Are the lower classes worthy of sympathy?

[Beeth]

This is the question that my friends ask of me - they point to the loud, vulgar behavior of the lower classes, their violence (like getting drunk and beating up their wives), their striking ignorance, among other things. You can't just tell them the same old thing, that people are products of their environment etc. There is no excuse for bad behavior. Poverty may make you steal, not molest people or some such thing.

So how do you convince people (like my friends) that everyone deserves sympathy, including the worst?

[Flying Purple People Eater]

I hope you aren't referring to what I think you're referring to.

[Rurkel]

As opposed to the upper classes, that never molest people or otherwise mistreat others.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

What about the loud vulgar behavior of the upper class? Of their violence(Both against the rest of us and in their families. Rich people do coke and strangle prostitutes and dump their bodies in rivers, what about the upper class!). What about the upper classes striking ignorance and arrogance? I mean what are you supposed to say about that? The same old thing, product of their environment?

We live in a dog eat dog world where we're being thrown small scraps from the capitalists table for the majority of us to feed on. And the scraps are only getting smaller, going days without food makes it hard to think straight.

[Questionable]

The irony is that the upper-classes are usually the ones responsible for forcing ignorance on the rest of us in the first place.

Think about it. Right-wing politicians constantly decry the "culture of poverty" that urban black youths supposedly have, then they simultaneously insist that public schools and social services that help these impoverished groups escape their downtrodden lives need to be abolished so we can get rid of "parasites."

If we subscribe to the Marxist view of human nature, it is clear that people are not "moral" or "immoral" because of human nature, or free will, or any other philosophical concept taught by the ruling-class ideologies. They are formed by their material conditions in the social reproduction of society. Because the lower classes are the absolute bottom stratum of social reproduction in capitalism, of course they're going to have a harder time facing the temptations of crime and immorality than other more well-off sections of society. But this does not mean they are intrinsically good or bad, it means we need to struggle to improve their plight so they can rise above this.

[dodger]

This is the question that my friends ask of me - they point to the loud, vulgar behavior of the lower classes, their violence (like getting drunk and beating up their wives), their striking ignorance, among other things. You can't just tell them the same old thing, that people are products of their environment etc. There is no excuse for bad behavior. Poverty may make you steal, not molest people or some such thing.

So how do you convince people (like my friends) that everyone deserves sympathy, including the worst?

We rarely bathe--which can be problematic in a hot climate. Personally I would go with vulgarity any day of the week. As for beating up Wifey --late Wifey(no!)was a Brown belt Tae-Kwondo. No II, is adept as any man with a Bolo.(I have to sleep sometime!!)

Absolutely correct Beeth...there is no excuse for bad behaviour so I wont even try to excuse my own. Then again I never have done. The milk of human sympathy dried up years ago. Drier now as a nuns tit. Then again I never asked or got sympathy from others. BOO-Hoo....A product of my environment-sincerely hope NOT! Somehow I suspect I may be.....in which case I do not need any excuse. Ever.

[Zostrianos]

Poverty may make you steal, not molest people or some such thing.

Poverty creates a chain reaction that leads to all kinds of evils: gangs, drug abuse... you name it, most of the time it can be traced back to poverty. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: poverty is the root of all evil.

When you look at socially well-off countries, where almost everyone has a home and enough income for a decent living (like Scandinavian countries - ok, they're not socialist, but may be the next best thing to exist now), one thing you also notice is the near absence of crime. Poverty and crime go hand in hand nearly always.

[Beeth]

All this is clear to me as a leftist, but I am talking about people who simply conclude based on what they see. For instance, my friend tries to hire a cab, the driver acts like a rogue. He then goes to a factory where workers are vulgar and loud. Etc. etc. Point is, my friends (and I suspect many others) experience only bad things when confronted with the lower classes. So naturally, the very idea of socialism will be repulsive for them. People will be revolted by bad behavior, and our explanations are only going to sound like excuses to their ears.

[Thelonious]

Did you ever think how these "lower classes" may perceive your "high class" friends? They may seethe at the way your friends vulgarly flaunt their money and possessions. They may be offended by the way some "high class" people have been handed their riches on a silver platter. It is all a matter of perspective. Do the "upper class" have a monopoly on "pointing the finger?"

[Luís Henrique]

This is the question that my friends ask of me - they point to the loud, vulgar behavior of the lower classes, their violence (like getting drunk and beating up their wives), their striking ignorance, among other things. You can't just tell them the same old thing, that people are products of their environment etc. There is no excuse for bad behavior. Poverty may make you steal, not molest people or some such thing.

So how do you convince people (like my friends) that everyone deserves sympathy, including the worst?

Your friends are upper class?

Or just wage slaves deluded about themselves?

Luís Henrique

[Yuppie Grinder]

This is the question that my friends ask of me - they point to the loud, vulgar behavior of the lower classes, their violence (like getting drunk and beating up their wives), their striking ignorance, among other things. You can't just tell them the same old thing, that people are products of their environment etc. There is no excuse for bad behavior. Poverty may make you steal, not molest people or some such thing.

So how do you convince people (like my friends) that everyone deserves sympathy, including the worst?

I will continue to be a loud, obnoxious, filthy commoner and I don't care what uppity snobs like your friend think of it.

[#FF0000]

go fuck yourself beeth

[Yuppie Grinder]

I find posters who talk about the working class strictly in third person suspicious, especially when they post things like "So is it true all blue collar folks are stupid?".

[Jimmie Higgins]

I find posters who talk about the working class strictly in third person suspicious:lol: I'd be more suspicious of someone who said "Us workers..." all the time.

Oh crap, we're all paranoid!!!

Anyway, I think the third person works - we speak of "humans" in the third person linguistically... and I think we're all humans.

[brigadista]

Beeth you need new friends

[Yuppie Grinder]

:lol: I'd be more suspicious of someone who said "Us workers..." all the time.

Oh crap, we're all paranoid!!!

Anyway, I think the third person works - we speak of "humans" in the third person linguistically... and I think we're all humans.

Yea I know. I'm talking more about people who talk about workers as something really foreign and separate from themselves all the time without meaning to.

[piet11111]

Oh crap, we're all paranoid!!!

Nope you are just more sensitive to reality.

[Zostrianos]

Furthermore, the whole "the upper class is more cultured" thing is a complete myth. I know people who dropped out of high school before getting a diploma, are working "lower class" jobs and yet have above average erudition, are interested in history and philosophy and are way above average in culture and intelligence.
One of them actually works as a waiter in an upper class restaurant\bar, and he told me once that the richer the patrons are, the more rowdy, brutish, and likely to get drunk and do stupid shit they are.
A lot of rich don't use their wealth to further their culture - they blow it on parties and extravagant luxuries, and in the end they probably end up being stupider and less educated than the average person.

[NGNM85]

Of course we sympathize with the working class. That's basically an essential prerequisite for being a Socialist. However, to play devil's advocate, it's worth mentioning that there is a tendency, among some Radicals, to idealize the working class.

[Dean]

go fuck yourself beeth

Verbal warning for trolling.

[Dean]

This is the question that my friends ask of me - they point to the loud, vulgar behavior of the lower classes, their violence (like getting drunk and beating up their wives), their striking ignorance, among other things. You can't just tell them the same old thing, that people are products of their environment etc. There is no excuse for bad behavior. Poverty may make you steal, not molest people or some such thing.

So how do you convince people (like my friends) that everyone deserves sympathy, including the worst?

I'm not sure that you have to. There are plenty of moral and philosophical arguments you can make one way or the other, but at the end of the day, as socialists or leftists, we have a totally different mandate. Our mandate is to create positive change, which means advocating for a more rational, more efficient mode of production, distribution and consumption.

So when you are talking to those who might detest the working class' prejudices against gays - describe how socialism will benefit LGBT.

When you are talking to someone who mistrusts unions, describe to them how much more control they would have with a worker collective.

When you are talking to a restaurant owner, or any number of artisans, tell them how they will be free of the exploitation of their distributors, free to practice their craft how they see fit.

If you are talking to those who mistrust government waste, explain to them the benefits of open books and efficient, consumer-driven economic structures.

The overwhelming bulk of criticisms against the left or the working class are based upon morality. This is because every political position or class refer to relations of power and these relations, be they reparative or exploitative, sound bad when they are framed that way. Slave reparations are either making whole the sufferers of an exploitative system or theft against hard working taxpayers, or whites.

Moral arguments for social systems will always be weak because they are subject to the interpretation and values of the speaker and listener. Our job should not be to morally inform our peers.Our job is to advocate for an efficient, ecumenical system based on the morals already shared and the economic rationale which is already common knowledge.People should benefit from their own work, not lazy bureaucrats or CEOs. People should be free in their work and at home. Take it out of the context used to alienate communists from the mainstream, and you'll find that we already are in the mainstream.

[ZenTaoist]

So how do you convince people (like my friends) that everyone deserves sympathy, including the worst?

The worst, as in the rich? Because they certainly don't deserve sympathy. These people are psychopaths, plain and simple. They have no life outside of their money. That's it. Everything is about their money. They've lost touch with reality and their humanity in general.

Poverty doesn't just make you steal. Poverty also forces you into a life of lower education because the opportunity isn't there. So your entire lifestyle will be much different than someone in an upper class, who had access to education and resources they need. Their behavior will obviously be much different.

Your friends seem to have the typical worship-the-rich concept stuck in their brains. Rich people are not your friends. They have destroyed everything and are on the verge of destroying the human race.

[Ocean Seal]

This is the question that my friends ask of me - they point to the loud, vulgar behavior of the lower classes, their violence (like getting drunk and beating up their wives), their striking ignorance, among other things. You can't just tell them the same old thing, that people are products of their environment etc. There is no excuse for bad behavior. Poverty may make you steal, not molest people or some such thing.

So how do you convince people (like my friends) that everyone deserves sympathy, including the worst?
Its not about sympathy. Tell your friend he is a fucked up moralist who uses the deficits of others to avoid his own moral judgements. Frankly I don't give a shit if you want to help the working class or not. If you really feel that the poor are these evil freaks who commit all the crime in the world (btw these dumb motherfuckers don't take into account that most of the world is poor so its only natural that they commit most of the world's crimes) then I don't really care for your help. This isn't something that I want to discuss, Marxism is above this.

[HawaiisFinest]

They don't deserve our sympathy at all. I hate lower class people.

