Selfishness and Society

[wil]

Originally Posted by wil
Without selfishness where would we be?

Originally Posted by Snoopy

In an infinitely better state..

And I say with many less advances in medicine, science and technology. Forget getting to the moon or mars and all the discoveries they've made. Multiply the number of starving tenfold. Increase our response time in a crisis tenfold. Without greed I'd doubt we'd even have TV, or telephone, yeah it might be out there, but who would have manufactured it without profits, who would have advertised and transported it without profits, what shows would be on without commercials?

[Snoopy]

Selfishness is the enemy of society.

But I'm still not sure that your OP isn't a wind up.


s.

[Snoopy]

Originally Posted by wil

what shows would be on without commercials?

The best: the BBC's.

s.

[path_of_one]

Originally Posted by wil

One says Western Europe and Canada, pardon me but aren't we talking capitalism, freedom and democratic voting countries?

I thought you were implying U.S. society was best. I was pointing out that I think more socialist-leaning democracies are better in terms of what they provide to their people.

I think humans had it right when we were in band level society, but without a lot of people dying, we can't go back.

Communism? Socialism? Dictatorships?

All human systems seem to fall apart once put into practice. Why? Greed. Selfishness. Fear. Ego. All are good in theory, even dictatorships. If you have a dictator that is not greedy, selfish, egoic- in short, one that truly wishes to help and serve the people- that system would work great too. What messes it up is people's self-centeredness.

facts, without Bill Gates we would not be having this discussion on this thing called the internet....period.

Oh, no-- God forbid we lack the internet. Aside from that, people DID invent things and DID get creative long before capitalism. It isn't like people doing these things arose after capitalist society. Some people create and invent because it is inherently rewarding.

So what are we in favor of serfdom, plantations, apprenticeship servitude, share croppin?

Ideally? Hunter-gatherer bands. In reality? Some sort of socialist democracy.

[Snoopy]

"One of the report's authors told the BBC that under-investment and a "dog-eat-dog" society were to blame..."

UK and US worst places to bring up children?

s.

[Snoopy]

Thatcher famously said that there is no such thing as society. And there's nothing more selfish than the ideology of Thatcher.

s.

[Pathless]

This is what I think we need:

Originally Posted by path_of_one

Hunter-gatherer bands.

Yup. Tribes. I know--for some of you, that is a horrible, primitive thought which dooms us to meager lives of scraping "resources" for survival and competing vilely with other animals!

For you, then, I have a question: what has your experience of capitalism been like?

My answer to that question is that we compete vilely with other animals (humans) for refined resources and reified abstractions (play the stock markets much?), and we are completely disconnected from nature while heedlessly consuming nature's "products."

It cannot last. That is the reality we are dealing with.

Originally Posted by StarshipEnterprise

If everyone on Earth lived like an American, it would take five Earths to sustain all that.

Five, ten, thirty; the figures vary, but one thing is clear: we've overshot the Earth's carrying capacity. We cannot continue to consume at the levels we've become accustomed to. I know this makes people uncomfortable, but it really is the reality. Hunter-gatherer bands/tribes would be best for us and the Earth in the long run. Yes, many people will have to go (read: die). That's horrific and sad. But that is the reality we are facing. On the bright side, localized and regionalized communities of people who have established landbases that they take care of and which take care of them are much less likely to resort to violent wars for oil and water and other "resources." I may have a rather romanticized view of tribal life, but I maintain that tribes never bomb each other from the air for decades at a time, or impose global sanctions on other tribes. There is no way, other than an unlikely full-scale invastion, that tribe A, living in region A, can effectively cut tribe B, living in region B, off from B's landbase. Tribes have profound spiritual and physical bonds to their lands, and understand that the Earth supports them. They then act accordingly. Further, I believe that tribes have a much deeper and larger appreciation for life than industrial civilizations, which keeps them from wastefully consuming as well as from large-scale invasions and wars.

