans multiply faster than the local land can feed them even with farming, but it was still a big step forward.

The very basics of any society is that you need to make sure your population has enough to eat. Without that, it'll be riots and anarchy.

Also there's some things that everybody agrees as right (or at least everybody that's not batshit insane agrees), like "Turning our only planet in a nuclear wasteland would be a pretty bad idea, so let's not shoot nukes at each other now that more than one country has them k?"

War and conflict have been kinda overglorified over the centuries, but at the end of the day, there can't be professional soldiers or fancy weapons without a crapload of peaceful workers growing food and building stuff in the background.

Indeed there cannot.  But those peaceful farmers don't look so peaceful when you realize their existence is there to fuel a professional group of murderers.  Enabling violence makes you complicit in it, and war is no less a form of murder than common crime, it's just wrapped up in patriotism to make the people forced to participate in it at the whim of their rulers turn a blind eye.

But that kinda supports my point. You need to overglorify the military to make people willing to join and kill and die. Even in the time of the ancient romans, there were plenty of people trying to evade military service because they knew there was a significant chance to be killed. Some teenagers would actually cut their right thumbs to make them unable to hold a sword. Then the roman government declared that any teenagers without their right thumbs were to be executed. That they had to pass a law for that specific case meant that plenty of people even back in that day wanted to stay away from bloody violence.

There's still the problem of our taxes being paid to professional murderers, but as they say, out of sight, out of mind. That's why governments often downplay/hide their own losses in war. People are pretty adept at not seeing/hearing what they don't want to see/hear.

[Solo]

I consider that acts are more important than intentions. I'll rather have someone who is helping me so that they can feel better themselves than someone who'll treat me like shit because they "just want what's best for me".

And He looked up, and saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury. And He saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites. And He said, Of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all: For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had.
-Luke 21: 1-4

Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.
-Matthew 6: 1-4

[bhu]

Even if Madre Teresa's intentions weren't the best, she left a pretty nice legacy behind. Believe the ideal, not the idol, as they say.

  You missed the part about her believing in the nobility of suffering.  Theresa had ample money to relieve the suffering of the poor, but deliberately didn't.  It has been suggested she actually made their suffering prolonged and worse inasmuch as she could because she thought it brought them closer to Christ.

I consider that acts are more important than intentions. I'll rather have someone who is helping me so that they can feel better themselves than someone who'll treat me like shit because they "just want what's best for me".

  Intentions are important.  If I'm donating money as public relations because I'm secretly poisoning the local water supply with my factory, but I wan't you to vote in my best interests anyway, then I'm not being charitable, I'm being a monster.  Because when I finally get caught and go to court I can have my lawyers trumpet high and low about what a philanthropist I am, and how it must actually be the work of a rogue employee that I shouldnt be held responsible for.  And everyone will remember how my money has benefited them or their families, and I walk while an employee falls on his sword.  Meanwhile I keep poisoning the community.  People who believe your a philanthropist or who have benefited from your giving arent likely to vote to convict you.

Art is probably one of the most moral actions humans can take. It doesn't hurt anybody else and often inspires those around you. There's a reason they say the pen is mightier than the sword. A rich education makes societies better.

Unless you're painting with baby blood or something like that.

Art is not inherently moral or immoral.  Art can be used to sway the opinions of other to hate just as easily as it can be used for more positive outlooks.  Propaganda posters are an art form, as is guro, but I'd hesitate to call either inherently moral.

On the other hand when nobody is in risk of starving, then you actually have less conflicts. Why risk your life attacking the other village when you can farm your land for a much safer survival?

Because you have no land to farm.  Because your crops died or didn't come in well this year.  Because you don't know how to farm, and it's easier to kill someone else and take their stuff than it is to do the learning and subsequent back bending work.  Farming doesn't put you at no risk for starvation, it just lessens the risk compared to hunter/gatherer types of existence.

But that kinda supports my point. You need to overglorify the military to make people willing to join and kill and die.

Or you do what we do now, what Rome did, and what the Middle East has done for a very long time: Convince your populace there is an Enemy out there who means them harm.  Manufacture one if he does not exist.  Prey on their fears, and hold this Enemy up as less human than their own side and they will willingly surrender their rights and sign up.  Some because they will believe they need to protect their country, but a great deal simply because they get to indulge appetites they cannot indulge in any other legal way.

[stanprollyright]

Art is probably one of the most moral actions humans can take. It doesn't hurt anybody else and often inspires those around you. There's a reason they say the pen is mightier than the sword. A rich education makes societies better.

Unless you're painting with baby blood or something like that.

I'm sure Leni Riefenstahl and the people who make child porn would love to hear it.