[ind_com]

This is the question that my friends ask of me - they point to the loud, vulgar behavior of the lower classes, their violence (like getting drunk and beating up their wives), their striking ignorance, among other things. You can't just tell them the same old thing, that people are products of their environment etc. There is no excuse for bad behavior. Poverty may make you steal, not molest people or some such thing.

So how do you convince people (like my friends) that everyone deserves sympathy, including the worst?

Your problem is that you have the wrong friends. Join a revolutionary organization as soon as possible so that you get some good company.

[Beeth]

Thanks again, but except for NGM and Dean, no one's bothered to understand. It is annoying to hear the same stuff like change your friends etc. Are people here at least willing to admit that maybe my friends are right, and that some people behave extremely badly and thereby lose any sympathy that you might otherwise feel for them? Or, is it the case that workers are never vulgar, never loud and violent? Maybe NGM is right - you guys glorify workers to a point where even a normal conversation becomes impossible. My lady friend was attacked verbally by the choicest expletives, but hell no, the worker who attacked her is a wonderful guy. She is an uppity person and deserves it. Sheesh!

[L.A.P.]

beeth probably speaks about workers in terms of being some Other and seeks approval from his rich friends because beeth is bourgeois

[piet11111]

No worker ever fired thousands of people to increase the profit margin for the shareholders and to get a bigger bonus.

How do you explain a mindset like this ? http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/ltb--lying-thieving-bs-bbc-documentary-lifts-the-lid-on-offensive-code-used-to-describe-disabled-and-jobless-8469818.html

[p0is0n]

what delicious middle class "ivorism" (i hope you excuse my lack of knowledge on proper academical terms, comrade). us dirty and stupid workers and "lower classers" are too stupid and mindless and ignorant to do anything right, the glorious intelligentsia and the glorious middle classes must teach us to be civil.

i want to eat all the rich. fuck their parties, fuck precious suburbs, fuck their civilized dinner discussions, fuck their patronizing bullshit. fuck them all.

the fork and sickle is the future!


bla bla bla [...] you guys glorify workers to a point where even a normal conversation becomes impossible. bla bla bla bla [...]
we are not glorifying shit. most of us just think your weird and patronizing attitude towards workers is insulting.

[Ele'ill]

Thanks again, but except for NGM and Dean, no one's bothered to understand. It is annoying to hear the same stuff like change your friends etc. Are people here at least willing to admit that maybe my friends are right, and that some people behave extremely badly and thereby lose any sympathy that you might otherwise feel for them?
Or, is it the case that workers are never vulgar, never loud and violent? Maybe NGM is right - you guys glorify workers to a point where even a normal conversation becomes impossible. My lady friend was attacked verbally by the choicest expletives, but hell no, the worker who attacked her is a wonderful guy. She is an uppity person and deserves it. Sheesh!

Yes there are assholes everywhere who you will never like or get along with. This is pretty much the end of it.

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

:lol: I'd be more suspicious of someone who said "Us workers..." all the time.



I miss Miles:crying:

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Are people here at least willing to admit that maybe my friends are right, and that some people behave extremely badly and thereby lose any sympathy that you might otherwise feel for them?

As individuals? Of course. But the contemptuous behaviour of individual workers does nothing to obviate the fact that workers are oppressed as a class under capitalism.


Or, is it the case that workers are never vulgar, never loud and violent?

Who actually said that?


Maybe NGM is right - you guys glorify workers to a point where even a normal conversation becomes impossible. My lady friend was attacked verbally by the choicest expletives, but hell no, the worker who attacked her is a wonderful guy. She is an uppity person and deserves it. Sheesh!

Well, we don't know the circumstances. Maybe she really did deserve it! Maybe she didn't. But either way, that doesn't the change the relationship between proletarian and bourgeoisie.

[Regicollis]

I think there is some truth in the claim that reactionary social views are more widespread among blue collar workers. It is also true that people who commit ordinary crime like vandalism or bar fights tend to be lumpen proletarians.

However their DNA are no different than that of the bosses. Our educational systems and work arrangements nurtures different traits in different classes. If you go to law school you'll be told you are an upstanding citizen, one of the best and the brightest, you will enjoy freedom to plan your studies as you see fit and when you graduate you might get a high-status job where you get to be creative, use your intellect and be an 'important person'. On the other hand if you go to a vocational school you will be put into a box, be told you are just a number. When you graduate will have little influence over how your work is done and your boss will find it perfectly acceptable to yell at you, use rude language etc. If you lack the skills to take a vocational education and you end up in some 'special needs' programme you're even worse off. You will be told you are stupid, you will be considered too stupid to understands things like culture and history. You will not be able to find a job and instead of a boss you will have some ill-tempered condescending bureaucrat scolding you for not finding a boss to abuse and exploit you.

These very different conditions promote very different norms and mindsets.

As for the criminal behaviour of the lumpen proletariat I think it has a lot to do with their economic hardship and the total lack of social recognition they face. The middle class is closed to them and the official system only allows them to dream of getting some low-status job. This by itself creates a lot of frustration which itself can lead to violence. But the hopeless condition of the lumpen proletariat also makes crime an attractive way of getting respect and fast money.

As for the reactionary views many blue collar workers hold I think there is a very logical explanation to them. Reactionary parties like the French Front National, Jobbik in Hungary or the Danish People's Party are seen as representatives of the little man in contrast to the established parties - in particular the (former) social democratic parties - who have been integrated into the state system and caters to the interests of the elites.

Workers are feeling angry, betrayed and robbed. Without a strong socialist presence this anger is used by reactionary parties who provide an easy explanation and a scapegoat. Had there been a fair representation of socialist vies in the media a lot of that anger could have been transformed into revolutionary sentiments. However the current media structure does not allow anti-establishment views to be reported so all people hear about is that the [insert scapegoats] are taking our jobs, ruining our culture etc.

Vulgarity and anti-social behaviour is also rampant in the bourgeoisie. It is just perceived differently. 10.000 dollar charity dinners are just as vulgar as wet t-shirt contests and getting fired can ruin somebody's life just as much as being mugged.

[Beeth]

The above three posts are somewhat correct. Workers must be seen as a class and not an individuals. As individuals, most of them may suck, and as the above poster points out there may even be legitimate reasons as to why (such as poverty etc.). But one cannot for this reason make statements like workers are victims etc. the system is at fault, and this creates greedy capitalists and violent workers. Supporting violent workers is as wrong as supporting greedy capitalists, since they are both products of the system. We must support the destruction of the system rather than support workers blindly.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Yea I know. I'm talking more about people who talk about workers as something really foreign and separate from themselves all the time without meaning to.Ha ha, yeah I got you - just the first thing that popped into my head when I read that was some undercover NARC on a picket saying, "Say, why don't us workers go conspire to have a plot together that might legally be used against the union we are a part of and the strike all of us workers here support."

"Hey fellow anarchist, don't you hate the government like I do? Why don't we throw this explosive projectile and commit a felony that we fully consent to without pressure or entrapment!"

[T-800]

The irony is that the upper-classes are usually the ones responsible for forcing ignorance on the rest of us in the first place.

Think about it. Right-wing politicians constantly decry the "culture of poverty" that urban black youths supposedly have, then they simultaneously insist that public schools and social services that help these impoverished groups escape their downtrodden lives need to be abolished so we can get rid of "parasites."

If we subscribe to the Marxist view of human nature, it is clear that people are not "moral" or "immoral" because of human nature, or free will, or any other philosophical concept taught by the ruling-class ideologies. They are formed by their material conditions in the social reproduction of society. Because the lower classes are the absolute bottom stratum of social reproduction in capitalism, of course they're going to have a harder time facing the temptations of crime and immorality than other more well-off sections of society. But this does not mean they are intrinsically good or bad, it means we need to struggle to improve their plight so they can rise above this.

Do you literally think that no mental traits are heritable? Like at all?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Do you literally think that no mental traits are heritable? Like at all?

What's your point? Having a genetic predisposition towards greater intelligence than the average is no guarantee of becoming a genius - exposure to environmental contaminants (pre- or ante-natal), malnourishment, a lack of educational opportunities, a cultural environment that looks down upon intellectual pursuits - those are just some of the things which can negate any genetically inherited intelligence advantage.

[T-800]

What's your point? Having a genetic predisposition towards greater intelligence than the average is no guarantee of becoming a genius - exposure to environmental contaminants (pre- or ante-natal), malnourishment, a lack of educational opportunities, a cultural environment that looks down upon intellectual pursuits - those are just some of the things which can negate any genetically inherited intelligence advantage.

Look, I think it's kind of like schizophrenia*: there are genetic factors that put one at risk of the condition, and in lieu of certain stressors or insults to the brain, it may not go full blown. Nevertheless, the majority of the population will NEVER develop schizophrenia. In a like manner, the majority of the population will, regardless of environmental factors, NEVER develop the intellectual and personality traits that are vital to sustainable civilization in the 21st century. They will go on being near-chimpanzees, to the planet's great detriment.

*And, on that note, I plan on making a topic about why the Left generally loathes the mentally infirm, and in particular those with psychotic conditions, when my account gets past the "moderate every post" stage.

[Nico Belic]

The worst, as in the rich? Because they certainly don't deserve sympathy. These people are psychopaths, plain and simple. They have no life outside of their money. That's it. Everything is about their money. They've lost touch with reality and their humanity in general.

Poverty doesn't just make you steal. Poverty also forces you into a life of lower education because the opportunity isn't there. So your entire lifestyle will be much different than someone in an upper class, who had access to education and resources they need. Their behavior will obviously be much different.

Your friends seem to have the typical worship-the-rich concept stuck in their brains. Rich people are not your friends. They have destroyed everything and are on the verge of destroying the human race.

Um, no. Just no, this is so factually incorrect. An obvious arbitrary disposition. Yes there are rich people who are greedy, yes there are rich people are dicks, but to label them the sole reason for the destruction of the planet, and claim they are not human is just ridiculous.


They don't deserve our sympathy at all. I hate lower class people.

What have they done to you? Another generalisation that really sums up ignorance in today's society.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Look, I think it's kind of like schizophrenia*: there are genetic factors that put one at risk of the condition, and in lieu of certain stressors or insults to the brain, it may not go full blown. Nevertheless, the majority of the population will NEVER develop schizophrenia. In a like manner, the majority of the population will, regardless of environmental factors, NEVER develop the intellectual and personality traits that are vital to sustainable civilization in the 21st century. They will go on being near-chimpanzees, to the planet's great detriment.

Interesting position. Got any evidence for it?

Also, misanthrope detected.