I've also read recently that each individual in industrial civilization has a rather high number of "ghost slaves" working for him/her every day:

Dependence on Phantom Carrying Capacity | EnergyBulletin.net | Peak Oil News Clearinghouse
Derrick Jensen: Endgame


Derrick Jensen sums it up by way of William Catton:

Originally Posted by Jensen in Endgame Vol. I

Because the amount of energy that struck the earth a very long time ago and ended up stored in coal, oil, natural gas, and so on is merely tremendous, and not infinite, its use is not sustainable. To base one’s way of life on this energy is to live unsustainably. “To become completely free from dependence on prehistoric energy (without reducing population or per capita energy consumption),” wrote Catton, and remember this was more than twenty years ago, meaning that things have become far more extreme, “modern man would require an increase in contemporary carrying capacity equivalent to ten earths—each of whose surfaces was forested, tilled, fished, and harvested to the current extent of our planet. Without ten new earths, it followed that man’s exuberant way of life would be cut back drastically sometime in the future, or else that there would someday be many fewer people.” Or maybe both.

Industrial civilization, whether capitalist, communist, anarcho-syndicalist, socialist, dictatorial, despostic, or ruled by arcane Nintendo fanatics, is problematic for life (to put it diplomatically). It cannot and will not last. The only way it possibly could become "sustainable" is if some techno-wizard came up with a free energy machine. Quick! Somebody re-animate Nikola Tesla!! There's still hope!!! There's still time!

The good news is that planet Earth has a free energy machine--an amazing one. You may have heard of it. It's called the Sun. It's warm. It's nice. It's your friend.

The bad news for industrial civilization is that the Sun cannot keep pace with the insane demands of "progress." (Duh. That's why we've been raping the Earth for oil and coal for 150 years.)

So, industrial civilization (read: capitalism, socialism, marxism, communism, anarcho-syndicalism, etc.) out; tribalism and regionalism in.

Uh-oh. Know much about the wild and edible plants within walking distance of your house or apartment? Know how to take down a squirrel at a distance of fifty feet?

No? Me neither. Wanna learn together?

[wil]

Originally Posted by path_of_one

Oh, no-- God forbid we lack the internet. Aside from that, people DID invent things and DID get creative long before capitalism. It isn't like people doing these things arose after capitalist society. Some people create and invent because it is inherently rewarding.



Ideally? Hunter-gatherer bands. In reality? Some sort of socialist democracy.

Unfortuneately for the hunter gatherers to survive they became agraraian, and for the farmer to survive he had to multiply...hence the population.

Interestingly enough the more wealthy you are the fewer kids you have, the impovershed everywhere still spit them out in litters. I favor increased knowledge and wealth for all to decrease population.

What percentage of inventions/advancements that we utilize today happened without monetary reward? Can you name me 10?

Originally Posted by Snoopy

Selfishness is the enemy of society.

But I'm still not sure that your OP isn't a wind up.

Sorry to disappoint, I started this thinking about this a while ago...here and here

I do think there is virtue in selfishness, an inherent divinity to attain our desires...we may mean it as evil but G!d meant it as good.

[path_of_one]

Originally Posted by wil

Unfortuneately for the hunter gatherers to survive they became agraraian, and for the farmer to survive he had to multiply...hence the population.

That isn't true. Hunter-gatherers survived fine on their own. They did not *need* to become agrarian. Domestication of plants and animals is a long-haul process, and so not one that is possible in response to need. It is still a mystery how domestication of most plants and animals came about, but most likely it was out of curiosity, experimentation, even "cuteness" (with animals) and almost certainly an accident with most plants (i.e., due to technological innovations or behaviors that did not have intended results of domestication). I could go on and on about this if you like or want more information. It was a key area of my environmental anthro studies- the archaeology of agriculture.

I can sum up by saying... hunter-gatherers were doing fine. They did not NEED agriculture and in fact, agricultural peoples faced much higher food security risk and a much lousier diet than hunter-gatherers. Food security and nutrition went down for the vast number of people as societies went from hunting-gathering to horticulture to agriculture. In addition, inequality, violence, hoarding, and all manner of social evils went up.