*And, on that note, I plan on making a topic about why the Left generally loathes the mentally infirm, and in particular those with psychotic conditions, when my account gets past the "moderate every post" stage.

I don't see how, it's not the Left that's been the most enthusiastic in cutting away social support for those with mental issues.

[Green Girl]

No worker ever fired thousands of people to increase the profit margin for the shareholders and to get a bigger bonus.


How do they sleep at night? Capitalists are such evil scum. :cursing: Workers would never do something so evil to their fellow man.

Back to the subject of this thread disadvantaged lower classes deserve all the sympathy we can offer. Especially those who are homeless, forced to live in poverty, use alcohol or drugs to escape their dreadful reality and other evils that the capitalist system imposes on mankind.

On the other hand I'm not sure I could offer much sympathy to the former upper classes when the monetary system is done away with and these uppity arrogant high and mighty irritating excuses for human beings are just like the rest of us. :grin:

Give me the lower classes anytime. :)

[T-800]

Interesting position. Got any evidence for it?

re: humanity being innately destructive and stupid, I can recommend material like Too Smart for Our Own Good: The Ecological Predicament of Humankind (one of whose chapters is titled "...and Too Dumb to Change")

re: the claims about schizophrenia, inter alia, Schizophrenia: Cognitive Theory, Research, and Therapy


Also, misanthrope detected.

I wouldn't object to that charge. I would simply ask you what's wrong with it.


I don't see how, it's not the Left that's been the most enthusiastic in cutting away social support for those with mental issues.

In an abstract way, they want to help.

However, when confronted with an actual mentally infirm individual, esp. from certain disorders, they receive the unpleasant reminder that alienation is a permanent fact of society, as long as humans live on this planet.

I'm not a big fan of French philosophy, but I was made aware that in the work Capitalism and Schizophrenia by Gilles Deleux and Félix Guattari, it was asserted that certain schizotypes meet the definition of "individual" in a fuller way than anyone else can.

This is of course incredibly disruptive to socialism.

[Beeth]

How do they sleep at night? Capitalists are such evil scum. :cursing: Workers would never do something so evil to their fellow man.


It is not like capitalists wake up every morning and say to themselves, "Today I am gonna exploit so many workers, ha-ha-ha", and then go back to sleep. The system rewards such behavior, so they do it. As to workers not doing evil to their fellow men, well, if you leave out office politics, backstabbing, gossip, etc., then yes, you're right.

Point is, support the working class (but let's not romanticize the workers).

[ind_com]

It is not like capitalists wake up every morning and say to themselves, "Today I am gonna exploit so many workers, ha-ha-ha", and then go back to sleep. The system rewards such behavior, so they do it. As to workers not doing evil to their fellow men, well, if you leave out office politics, backstabbing, gossip, etc., then yes, you're right.

Point is, support the working class (but let's not romanticize the workers).

If you mix well with very poor sections of workers who are even facing starvation, you will see that there is actually a sense of solidarity among them. The problem is that most of us who originate from the middle class are seen as outsiders in the proletarian communities.

[Green Girl]

It is not like capitalists wake up every morning and say to themselves, "Today I am gonna exploit so many workers, ha-ha-ha", and then go back to sleep. The system rewards such behavior, so they do it. As to workers not doing evil to their fellow men, well, if you leave out office politics, backstabbing, gossip, etc., then yes, you're right.

Point is, support the working class (but let's not romanticize the workers).

Workers have never thrown thousands of fellow workers out on the streets with their spouses and children. In fact on many occasions workers have willingly taken pay-cuts to avoid co-workers being laid off.

So I still ask the question, how do capitalists who do such evil deeds sleep at night and how do they enjoy their blood money?

[Jason]

They are formed by their material conditions in the social reproduction of society. Because the lower classes are the absolute bottom stratum of social reproduction in capitalism, of course they're going to have a harder time facing the temptations of crime and immorality than other more well-off sections of society.

The rich are full of crime and immorality and have the money to pay for it, while many poor don't. The question is: "What kind of crime and immorality"? How about immorality on a wide scale that poor folks can't even comprehend? I mean look at the lives of rock stars.

[Luís Henrique]

if you leave out office politics, backstabbing, gossip, etc.,

Wife beating, snitching, scabbing, collaboration with police, voting for class enemies, racist discrimination, homophobia, cat calling, wearing mullets, and listening to bad music.

Yes, working class people do all of those, quite often indeed. The question is, why do we do that? Isn't it exactly because we often act as supporters of the system that oppresses us?

Luís Henrique

[#FF0000]

whether or not people are assholes has literally no bearing on whether or not they should be exploited

[Beeth]

Wife beating, snitching, scabbing, collaboration with police, voting for class enemies, racist discrimination, homophobia, cat calling, wearing mullets, and listening to bad music.

Yes, working class people do all of those, quite often indeed. The question is, why do we do that? Isn't it exactly because we often act as supporters of the system that oppresses us?

Luís Henrique

Exactly what I am saying: the system is the real issue. But most people are content to simply attack the rich and glorify the workers - is that a wise approach? Libertarians do the opposite - they glorify the rich and attack the poor. Our 'enemy' is the system itself, which creates the greedy rich and the uncivilized worker. Both are problems to a civilized person.

[Beeth]

whether or not people are assholes has literally no bearing on whether or not they should be exploited

You're right. We oppose capitalism because we oppose exploitation, not because we have romantic notions about workers being innocent little angels who are being taken advantage of by the big bad capitalists. If the roles are reversed, then these 'former' workers will do what they've accused cappies of doing. Which proves that the system as a whole is the problem.

[LOLseph Stalin]

You're right. We oppose capitalism because we oppose exploitation, not because we have romantic notions about workers being innocent little angels who are being taken advantage of by the big bad capitalists. If the roles are reversed, then these 'former' workers will do what they've accused cappies of doing. Which proves that the system as a whole is the problem.

but then a group of greedy workers will take control over everybody else in a socialist society and make a dictatorship:laugh:.

Seriously though, I am yet to see any evidence that humans are naturally greedy. It seems to just be we're conditioned to be greedy because of capitalism. It's greed or starve essentially so yes, I do agree with this.

[RadioRaheem84]

whether or not people are assholes has literally no bearing on whether or not they should be exploited

Yes, 'nuff said

http://kapitalism101.wordpress.com/exploitation-and-morality/

OP, read and learn.

[Althusser]

Both my parents are proles. (Dad currently unemployed) Through a strange turn of events, I ended up in a private high school. (Partial Scholarship + acting/voice-over work $$$ Lucky Lucky ME)

My rich, loud, snobby, and self-delusional peers who consider 200k a year living comfortably, consider all people that are poor as lazy, think they deserve their fortunes, and own multiple cars and summer homes are absolute scum. (An adherent to dialectical materialism, I understand why they think the way they do, given their surroundings, but It doesn't change my mind about them being fucking scum)

I get a much better vibe from the people in my neighborhood who I share class character with (I no longer do voice over/commercial work. All my bank is going to private education. I've got an unemployed dad and a prole mother living with her prole mother)

I'm a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist because

1.) My adherence to scientific socialism/dialectical materialism

2.) Discrepancies about history (Stalin, NKVD) and the DPRK are 100% subordinate to the diversity, dedication, and overall lack of pretentiousness withing MLM groups I've gotten involved with.

3.) I don't just want to see those motherfuckers at my school get their means to generate wealth expropriated... (lol joking... but not really)

[MarxArchist]

This is the question that my friends ask of me - they point to the loud, vulgar behavior of the lower classes, their violence (like getting drunk and beating up their wives)

No sympathy there



their striking ignorance

Ignorance? As Adam Smith predicted would happen under the division of labor and as we know poverty creates? His solution was public education. Do you understand how the public education system works? How funds are allocated? How better teachers, better programs, better everything get allocated to affluent neighborhoods? And you're calling people ignorant?



You can't just tell them the same old thing, that people are products of their environment etc. There is no excuse for bad behavior. Poverty may make you steal, not molest people or some such thing.
I didn't know molestation was a lower class issue based in "ignorance". Fuck you're ignorant. Do we as Marxists/Anarchists view the world in a deterministic fashion where people have no agency? No we don't but we also understand the base/superstructure - that when the stage is set in a certain way certain roles are easier to take on. We can't expect to abolish these social roles without first changing the base.


So how do you convince people (like my friends) that everyone deserves sympathy, including the worst?

The lower class are the worst is what you're saying. Basically poor people, I'll even extend it to the obvious, that you're implying people of color as well seeing they're disproportionately 'lower class' or living in poverty. I'd say you and your friends are ignorant and perhaps you should put down your glasses of brandy and cigars up there on the top level of the Titanic and come 'slum' it with us on the lower levels.

[Klaatu]

Wait a minute here. Why is there "class" in the first place???

There should be no "class." Fuck/Screw/get-rid-of ... CLASS! :cursing:

CLASS has no right to exist in the first place, because no one is any 'better' than anyone else on this planet or any other. WE ARE ALL EQUALS

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

re: humanity being innately destructive and stupid, I can recommend material like Too Smart for Our Own Good: The Ecological Predicament of Humankind (one of whose chapters is titled "...and Too Dumb to Change")

Oh it's in a book, so it must be true! :rolleyes:


I wouldn't object to that charge. I would simply ask you what's wrong with it.

How do you live with yourself? Unless you'd like to reveal to us that you aren't a human...


In an abstract way, they want to help.

However, when confronted with an actual mentally infirm individual, esp. from certain disorders, they receive the unpleasant reminder that alienation is a permanent fact of society, as long as humans live on this planet.

Alienation from what, though? If you just mean alienation in general, that tells us nothing more than saying that anger will always be with us. It may be true, but it is also trivial.

Also, alienation is not a mental illness.


I'm not a big fan of French philosophy, but I was made aware that in the work Capitalism and Schizophrenia by Gilles Deleux and Félix Guattari, it was asserted that certain schizotypes meet the definition of "individual" in a fuller way than anyone else can.

This is of course incredibly disruptive to socialism.

Er, how?

[T-800]

Oh it's in a book, so it must be true! :rolleyes:

The book makes a magisterial case that ecological destruction on planet Earth is rooted in the sociobiological instincts of the human species per se.

We're just like any other species really, except that our access to technology has enabled a long, demonstrated history of out of control population and economic growth that will finally be capped now that we are running up against the limits of the whole Earth itself.

This is actually kind of obvious.


How do you live with yourself?

Not easily.


Alienation from what, though?

Everyone else.


Also, alienation is not a mental illness.

It's an important part of many of them though.


Er, how?

The perfect socialist system requires everyone to get along with everyone else.

[Jimmie Higgins]

re: humanity being innately destructive and stupid, I can recommend material like Too Smart for Our Own Good: The Ecological Predicament of Humankind (one of whose chapters is titled "...and Too Dumb to Change")According to evolutionary intelligence (that is adaptability) the human ability to consciously change and alter our surroundings makes our mental abilities one of our most "intelligent" features, whereas maybe other animals are more adaptive and dynamic in other ways. The problem today is who has sway over both that consciousness and our ability and motivations for changing and altering our surroundings: Capital.


I wouldn't object to that charge. I would simply ask you what's wrong with it.Misanthropy is for self-centered elitists for one, it's reactionary for another. Popular misanthropy just let's the actual exploiters and the people who run this society off the hook... as your views of an abstract "human-stupidity"-origin for man-made environmental destruction let's off the hook all the questions of: who controls what actions happen and the motivations behind them; what shapes our contemporary relationship to the natural world; and so on.

Sorry to hafta invoke the Nazis, but sometimes a shocking example applied to a common argument is revealing. Imagine if the holocaust was going on and someone in Germany shrugs and says: "well it's human nature, you know. People have been killing eachother for thousands of years". Wouldn't that be, in effect, the same as that same German saying, "Good riddance". In other words, it abstracts something to the point of practical meaninglessness. On top of that, this sloppy logic also unintentionally (and often intentionally) obscures the direct and real causes and motivations and therefore any real chance to do something about it.

In this specific argument about inherent human causes, rather than more specific cuases related to the ways humans interact with nature (which in our societies would be one of profit extraction above all human and environmental considerations), if you follow the logic through it leads to technocratic dictatorship. If most are "stupid chimpanzees" who will destroy the world, it is up to an "enlightened eliete" to solve the problem. This is in fundamental opposition to my kind of Marxism as well as to most strains of class-oriented anarchism.

And most of all, it's just wrong and false.

For most of human history things were made or used based on their direct usefulness. It may have cause some places to have over-fishing or unintentional environmental effects, but things were locallized and generally, from contact with existing band-societies, most of these kinds of groups developed "custom" which would sometimes become spiritual beliefs or taboos, and these were essentially a way to carry on past lessons that would help these societies remain sustainable.

Capitalism, however, is focused on exchange value and not "use". So a fishing company can fish and fish until returns decline and then move that capital into boat-tours or buy rights to another lake for fishing, etc. So there is no inherent incentive for sustainability; on the other hand the profit-motive and competition between firms ensures that if there are available resources somewhere they must be accumulated as fast as possible until it is no longer possible to make profit from it. There is an inherent drive to accumulate for the sake of accumulation; not only are whole ecosystems destroyed, but logging towns, fishing villages, and all sorts of other communities (Hell, DETROIT!) which were built around an industry... then the company just picks up and moves on.

It's not that HUMANS are stupid, it's that the way we organize production is inherently counter to sustainability and meeting needs rather than profits. The problem is that we can't just wish that form of organization away, there is a class of people who will kill to keep things on the same path. Rather than people, being the problem, IMO it's lack of a fundamental sort of democracy where we all get to decide the relationship of ourselves as a society to nature.

Elitism is a barrier and hindrance to actually building a way to change the course of society.


In an abstract way, they want to help.

However, when confronted with an actual mentally infirm individual, esp. from certain disorders, they receive the unpleasant reminder that alienation is a permanent fact of society, as long as humans live on this planet.Alienation doesn't mean what you think it means when talking about capitalism. Alienation means that we work but have no control over that work as wage-earners. We are alienated for the full results of our labor and the wealth and power of production that go with it.

People with mental problems or substance problems or physical problems are not an issue for socialism. A society where production and communities are run democratically would not value other humans based on their capacity to meet the demands of profit-driven production. Such a society where we work for ourselves, work for use-value to meet our needs and wants, is one where it won't matter if someone who has manic-depression can't work for weeks at a time. They can contribute when they are able and probably in a much less stressful and humiliating and demoralizing atmosphere.

Capitalism doesn't know what to do with people who can't or won't work, so their either sweep them under the rug and let the weather and hunger thin them out, or they house them and put them away. And sometimes in history, capitalism finds a way to exploit them as bodies and test subjects since they have no labor-value to offer.


The perfect socialist system requires everyone to get along with everyone else.No it requires workers organizing society democratically; there will be plenty of disagreements and arguments, it's sort of the point of people actually getting a say in how things are run.

[T-800]

According to evolutionary intelligence (that is adaptability) the human ability to consciously change and alter our surroundings makes our mental abilities one of our most "intelligent" features

Intelligent behavior in ruining the habitability of planet Earth.

What can I say? Bravo.


The problem today is who has sway over both that consciousness and our ability and motivations for changing and altering our surroundings: Capital.

Too Smart for Our Own Good argues that capitalism springs out of human nature itself:


On the [vicious circle principle—population growth necessitating development of superior technology to eat up more of the Earth, leading to more population and so on], on the other hand, there will always be an accumulation of power in some form or other at the top of the human pecking order in any complex society. If one were to eliminate private property, i.e. economic power – as was done in the Soviet Union – the power of those at the top will simply take the form of political/military power employed in direct coercion (the army becomes the police). And, as suggested by our Animal Farm syndrome, if the weak were to replace the powerful they would act just as the powerful did. It lies in the karyotype of the human male, which, through sexual selection, differs somewhat from that of the female, that he try to attain power and/or status vis-à-vis other males, whether it be through the acquisition of individual territory or through ruling over group territory. And the same may be said of the karyotypes of the other primates. If gorillas or chimps had developed technology to the extent we have, one would expect gorilla or chimp leaders to act in the same way. The difference between complex societies and ape and hunter-gatherer societies is that in complex societies the preconditions for particular individuals’ acquiring great power are better met. Most important in this regard is probably the ever-growing population. Given the relative influence of the survival and sexual instincts in economics, we should say that it is primarily greed that propels the capitalist, albeit greed coupled with his constantly felt need to improve his status or social position. No complex and populous society has as yet been without a hierarchical power structure, with those at the top always being concerned to maintain their position.

This is not going to change as long as the planet is inhabited by the human species.


Misanthropy is for self-centered elitists for one, it's reactionary for another.

What does any of this have to do with whether the human species is a sort of malignant tumor on this planet?


If most are "stupid chimpanzees" who will destroy the world, it is up to an "enlightened eliete" to solve the problem.

I agree.


And most of all, it's just wrong and false.

Wrong AND false! Do tell...


For most of human history things were made or used based on their direct usefulness. It may have cause some places to have over-fishing or unintentional environmental effects, but things were locallized and generally, from contact with existing band-societies, most of these kinds of groups developed "custom" which would sometimes become spiritual beliefs or taboos, and these were essentially a way to carry on past lessons that would help these societies remain sustainable.

It sure is nice to need "spiritual taboos" just to attain sustainability.


It's not that HUMANS are stupid

So no factors in human intelligence and personality are heritable?


it's that the way we organize production is inherently counter to sustainability and meeting needs rather than profits.

Animal Farm.

Ditto for everything until the next quote.


People with mental problems or substance problems or physical problems are not an issue for socialism.

Explaining inter alia "sluggish schizophrenia" in the Soviet Union.


No it requires workers organizing society democratically; there will be plenty of disagreements and arguments

What if some people don't like socialism in general?

Marxism is just a secular rehash of Christianity. And equally realistic.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Too Smart for Our Own Good argues that capitalism springs out of human nature itself:"Human Nature" arguments are, for the most part, meaningless. What is "natural" or objective about capitalism is only that humans need to secure and produce food and shelter and in communities to survive. Capitalism is a specific order for doing that, an exploitative order maintained by a few. Capitalism is no more natural that other forms of organizing society (one of, at this point, two distinct possibilities - barring some civilization-wide collapse through huge pandemic or massive nuclear war or something]). In fact, as I said in the last post, it's not even a historically common form of organization.

If by "human nature" you mean even more deterministically that this is universally destined state of social organization or hard-wired behavior, then it's even more absurd a claim. Humans really would be stupid if we thrived for so long and have only now, in the last few hundred years, figured out what we were hard-wired to do!


This is not going to change as long as the planet is inhabited by the human species.If you mean people will have idiotic opinions that they try and pass off as "science" like this author does... well you may be right.


What does any of this have to do with whether the human species is a sort of malignant tumor on this planet?Everybody but you right? Otherwise that logic leads to kind of a dark conclusion that I wouldn't want to think about.

At any rate, I thought you said man is just like any other animal? Now you set humanity apart, as a malignant force imposing on the natural world? If you're going to hold onto repugnant ideas, have some consistency at least.


So no factors in human intelligence and personality are heritable?Sure some things. Are they socially relevant in the way your are trying to construct the argument to be able to imply? Not one bit.

It would imply some sort of "great-man" view of the world which like "overpopulation" arguments is 99.9% pseudo-science.


Animal Farm.Good book. Now I know you've read two. But did you understand this one? Because you are arguing that a book written by someone who saw himself on the side of socialism and you are using it to argue that the book proves that socialism is inherently impossible.




Explaining inter alia "sluggish schizophrenia" in the Soviet Union.The USSR was another exploitative society, not socialism/communism in the Marxist or anarchist sense. Even many supporters of this regime on the left (of which I am not one so I apologize if I'm misrepresenting folk's view here) generally claim that they were sort of "holding out" for communism, or that they were a state with "socialist features" or something.


What if some people don't like socialism in general?You mean like now? Well people aren't going to fight for something if they either don't like it, or more accurately, don't believe that it (socialism in the original sense, not USSR-style systems) is possible. But the conditions of capitalism and the fact that everyone can hate capitalism but we still have it because of class rule result historically in rapid shifts in popular thinking and class struggle. As people who are already radicals and want to see the development of the majority taking society and history into their own hands, our job is to prepare and try in our subjective way to help pave the way for that: try and organize like-minded people together and try and convince more people of our ideas both in regards to bigger ideas about the world as well as in practical ideas for struggles today.

But what about specific people who don't like socialism? What about you? Let's see: population-control desires... eugenics... great-man ideas...

Frankly, some pretty awful ideas with not a great scientific track record in regards to practice or even validity. What would you say your political views are?