Agriculturists have lots of kids because they need labor. They didn't start having more kids and then became agriculturists. Domesticates of grains were, by the best theories, accidental- which gradually led to earlier weaning foods and shorter interbirth intervals.

The reason we have a frighteningly large population now is because humans have (so far) managed to follow the natural population progression (exponential) since the rise of agriculture without the usual knock-downs of Mother Nature that face other species. I think that time is about to end, given the imminent demise of oil and therefore modern agriculture. Without modern agriculture, we would have seen widespread famines since the 1970s. It won't be long now before modern ag, with its reliance on transportation, pesticides/heribicides, and insane amounts of water will end. And then we'll either figure out how to do organic horticulture again or we'll die off relatively rapidly.

Interestingly enough the more wealthy you are the fewer kids you have, the impovershed everywhere still spit them out in litters. I favor increased knowledge and wealth for all to decrease population.

Increased knowledge does nothing without opportunity. For some to have the wealth they have, many more others must exist at extreme poverty levels. If the entire world existed at an equal level at this point, we'd all live roughly like the average lifestyle in India. We simply can't sustain U.S. middle class lifestyles for the world.

In many areas, people have lots of kids because (1) they can't afford birth control, (2) they don't have access to birth control, and (3) women have no reproductive rights so they can't enforce birth control. It isn't about wealth, it's about gender equality and access.

In hunter-gatherer populations, people had relatively low birthrates without modern birth control, BUT: women were generally equal to men (so they had rights over their own bodies) and women breast-fed for 3-4 years, so there were longer interbirth spacing. Birth control isn't a simple wealth issue.

What percentage of inventions/advancements that we utilize today happened without monetary reward? Can you name me 10?

We wouldn't know, because perhaps these people would invent without the monetary carrot, and perhaps they would not. I can definitively say that I create art and work on theory for the joy of doing it. Many other people I know started their inventive/creative work for the same reason. Just because they are or may be rewarded later does not mean that is why they create and invent. In fact, most people who are focused on the reward are lousy at what they do, because they are not focused on their work, but rather on the reward at the end.

Look at all the artists and musicians who create and don't become well-known and popular (and therefore wealthy) until after their death?

Do you think Bill Gates only invented because he thought one day he'd be rich? What if he just did it because it is fun to invent stuff?

Personally, I think if people can't find joy in being creative and innovative because it is FUN, then they are rather pathetic- always looking for some carrot, some outside reward, for what should be inherently motivating and rewarding.

I do think there is virtue in selfishness, an inherent divinity to attain our desires...we may mean it as evil but G!d meant it as good.

I think there is a natural drive to satisfy the body's need, and that is not evil. It keeps us going.

What turns it to evil (greed, hate, fear, etc.) is when it gets out of control and turns us into self-centered brats that want more, more, more and to hell with everyone else. That is selfishness and greed. It is not greedy or selfish to want to have shelter and food and some free time, a vacation every now and then, whatever. It is selfish and greedy to want five houses and mountains of food and six cars... and to hell if that means less resources for someone else.

Whether or not a rich person donates a bunch of money to good causes in the end, it doesn't assuage the trend of increasing inequality in the world. It doesn't halt the raping and pillaging of the earth for more resources than she can give. And it doesn't necessarily offset another rich person that hoards it all for themselves.

All it ends up doing is something like: we take resources and cheap labor from the third world, we make our fortune off it and feather our own nest at their expense, then we donate a portion of that nest back to the third world and get social accolades for it.

Selfishness that begets generosity still results in a negative balance for the third world and impoverished, and for the earth, in the grand scheme of things.

If it didn't, we wouldn't see all these negative problems increasing.

[wil]

Originally Posted by path_of_one

That isn't true. Hunter-gatherers survived fine on their own.

If it didn't, we wouldn't see all these negative problems increasing.

How many acres per person does the average hunter gatherer tribe need? With the amount of sustainable land I'd bet the earth is overpopulated tenfold to survive in that mode.

I agree that we create for personal enjoyment on some level. Mostly when our Maslow's hierarchy is partially filled from other places. If we are striving to survive our creativity isn't quite so high. While we can have our blue period in art or music from these times we still need to feed, clothe and shelter ourselves.