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

Workers have never thrown thousands of fellow workers out on the streets with their spouses and children. In fact on many occasions workers have willingly taken pay-cuts to avoid co-workers being laid off.

So I still ask the question, how do capitalists who do such evil deeds sleep at night and how do they enjoy their blood money?

It's all to do with environmental effects. Capitalists are born into their position and are socialised to accept the norms and values of their class, simply because they are up to their necks in exploitative culture. It's like breathing for a lot of them, just like the ignorance of many in the working class. It's sad to say but many people just aren't aware of what is happening to them. Not all capitalists see as we do because they have no need to.

[T-800]

"Human Nature" arguments are, for the most part, meaningless.

Even as a staunch opponent of most of the evo psych that's out there, I won't begrudge them certain human universals.


What is "natural" or objective about capitalism is only that humans need to secure and produce food and shelter and in communities to survive. Capitalism is a specific order for doing that, an exploitative order maintained by a few.

Other primate species exist in "an exploitative order maintained by a few". Who'd have thought?


In fact, as I said in the last post, it's not even a historically common form of organization.

Hierarchy is "not historically common".

Feel free to document that claim.


If by "human nature" you mean even more deterministically that this is universally destined state of social organization or hard-wired behavior, then it's even more absurd a claim. Humans really would be stupid if we thrived for so long and have only now, in the last few hundred years, figured out what we were hard-wired to do!

What?


If you mean people will have idiotic opinions that they try and pass off as "science" like this author does... well you may be right.

Did you even preview that book?


Everybody but you right?

No.


Otherwise that logic leads to kind of a dark conclusion that I wouldn't want to think about.

Too bad.


At any rate, I thought you said man is just like any other animal?

In most ways, yes.


Now you set humanity apart, as a malignant force imposing on the natural world?

That's also true.

We're like an algal bloom that can use tools basically.


Sure some things. Are they socially relevant in the way your are trying to construct the argument to be able to imply? Not one bit.

Why not?


It would imply some sort of "great-man" view of the world which like "overpopulation" arguments is 99.9% pseudo-science.

Holy dogshit, NINETY NINE POINT NINE PER CENT! That's ivory soap-grade bullshit! Last I checked, we're in deepening ecological overshoot and will have severe problems furnishing phosphate and freshwater for our sustenance in a few decades but I guess I was wrong.

Marxists are just like techno-glibertarians in the final analysis.


Good book. Now I know you've read two. But did you understand this one? Because you are arguing that a book written by someone who saw himself on the side of socialism

I'm aware of this.

Don't have to agree with everything the author said.


The USSR was another exploitative society, not socialism/communism in the Marxist or anarchist sense.

What you would expect of a species that, like its poo-flinging kin, establishes dominance hierarchies.


But the conditions of capitalism and the fact that everyone can hate capitalism but we still have it because of class rule result historically in rapid shifts in popular thinking and class struggle. As people who are already radicals and want to see the development of the majority taking society and history into their own hands, our job is to prepare and try in our subjective way to help pave the way for that: try and organize like-minded people together and try and convince more people of our ideas both in regards to bigger ideas about the world as well as in practical ideas for struggles today.

gl & hf


But what about specific people who don't like socialism? What about you? Let's see: population-control desires... eugenics... great-man ideas...

Frankly, some pretty awful ideas with not a great scientific track record in regards to practice or even validity.

Implying that transhumanism is necessarily limited to comically inaccurate ideas like the quasi-mystical Nazi racial hygiene beliefs.

In fact, one of the greatest foes of the Third Reich on an individual level, Alan Turing (he was vital to the Enigma decryption effort), had this to say in 1951:

"Once the machine thinking method has started, it would not take long to outstrip our feeble powers. At some stage therefore we should have to expect the machines to take control."

Try poisoning the well harder next time.

[Owl]

When the lower classes make poor decisions, they're ruined and chastised by society.
When the upper classes make poor decisions, they make the cover of a tabloid.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Other primate species exist in "an exploitative order maintained by a few". Who'd have thought?Other primate species can not consciously change their relationships with each-other and nature but humans can - this is well documented in human history.

In addition where other primates compete within groups, it is over sexual reproduction, not production. Even among chimps you can have bonobos as well as more dominating chimps. Why not argue that since humans use tools we are like Orangutangs and "human nature" is to live alone in the woods? These are old and silly arguments... what's next, rape is the natural for of sexual relations because in cartoons cavemen hit cavewoman over the head?


Hierarchy is "not historically common".

Feel free to document that claim.Class civilization began around 10,000 years ago and humans have been around much longer than that. Economic exploitation on a systematic level was not possible because there was no surplus for a minority to control. Everyone had to pitch in to a certain extent. There are many recorded interactions between people from more modern societies interacting with people in band societies which also suggest that outside of times of social stress (famines, threats from colonial efforts, disease, the establishment of new property relations due to interactions with European traders) people lived in fairly egalitarian groupings where everyone pitched in to the best of their ability.


We're like an algal bloom that can use tools basically.I guess we should all kill ourselves?


Holy dogshit, NINETY NINE POINT NINE PER CENT! That's ivory soap-grade bullshit! Last I checked, we're in deepening ecological overshoot and will have severe problems furnishing phosphate and freshwater for our sustenance in a few decades but I guess I was wrong.

Marxists are just like techno-glibertarians in the final analysis.No, you don't seem to understand the argument I am making. Of course there are definitely environmental problems, that is not the question or the disagreement. But the problem is not population in the abstract as you argue, but in use and production which are processes guided and controlled by capital and the logic of capital. Sustainability is impossible if the logic of the way we get what we need to survive is based on limitless accumulation and amassing of profits as quickly as possible!

It is as though you are looking at the problem of fossil fuels related to transportation and concluded that the fundamental problem is that people want to move from one place to another. Such a conclusion completely ignores the actual issue of how we currently handle moving form one place to another, why, and therefore any real chance to do something about the problem! Your views are not only distasteful but they are disorienting and harmful for actually developing a way to change course and find solutions.

[T-800]

Other primate species can not consciously change their relationships with each-other and nature but humans can - this is well documented in human history.

"Can" doesn't imply "will".

Since our long, distinguished record of trashing the environment speaks for itself, I will leave it at that.


In addition where other primates compete within groups, it is over sexual reproduction, not production.

Control over "production" elevates status.


Even among chimps you can have bonobos as well as more dominating chimps.

Bonobos don't display lethal violence by nature so it would seem we are more closely related to the Pans troglodytes chimps—inter alia.


Why not argue that since humans use tools we are like Orangutangs and "human nature" is to live alone in the woods?

No ... I just think that centuries of documented human universal behavior should have some weight.


Class civilization began around 10,000 years ago and humans have been around much longer than that. Economic exploitation on a systematic level was not possible because there was no surplus for a minority to control.

So in other words, we were egalitarians when the means didn't even exist for huge power differentials to crop up, but as soon as they did, "economic exploitation" occurred as a matter of course, repeatedly and independently at a number of widely scattered sites on Earth.

That makes it sound like human nature.


Everyone had to pitch in to a certain extent.

Proto-war claims a lot of lives, proportionally speaking, in hunter-gatherer societies as well.

Let's not romanticize them.


I guess we should all kill ourselves?

We should prepare the planet for our successor.


No, you don't seem to understand the argument I am making. Of course there are definitely environmental problems, that is not the question or the disagreement. But the problem is not population in the abstract as you argue, but in use and production which are processes guided and controlled by capital and the logic of capital. Sustainability is impossible if the logic of the way we get what we need to survive is based on limitless accumulation and amassing of profits as quickly as possible!

Too Smart for Our Own Good argues that horticulture emerged repeatedly and independently on this planet not because it made life more convenient for people—on the contrary, it brought them toil and disease—because it became necessary to support populations that had boomed during anthropogenic extinctions of megafauna.

We have a very, VERY long history of unsustainability, of which capitalism is only the latest manifestation.


Your views are not only distasteful

Oh well

Conspicuously absent from your response:


Implying that transhumanism is necessarily limited to comically inaccurate ideas like the quasi-mystical Nazi racial hygiene beliefs.

In fact, one of the greatest foes of the Third Reich on an individual level, Alan Turing (he was vital to the Enigma decryption effort), had this to say in 1951:

"Once the machine thinking method has started, it would not take long to outstrip our feeble powers. At some stage therefore we should have to expect the machines to take control."

Try poisoning the well harder next time.Well?

[Comrade #138672]

Beeth, be careful. You're starting to sound like a reactionary.

[Jimmie Higgins]

"Can" doesn't imply "will".Inevitability is besides the point, "Can change our relationship to the world" does blow a huge hole into your faulty determinist logic irregardless of it it "will" change (in time)!


Since our long, distinguished record of trashing the environment speaks for itself, I will leave it at that.Yes and again let off the hook the actual causes of the specific rapid (and historically unprecedented) impact on the environment which is related to production methods and the reasons for production. Humans have more often lived in harmony and in a sustainable relationship to their surroundings than not.

In the last few hundred years the human relationship to nature has changed - in fact a concept of the "natural world" as a distinct thing came into being in this time. Nature is now a commodifiable resource and above all else, this is the main cause of rapid environmental destruction.

What is inborn in humans to develop autonomous little metal boxes fueled by fossil fuels; to build suburbs far from distribution and production areas; to make people all work at the same time so they sit in traffic for hours? Nothing about this is determined by human nature... capitalism won't get off fossil fuels because our infrastructure is built on that and so there's no profit motive to change; suburbs are more profitable developments because land can be bought cheap and building outside of municipal areas allows developers more lax regulations.

The only inherent human part of this is that people need shelter and to produce food and things. But nothing about that means we need to all sit on the freeway or that we should ship food across the country or world because there are better profits to be made than if local producers made it.


Bonobos don't display lethal violence by nature so it would seem we are more closely related to the Pans troglodytes chimps—inter alia.So your logic is that humans are inherently destructive and hierarchical because of the evidence of our closest evolutionary relatives but then we SEEM to be more closely related to the violent hierarchical ones because we are inherently destructive and hierarchical... :lol: Nice circular logic.

We are just as closely related to chimps and bonobos because we diverged from a common ancestor, we didn't evolve out of one or the other.

You'd think if you wanted to use evolution to back your ideological claims, you might want to know something about it.


So in other words, we were egalitarians when the means didn't even exist for huge power differentials to crop up, but as soon as they did, "economic exploitation" occurred as a matter of course, repeatedly and independently at a number of widely scattered sites on Earth.

That makes it sound like human nature.:rolleyes: Again, if it's "human nature, why did it take a hundred thousand years or so to figure it out?


Proto-war claims a lot of lives, proportionally speaking, in hunter-gatherer societies as well.

Let's not romanticize them.Who is romanticizing. I said it was a range of lifestyles... generally based on the conditions people faced. We don't know how people in pre-history lived, but there's a good deal of evidence from cultural encounters with different societies that some people scraped by and others lived in relative abundance.

I think human behaviors and organization is determined by our conditions ultimately. Human nature covers behaviors such as self-preservation, being social animals, needing food and wanting sex, and the only behaviors humans are born knowing is grasping things and sucking on things. Pretty much everything else is a question of how we secure food and a life for ourselves and history has shown that this is very malleable and has changed much more rapidly than biology changes.

We have a very, VERY long history of unsustainability, of which capitalism is only the latest manifestation.We can't both be an unstoppable spreading cancer and historically unsustainable... we wouldn't have gotten this far. Again, faulty logic.


Conspicuously absent from your response:


Implying that transhumanism is necessarily limited to comically inaccurate ideas like the quasi-mystical Nazi racial hygiene beliefs.

In fact, one of the greatest foes of the Third Reich on an individual level, Alan Turing (he was vital to the Enigma decryption effort), had this to say in 1951:

"Once the machine thinking method has started, it would not take long to outstrip our feeble powers. At some stage therefore we should have to expect the machines to take control."

Try poisoning the well harder next time.

Well?
Um, I don't know why a response to this was "conspicuously" absent. I didn't comment on that because I thought it was an incoherent gathering of sentances.

Are you saying your outlook is "transhumanism"? If so please explain what this means to you and what you think people should do or not do.

At any rate, I said you believe in great-men ideas about history, eugenics, and population control not because you are a "transhumanist" but because YOU MADE ARGUMENTS TO THAT EFFECT. I don't even know what a transhumanist is, so again please explain how you see it and what it means for subjective action of people.

If you think machines should rule us, or that we should build conscious machines to replace us, well that doesn't do anything about the programming directives so to speak and if they are programed to run on the logic of capitalism, then rational or not, they will also destroy the planet.

[T-800]

Inevitability is besides the point, "Can change our relationship to the world" does blow a huge hole into your faulty determinist logic irregardless of it it "will" change (in time)!

So, in principle, there are things that could be done to save human civilization but very probably won't be.

ps I am a determinist—I have no qualms with that view either


Yes and again let off the hook the actual causes of the specific rapid (and historically unprecedented) impact on the environment which is related to production methods and the reasons for production. Humans have more often lived in harmony and in a sustainable relationship to their surroundings than not.

All before they had the wherewithal to do otherwise. (By, e.g., finding coal.)

ps even your "noble savage" narrative doesn't jibe—recall that the peoples who are now known as "native Americans" caused a terrific extinction of megafauna when they entered the Americas ... if they hadn't done so, we'd still be living with giant sloths, etc.


In the last few hundred years the human relationship to nature has changed - in fact a concept of the "natural world" as a distinct thing came into being in this time. Nature is now a commodifiable resource and above all else, this is the main cause of rapid environmental destruction.

Right, so it's all because of our philosophy towards nature and not the fact that our population exploded or whatever.


What is inborn in humans to develop autonomous little metal boxes fueled by fossil fuels; to build suburbs far from distribution and production areas; to make people all work at the same time so they sit in traffic for hours?

Nothing per se. These are simply distal means to status games that apes play.

I can't put up links with my post count but on that note Google "chimpanzee prostitution".


capitalism won't get off fossil fuels because our infrastructure is built on that and so there's no profit motive to change

Tell me why a non-capitalist human society would avert this short term thinking.


The only inherent human part of this is that people need shelter and to produce food and things.

You forgot the status-seeking part.


So your logic is that humans are inherently destructive and hierarchical because of the evidence of our closest evolutionary relatives but then we SEEM to be more closely related to the violent hierarchical ones because we are inherently destructive and hierarchical... :lol: Nice circular logic.

Not really. It's a simple fact that even human hunter gatherer tribes a) tend to be rather violent in the scheme of things (proto-war, proportionally, can claim a lot more lives than even our World Wars have) and b) know status distinctions.

You are aware that many of your "comrades" on this site rail against male/female inequality. Do you want to take a guess at how labor is divided in most extant hunter-gatherer tribes?


:rolleyes: Again, if it's "human nature, why did it take a hundred thousand years or so to figure it out?

Population growth, status games and technology in the pursuit of them have been around as long as we have.


Who is romanticizing. I said it was a range of lifestyles... generally based on the conditions people faced. We don't know how people in pre-history lived

Bullshit.


I think human behaviors and organization is determined by our conditions ultimately.

To a limited degree.

I mean not even connectionists will deny that there are heritable traits.


Human nature covers behaviors such as self-preservation, being social animals, needing food and wanting sex, and the only behaviors humans are born knowing is grasping things and sucking on things. Pretty much everything else is a question of how we secure food and a life for ourselves and history has shown that this is very malleable and has changed much more rapidly than biology changes.

Well it had better respond to freshwater and phosphate deficits, land degradation, abrupt climate change, etc. pretty damn quick or show's over.


We can't both be an unstoppable spreading cancer and historically unsustainable... we wouldn't have gotten this far. Again, faulty logic.

So cancers don't go through Stages I, II, and III in a living host before they finally reach Stage IV (metastasis)? That's "faulty logic"?


Um, I don't know why a response to this was "conspicuously" absent. I didn't comment on that because I thought it was an incoherent gathering of sentances.

Are you saying your outlook is "transhumanism"? If so please explain what this means to you and what you think people should do or not do.

At any rate, I said you believe in great-men ideas about history, eugenics, and population control not because you are a "transhumanist" but because YOU MADE ARGUMENTS TO THAT EFFECT. I don't even know what a transhumanist is, so again please explain how you see it and what it means for subjective action of people.

If you think machines should rule us, or that we should build conscious machines to replace us, well that doesn't do anything about the programming directives so to speak and if they are programed to run on the logic of capitalism, then rational or not, they will also destroy the planet.

If our successors have limited social instincts, no sexual instinct and exhibit a much lower discount rate / different discounting function than humans, they will have no desire to continue the "capitalist" ("human") system.

[Beeth]

You forgot the status-seeking part.

This is a very good point. Humans have the innate desire to seek status, dominate others etc. Even equality-loving leftists on this forum will lick a celebrity's boots - it is natural for humans to seek and worship power/status. So this problem will always be there because, as you say, it is part of human nature. But it is hoped that in communist societies, the opportunity to manifest such desires will be denied - and so the urge will remain largely suppressed, if not utterly eliminated. This is how I see it - I don't see communism as utopia. Rather, it is a system where the beast is well and properly caged.

[Kalinin's Facial Hair]

This is a very good point. Humans have the innate desire to seek status, dominate others etc. Even equality-loving leftists on this forum will lick a celebrity's boots - it is natural for humans to seek and worship power/status. So this problem will always be there because, as you say, it is part of human nature. But it is hoped that in communist societies, the opportunity to manifest such desires will be denied - and so the urge will remain largely suppressed, if not utterly eliminated. This is how I see it - I don't see communism as utopia. Rather, it is a system where the beast is well and properly caged.

Well, I disagree. This innate quality you talk about is the innate quality of the bourgeois men. The men who live (born and grow) on bourgeois society.

Society makes men, but men make society. Remember the third thesis of Ad Feuerbach

[Jimmie Higgins]

So, in principle, there are things that could be done to save human civilization but very probably won't be.Yes things can be done, but not within the current framwork of how society produces (competitive mass accumulation of profits) or the current ruling class order.

It also isn't because the capitalist rulers are short-sighted or "stupid" on a human level either, it's syetmicly rooted in the way they produce and maintain their power. As long as they can still squeeze some feul out of rocks and sand at a profit, they will no matter how short sighted this is for the earth or even their own economies in the long run. If one economic power (like the US or China) or even one firm decided not to do this, then competition ensures that some one else will and they will reap the short-term profits and then drive the "ethical" firm out of business or reduce the economic dominance of a powerful nation.


ps even your "noble savage" narrative doesn't jibe—recall that the peoples who are now known as "native Americans" caused a terrific extinction of megafauna when they entered the Americas ... if they hadn't done so, we'd still be living with giant sloths, etc.

Not really. It's a simple fact that even human hunter gatherer tribes a) tend to be rather violent in the scheme of things (proto-war, proportionally, can claim a lot more lives than even our World Wars have) and b) know status distinctions.

You are aware that many of your "comrades" on this site rail against male/female inequality. Do you want to take a guess at how labor is divided in most extant hunter-gatherer tribes?
First, who said anything about "noble savage"? Jarrod Diamond argues that in annecdotal stories about family histories among existing band societies, there are some cases where there are stories of a great deal of interpersonal violence regarding feudes and "crimes of passion". I don't fully buy his argument and his generalization of these annecdotal stories, but I am fully willing to accept them if I knew more and felt confident in the information. "Fighting" is much different than organized warfare for conquest or markets as in Capitalism or conquest of lands for feudalism or other earlier forms of class societies. Where there are examples of warfare among bands, it seems that the common link is that people are fighting for survival. Other cases where different bands had disputes, there's also many examples of "symbolic" wars to settle these disputes.

I don't think that this is the result of people in these societies being more noble at all. I think it has to do with the fact that people who produce in communities like this are less expendable. Capitalism uses people and can use them as fodder in war too - feudalism could just conscript people in a similar way. In band societies, even if there is something like a leader, he or she can't afford to send a bunch of people who are vital for mutual survival in a group to die just for the enrichment of the leader.

As for extinction, well I think most scientists would agree (even if they think humans were the primary cause of exitinction of certain large animals, though this is debated) that the rapid change we have seen in the last couple hundred years is qualitativly different in scale and causes. I'd also argue that it's just as likely that these extinctions were "natural" and no different than any other invasive species coming into a previously untouched area. Humans also lived with other large game animals that they hunted and they had customs and passed-down "rules" which helped them hunt and maintain that supply in a sustainable way. With capitalism and the need to control the land for profits, humans virtually killed off the buffalo in parts of North America and this was for the purpose of introducing a cash-animal, cattle, and privitizing the land. So, like I said, qualitativly different.