Those creative folks when rewarded have a lightbulb go off and create more.

As far as negative problems are there more, or just more people?

As far as Empires go, the US has only been top dog for what 50 years? Who compares better in treatment of those they conquered the British, Romans, Japanese, Huns?

[path_of_one]

Originally Posted by wil

How many acres per person does the average hunter gatherer tribe need? With the amount of sustainable land I'd bet the earth is overpopulated tenfold to survive in that mode.

Like I said, it isn't a possibility now without a large die-off. But you didn't quantify what was in the realm of possibility now. You stated that we invented ag because we were starving, which simply isn't true. Famine and starvation didn't become common until after the switch to agriculture. The more narrow your food base, and the more you exhaust the soil, the more common famine and crop failure becomes.

I think humanity would have been better off never having invented ag and remaining at low, sustainable population and consumption levels.

I agree that we create for personal enjoyment on some level. Mostly when our Maslow's hierarchy is partially filled from other places. If we are striving to survive our creativity isn't quite so high. While we can have our blue period in art or music from these times we still need to feed, clothe and shelter ourselves.

I also said that to feed, clothe, and shelter oneself isn't greedy, nor does it require first world upper class standards (or even middle class standards). Greed and selfishness implies getting more and more, without regard for others. Meeting one's needs is not selfish.

As for creativity and its relationship to how good life is, there seems to be a limit. That is, yes, you need to meet Maslow's basic needs to get creative (which, incidentally, is another reason why ag wasn't invented due to famine, but rather arose out of having enough and experimenting). But if you get way more than what you need, people often become complacent and lazy. Look at the sheer quantity of people in America who are essentially useless to society. They go to work, put in the bare minimum needed to get paid and a raise at the end of the year, come home and watch hours of television. Here in the U.S., we have more stuff and comfort than nearly anywhere in the world and yet we have a large youth that are perpetually bored (and can't seem to find any enjoyment in reading, writing, art, gardening, volunteer work, whatever) and a lot of adults that spend most of their free time shopping and watching TV. Yeah, so creative. So innovative. They're saving the world, one commercial at a time.

The fact is, very few people are really creative or innovative at all in the U.S. They just get lots of publicity. And they are likely to have been that way whether or not they got rewarded. Maybe they are just creative people and it comes naturally to them. Reward or no reward, I don't know any geniuses that are content to sit around and watch 8 hours of TV on a Saturday. I do know a lot of people content to do that, though, and no amount of enticement of the American Dream moves them off the couch.

Motivation and creativity come from within, not from some capitalist carrot dangled in front of one's nose.

As far as negative problems are there more, or just more people?

The problems are bigger. It isn't just more people. Societies have emergent properties. It isn't like there is just more violence. It's that violence has changed into something much bigger and with more capacity for long-term harm. If it was just more violence, we'd still be dealing with just murder and the occasional small skirmish of a few dozen people. Instead, we have nuclear weapons and huge wars that kill millions and that ruin the land for decades.

As far as Empires go, the US has only been top dog for what 50 years? Who compares better in treatment of those they conquered the British, Romans, Japanese, Huns?

I'm against empires of any sort, and I think all are destined for a short lifespan and a lousy existence for many of their members. Just because a nation isn't as bad as it could be doesn't excuse it from being as bad as it is. That's like saying, hey! Hussein wasn't that bad of a guy! I mean, he wasn't as bad a dictator as Hitler, was he?

Oppressing and exploiting others is wrong no matter how you do it. Yes, it can be more or less horrific, but less horrific doesn't make it OK. It just makes it less horrific.

[Pathless]

Originally Posted by wil

How many acres per person does the average hunter gatherer tribe need? With the amount of sustainable land I'd bet the earth is overpopulated tenfold to survive in that mode.

Well, this is precisely the point, wil. The advancements of industrial civilization have led us--almost everyone on the planet, although this is especially true for those of us in highly developed first world civilized countries--to become accustomed to unsustainable lifestyles, plus allowed us to feed and clothe an overpopulation. But it can't last forever.