As for women, here you are again falling on antiquated anthropological stereotypes that have mostly been rejected. Even where there is a sexual division of labor, this doesn't mean there is a significant division of power in these band societies. If women are gathering food rather than hunting, they are vital to production and the survival of that group. If women did not like how they were being treated and withheld the food they gathered or the tools they made, then the men would starve. Even in Iriquoi society which was more developed and had a stronger division of labor and rudimentary classes, because women were in charge of supplies, they could "strike" and withold supplies for hunting and war-parties which gave them power in that society even though official leadership was usually held by men.

The point of all these anthropological arguments I have made is that conditions that societies have found themselves, and the ways in which they secure what they need to survive, is by far the more significant factor in how humans have behaved. Saying that people are inherently "stupid" or "warlike" is a sweeping generalization which turns these phenomena into meaningless abstractions, and is mearly the pessimistic flip-side of the coin of "noble savage" idealism.


Right, so it's all because of our philosophy towards nature and not the fact that our population exploded or whatever.Old Malthus developed these population ideas to excuse the British from responcibility for starvation in Ireland. Obviously it was because the Irish had too many kids, not that English rule in Ireland forbade Irish from buying land or pushed them onto the rocky soil to farm potatoes. It's obviously because they were just stupid and uncivilized:rolleyes:.

And here generations later, people still pull out Malthus's bad math to excuse capitalism altogether for causeing starvation and misuse and misallocation of resources.

Population growth is an innane answer considering the INEQUALITY of consumption that charaterizes capitalism. When the US uses something like 40% of the worlds fuel, then it should clue you in that it is not absolute population which is at fault, but the organization and use of resources in society.

The problem is production, not consumption; and therefore it is a question of HOW we produce, not who consumes.


Tell me why a non-capitalist human society would avert this short term thinking.Well I don't know about ANY non-capitalist society, but a society organized on the basis of communism, that is a classless and stateless society, would have an interest in mutual cooperation and sustainability. Collective control over resources and production by people doing the work would mean that some unaccountable entitiy couldn't fish up a lake and move on or pass the buck for environmental destruction, as today. Since environmental problems impact people, they will probably have an incentive to ensure that they are not polluting the air and water or destroying sources of food or habitats entirely.

In capitalism labor is exploited for maximum profits and resources are stripped for maximum profits as well. It's an inherently exploitative way of organizing production and replacing that with a cooperative democratic control of production means that there would be no incentive for the kind of strip-mining, clear-cutting and so on that we see in a profit-driven system. In addition acting cooperatively and having collective responcibility also means our efforts can be coordinated which increases the ability for people to deal with any kinds of issues that might arise in production, such as methods which will cause problems down the road, and can minimize accidential overuse of resources through just lack of coordination.


Well it had better respond to freshwater and phosphate deficits, land degradation, abrupt climate change, etc. pretty damn quick or show's over.Right, which is why I advocate working class self-emancipation from an inherently exploitative system. Not to mention other urgent reasons such as capitalism's national-competativeness that could cause nuclear war even before the full effects of climate change can screw us.


If our successors have limited social instincts, no sexual instinct and exhibit a much lower discount rate / different discounting function than humans, they will have no desire to continue the "capitalist" ("human") system.If hypothetical beings did not organize their continued existance based on accumulating profits through the exploitation of labor, then they will have some other form of organizing that would not be considered "capitalist". But social instincts, sexual desires, etc are not the direct or really even indirect cause of capitalism. The only "inherent" aspect of capitalism is that humans need to secure food and some other things to survive - capitalism is one way of any number of historical ways that humans have been organized to accomplish their own reproduction as a species. It is a way to organize that developed under specific social and material circumstances, not inevitably just out of being "human".


[ps I am a determinist—I have no qualms with that view eitherMaybe you should.

[Delenda Carthago]

I dont have anything to say on the subject, but I see that everyone gets crazy "likes" when they post in here, so...:D

[Os Cangaceiros]

There was an article I read recently that was about inter-tribal war that I found interesting. Some areas of the world (like the south american lowlands, apparently) were zones of pretty intense warfare, actually:


Violence was likely often a strong selective pressure in many traditional lowland South American societies. A compilation of 11 anthropological studies reporting cause of death shows that violence led to about 30% of adult deaths, of which about 70% were males.

http://www.ehbonline.org/article/S1090-5138(12)00088-8/abstract

[Jimmie Higgins]

There was an article I read recently that was about inter-tribal war that I found interesting. Some areas of the world (like the south american lowlands, apparently) were zones of pretty intense warfare, actually:

http://www.ehbonline.org/article/S1090-5138(12)00088-8/abstract

There's evidence of this in many societies, though many of the conclusions drawn from the evidence we have is pretty dubious. For example, the when these claims were originally made "scientifically", it was generally the case that the societies being looked at had either become partially incorporated into colonial trade which disrupted older tradditions and relations in and between groups (because now trapping in a river wasn't just a means to feeding yourself, but for selling to traders). Other cases - such as the claims of widespread cannibalism which were popularized at the same time as the tribal warfare arguments - have since been recognized as not historically "normal" and were actually cases of societies in accute stress and crisis; often caused by massive disease, disruption of tradditional tribal blances (due to the impact of colonialism either directly or indirectly as in the trading example above), or being forced from some areas by colonial encroachment which then pit existing populations against the new tribal groups coming into an area because they were pushed out.

This is not to say such a lifestyle was otherwise lovely, people were still subject to distuptions due to natural phenomena, but I am highly suspicious of these kinds of generalizations. Historically it seems like people have as much capacity for violence as they do for peace and material and circumstantial conditions are the determining factor.

[T-800]

This is a very good point. Humans have the innate desire to seek status, dominate others etc. Even equality-loving leftists on this forum will lick a celebrity's boots - it is natural for humans to seek and worship power/status. So this problem will always be there because, as you say, it is part of human nature. But it is hoped that in communist societies, the opportunity to manifest such desires will be denied - and so the urge will remain largely suppressed, if not utterly eliminated.

Debatable.


Yes things can be done, but not within the current framwork of how society produces (competitive mass accumulation of profits) or the current ruling class order.

I'd like to see evidence for that.

Not just an armchair Hegelian argument from the 19th century.


It also isn't because the capitalist rulers are short-sighted or "stupid" on a human level either, it's syetmicly rooted in the way they produce and maintain their power. As long as they can still squeeze some feul out of rocks and sand at a profit, they will no matter how short sighted this is for the earth or even their own economies in the long run. If one economic power (like the US or China) or even one firm decided not to do this, then competition ensures that some one else will and they will reap the short-term profits and then drive the "ethical" firm out of business or reduce the economic dominance of a powerful nation.

So short-sighted quasi-hyperbolic discounting is caused by capitalism? I'd like to hear your case for that.


First, who said anything about "noble savage"? Jarrod Diamond argues that in annecdotal stories about family histories among existing band societies, there are some cases where there are stories of a great deal of interpersonal violence regarding feudes and "crimes of passion". I don't fully buy his argument and his generalization of these annecdotal stories, but I am fully willing to accept them if I knew more and felt confident in the information. "Fighting" is much different than organized warfare for conquest or markets as in Capitalism or conquest of lands for feudalism or other earlier forms of class societies. Where there are examples of warfare among bands, it seems that the common link is that people are fighting for survival.

This would not be a problem if breeding were abolished.


I don't think that this is the result of people in these societies being more noble at all. I think it has to do with the fact that people who produce in communities like this are less expendable. Capitalism uses people and can use them as fodder in war too - feudalism could just conscript people in a similar way. In band societies, even if there is something like a leader, he or she can't afford to send a bunch of people who are vital for mutual survival in a group to die just for the enrichment of the leader.

So in other words, the only thing holding "the leader" back is inability, not unwillingness to do something?


As for extinction, well I think most scientists would agree (even if they think humans were the primary cause of exitinction of certain large animals, though this is debated)

Yeah, up to a point. There isn't only the North American megafaunal extinction though. I don't think you'll find many people denying that humans were a major cause in these extinctions.


that the rapid change we have seen in the last couple hundred years is qualitativly different in scale and causes. I'd also argue that it's just as likely that these extinctions were "natural" and no different than any other invasive species coming into a previously untouched area. Humans also lived with other large game animals that they hunted and they had customs and passed-down "rules" which helped them hunt and maintain that supply in a sustainable way.

They also had a lot of infanticide and proto-war to keep their numbers in check.

Neither of these are desirable for a real civilization.


With capitalism and the need to control the land for profits, humans virtually killed off the buffalo in parts of North America and this was for the purpose of introducing a cash-animal, cattle, and privitizing the land. So, like I said, qualitativly different.

I'd say it's a difference of degree not kind.


As for women, here you are again falling on antiquated anthropological stereotypes that have mostly been rejected. Even where there is a sexual division of labor, this doesn't mean there is a significant division of power in these band societies.

Sure. But don't leftists argue that you should be allowed to determine your life path? What if you're a woman and you want to hunt?


The point of all these anthropological arguments I have made is that conditions that societies have found themselves, and the ways in which they secure what they need to survive, is by far the more significant factor in how humans have behaved.

And none of it shaped by human universals.

You are literally arguing that such things do not exist.


Old Malthus developed these population ideas to excuse the British from responcibility for starvation in Ireland.

I don't care how he was allegedly motivated to develop one idea or another. That's immaterial. All I care about is whether population growth will eventually outstrip the means to sustain said population. By all accounts this is happening, with exponential population growth and limits beginning to appear in freshwater, phosphate, etc.


And here generations later, people still pull out Malthus's bad math to excuse capitalism altogether for causeing starvation and misuse and misallocation of resources.

Do you think the authors of The Limits to Growth get along very well with "capitalists" and "libertarians"?

No. What you are doing here is being the left-wing Doppelgänger of the glibertarian.


Population growth is an innane answer considering the INEQUALITY of consumption that charaterizes capitalism. When the US uses something like 40% of the worlds fuel, then it should clue you in that it is not absolute population which is at fault, but the organization and use of resources in society.

Do you think most putative leftists in the United States would accept their current standard of living being stripped from them?

"Congolese rare earth metal miners are making a living wage. Why can't I afford the latest iPhone MAAAAAAAN?"


Well I don't know about ANY non-capitalist society, but a society organized on the basis of communism, that is a classless and stateless society

The only stateless societies that have ever existed have been hunter-gatherer tribes. Few if any of them have been totally classless either.


would have an interest in mutual cooperation and sustainability. Collective control over resources and production by people doing the work would mean that some unaccountable entitiy couldn't fish up a lake and move on or pass the buck for environmental destruction, as today. Since environmental problems impact people, they will probably have an incentive to ensure that they are not polluting the air and water or destroying sources of food or habitats entirely.