The Dependence on Phantom Carrying Capacity link I provided earlier speaks precisely to this point. Published in 1980, the crisis of population overshoot and phantom carrying capacity which the author identifies is much more severe and relevant now than it was 28 years ago. This is frightening, horrific stuff. As much as we might wish it so, it seems that no amount of human ingenuity or willpower is going to allow us to avoid the stark reality that we have indeed been living and consuming ten times the annual real production of fuel (not to mention food!) through our manic use of and blind enthusiasm for fossil fuels.

This kind of information puts the War of Terror, with its primary targets being oil-rich nations, in a different light... one that makes a perverted kind of sense: that is, our fuel reserves are running out, but we can't expect ourselves to power down, so we must get fuel (oil is best) by any means necessary. War works.

But check out the article, don't take my word for it. If you want to selectively read parts of it, I suggest the sections Importing from the Past, Precarious Way of Life, and Living on Ten Earths for starters.

Fuel replacements for oil don't seem to be forthcoming. Without cheap and readily available oil, we lose many of our privileges. Much fewer fuctioning cars and trucks, obviously. Air travel? Forget it. Mass agriculture is going to shut down, so we all are gonna get real hungry. This whole internet distraction will go poof. No e-mail, and snail mail? Nah... not so much anymore; maybe regionally. Pony Express 2012: there's a marketable scheme. Ah, but forget markets, because printed money will become fairly obsolete anyway (can't eat it, and it doesn't burn for very long, plus it takes energy to produce, and we need all the energy we can get to grow food and build livable shelters). And if you've got a pony, you'll probably be in demand to do many other tasks besides delivering mail: tilling soil with those primitive plows that can drag behind an animal, that kind of thing. Teevees will be redundant. A resourceful and organized community might be able to build a cool shelter out of the hundreds that are sure to be languishing in the streets. Suburban homes suddenly will be a lot less comfortable without central heating, electric lights, AC, refrigerators, working stoves, and Playstations.

Etcetera, ad nauseam.

Originally Posted by wil

As far as Empires go, the US has only been top dog for what 50 years? Who compares better in treatment of those they conquered the British, Romans, Japanese, Huns?

This is the kind of thing that used to really frustrate me; justifying empire by saying it's not as bad as those other empires were--like path_of_one said. But now it just seems petty, silly, and incredibly arrogant--which is I guess how it always seemed to me. I guess the difference is that I don't find it nearly as frustrating as I do tiring.

Face facts, as you said: industrial civilization has propelled us off a cliff. There is no net. Bill Gates is not your savior.

[Snoopy]

Originally Posted by wil

I do think there is virtue in selfishness, an inherent divinity to attain our desires...we may mean it as evil but G!d meant it as good.

I'm going to leave God out of this I think.

Selfishness comes from a belief in the self; an independently existing being that is separate from the notion of all that is non-self, "other". It is this idea, this mistaken delusion of a self that leads to selfishness. This allows us to behave as if our actions need not necessarily affect our self. Hence we upset our neighbour, make war, pollute the planet...it all comes down to this. A belief in such a self is the root fundamental cause of why man is taking the planet to hell in a hand cart.

s.

[Snoopy]

Originally Posted by wil

Face facts, without Bill Gates we would not be having this discussion on this thing called the internet....period.

An excellent reference to selfishness. As far as I am aware (I'm not a computer nerd), the World Wide Web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee.

Tim Berners-Lee - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I read an interview with him recently. He didn't patent it and hence become a bazillionaire. He was asked why not. He said he felt it was more important to give his invention to the world. So without this amazing act of selflessness, Bill Gates couldn't have done his bit (which I seem to recall involved intellectual theft).

s.

[Snoopy]

Originally Posted by wil

At this moment exactly how do I translate "I've rumbled you" 'I've figured you out?'

Spot on.

I'm looking for the duplicable model that will handle trillions of us!

I suggest then that you stop looking wil, cos the Earth quite clearly cannot "handle" the mere billions of us already.

s.