They ostensibly have that interest now. The Chinese noveau riche breathe the same air as the proles after all. What you're doing is naively thinking you've solved the n-player Prisoner's Dilemma and the problem of human irrationality for good.


In capitalism labor is exploited for maximum profits and resources are stripped for maximum profits as well.

No different from the human-caused megafaunal extinctions of yore.


It's an inherently exploitative way of organizing production and replacing that with a cooperative democratic control of production means that there would be no incentive for the kind of strip-mining, clear-cutting and so on that we see in a profit-driven system.

So how would MAN THE PEOPLE MAAAN respond when they notice that acting sustainably is reducing their quality of life?


In addition acting cooperatively and having collective responcibility also means our efforts can be coordinated which increases the ability for people to deal with any kinds of issues that might arise in production, such as methods which will cause problems down the road, and can minimize accidential overuse of resources through just lack of coordination.

You should go into logistics.

Apparently things are THAT simple.


Right, which is why I advocate working class self-emancipation from an inherently exploitative system. Not to mention other urgent reasons such as capitalism's national-competativeness that could cause nuclear war even before the full effects of climate change can screw us.

Because India and Pakistan are full-on free market societies.


If hypothetical beings did not organize their continued existance based on accumulating profits through the exploitation of labor, then they will have some other form of organizing that would not be considered "capitalist". But social instincts, sexual desires, etc are not the direct or really even indirect cause of capitalism.

Too Smart for Our Own Good makes a pretty good case as to why that's wrong.


The only "inherent" aspect of capitalism is that humans need to secure food and some other things to survive - capitalism is one way of any number of historical ways that humans have been organized to accomplish their own reproduction as a species.

And every last one of them involved either grossly unsustainable practices or failing to advance past Stone Age technology.

I'll pass.


It is a way to organize that developed under specific social and material circumstances, not inevitably just out of being "human".

Debatable.


Maybe you should.

Why? Determinism is a great philosophy.


There's evidence of this in many societies, though many of the conclusions drawn from the evidence we have is pretty dubious. For example, the when these claims were originally made "scientifically", it was generally the case that the societies being looked at had either become partially incorporated into colonial trade which disrupted older tradditions and relations in and between groups (because now trapping in a river wasn't just a means to feeding yourself, but for selling to traders). Other cases - such as the claims of widespread cannibalism which were popularized at the same time as the tribal warfare arguments - have since been recognized as not historically "normal" and were actually cases of societies in accute stress and crisis; often caused by massive disease, disruption of tradditional tribal blances (due to the impact of colonialism either directly or indirectly as in the trading example above), or being forced from some areas by colonial encroachment which then pit existing populations against the new tribal groups coming into an area because they were pushed out.

Yeah, try explaining all the unearthed pre-"colonial" human remains where skulls have been busted in, etc.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Debatable.
...
I'd like to see evidence for that.
...
Not just an armchair Hegelian argument from the 19th century.
...
So short-sighted quasi-hyperbolic discounting is caused by capitalism? I'd like to hear your case for that.
...
This would not be a problem if breeding were abolished.
...
So in other words, the only thing holding "the leader" back is inability, not unwillingness to do something?
...
No. What you are doing here is being the left-wing Doppelgänger of the glibertarian.
Oy, are you here for a discussion or just negation and one-liners?


Yeah, up to a point. There isn't only the North American megafaunal extinction though. I don't think you'll find many people denying that humans were a major cause in these extinctions.Yes many people, but among people who study this, the jury is still out and the conclusions are contested. These ideas are well known both because there is a nice ideological angle to them that excuses capitalism and presents modern problems a-historically as "natural" and therefore nothing we can do about it, so we better let the rich keep doing what they are doing. So when people publish their findings they will sometimes make sensational claims about the meaning of this or that evidence, or the media will take a much more nuanced look at anthropological information and then run with a sensational angle that that fits the popular narratives about "human nature". But the information is contested and far from a complete picture.

As I argued there are people who say that humans were the primary cause of these sorts of extinctions, but they also don't believe it was anything "abnormal" any more than when any species moves into a new area and upsets the previous balance. Species go extinct all the time - especially large ones are susceptible to changes in environment or food supplies because they tend to be very specialized. Species also cause other species to drop in number or even go extinct. But humans are the only ones to actually preserve some species such as the Condor (who some scientists believe should be extinct for "natural reasons").

So in some cases there is a correlation between human movement and species going extinct. Evidence of humans hunting Mammoths recently have made some argue that human-hunting may have caused their extinction. This may be true, or it may be a coincidence. It may be in North America that the changes to the environment that resulted in humans coming to North America may have changed and more adaptable animals survived while larger more specialized ones died off.


And none of it shaped by human universals.

You are literally arguing that such things do not exist.I think you mean "virtually" rather than "literally" because I "literally" argued that securing food and self-preservation seem to be universal, the HOW THIS IS ACCOMPLISHED is not.


All I care about is whether population growth will eventually outstrip the means to sustain said population. By all accounts this is happening, with exponential population growth and limits beginning to appear in freshwater, phosphate, etc.An argument (though one you have repeated without backing up or addressing my counterpoints) how refreshing!

By all accounts POPULATION is not the cause of contemporary environmental problems. First human population growth rates are slowing, so while population is growing still, it is also leveling off a bit and actually some capitalist countries are fearful of population DECLINE.


“For hundreds of thousands of years,” explains Warren Sanderson, a professor of economics at Stony Brook University, “in order for humanity to survive things like epidemics and wars and famine, birthrates had to be very high.” Eventually, thanks to technology, death rates started to fall in Europe and in North America, and the population size soared. In time, though, birthrates fell as well, and the population leveled out. The same pattern has repeated in countries around the world. Demographic transition, Sanderson says, “is a shift between two very different long-run states: from high death rates and high birthrates to low death rates and low birthrates.” Not only is the pattern well-documented, it’s well under way: Already, more than half the world’s population is reproducing at below the replacement rate.

Despite this leveling off, environmental problems are and will continue to outpace population because we have a system based on cataloging all of nature and turning it into profitable quantifiable parts for the market.

It's PRODUCTION, not POPULATION that is the driving force behind this. Europe's population has already declined and yet their contribution to environmental change still grows.


Do you think most putative leftists in the United States would accept their current standard of living being stripped from them?And replaced by a living standard possible where we actually get to control the fruits of our own efforts rather than have it monopolized in the hands of a tiny minority. Yeah, most people would accept a secure and pleasant place to live, not having to commute everyday, not having to worry about bills or debt or lack of health care. Incidentally, such security and stability is known to reduce birth-rates as conditions where children are expected to live (and are not needed as extra labor for family farms) have been linked to declining birth-rates and couples having only one or two children.


"Congolese rare earth metal miners are making a living wage. Why can't I afford the latest iPhone MAAAAAAAN?"More like why do I live and work in "the richest country in the world" and haven't been to a doctor in over a decade, why is having a military to control oil and trade routes more worthwhile than decent schools or housing? Why do they produce iPhones that are made to be obsolete in a year or two and are programmed to be inflexible rather than open to all the technology available?

Oh, I see, you are arguing that if people made a living wage, then iphones would be unaffordable. Nope, also not true - higher wages for workers cut into profits, not into the cost of an item: check out "Value Price and Profit" where Marx destroys that argument pretty thoroughly. Or just think about how manufacturing has reduced wages for workers during the recession and yet the prices of these items have not corresponded to that, only to other market pressures and fluctuations. If wages were what makes prices higher, then we'd have seen deflation or stagnation of prices for the last two decades.


The only stateless societies that have ever existed have been hunter-gatherer tribes. Few if any of them have been totally classless either.Yes on the stateless, no on classes - I don't think you understand what is meant by "class" in the since that Marxists and anarchists mean it. Band societies are basically characterized by the lack of different relations to production - there were no managers or "owners" of freely gathered and hunted food and so on - pretty much everyone had to chip in to the best they could.

Tribal societies on the other hand were groups which had begun to develop a surplus (which could then be fought over and taken and monopolized) and rudimentary classes. This is the distinction generally accepted by anthropologists: hunter-gather band societies which are more or less egalitarian and cooperative with too little surplus to create a overseeing group who did not directly produce but guided or organized production and tribal societies (of which there are many sub-sets and variations) which have more division of labor, more formal ties and roles within a group, hierarchy, and organized warfare in defense of or to seek out and steal "wealth". It's contested and there are many competing ideas among mainstream academics, but if you read an intro to anthropology book or probably even wikipedia, then this is the accepted view.

The point is, that behavior is largely determined by how people make their living and what options are available to them.


They ostensibly have that interest now. The Chinese noveau riche breathe the same air as the proles after all. What you're doing is naively thinking you've solved the n-player Prisoner's Dilemma and the problem of human irrationality for good.Assumptions assumptions... your arguments all rely on this strange notion of some biological "Original Sin" - man is damned, only the technocratic Christ can save the world!

Again, I don't believe that some abstract designation of "human irrationality" is anything really. The Chinese ruling class act "rationally" within the parameters of how society produces wealth, CEOs act "rationally" according to their role in society, to accumulate profits by any means necessary. If they fail to do this, someone else will, because it is a failing of a SYSTEM of production and social organization, not some strange mystical sin of general "irrationality" which everyone but yourself (according to you) suffers from.


So how would MAN THE PEOPLE MAAAN respond when they notice that acting sustainably is reducing their quality of life?Why would it? How are these mutually exclusive?


Because India and Pakistan are full-on free market societies.There aren't capitalist relations in India and Pakistan? If you mean that there is state intervention into the economy, well then there has never really been a "full-on free market" society.


Too Smart for Our Own Good makes a pretty good case as to why that's wrong.
Then maybe that book should learn how to open an account on this website so I can debate someone on these ideas.


Yeah, try explaining all the unearthed pre-"colonial" human remains where skulls have been busted in, etc.All pre-colonial humans had their skulls bashed in ALL!?

[Jimmie Higgins]

^Damn, banned already. I was hoping to push hard enough in a debate that they would accidentially reveal that they were an actual troll; a live troll who makes cookies in a tree or lives under a bridge and eats goats! It would have explained why they hated people so much.

[Lowtech]

This is the question that my friends ask of me - they point to the loud, vulgar behavior of the lower classes, their violence (like getting drunk and beating up their wives), their striking ignorance, among other things. You can't just tell them the same old thing, that people are products of their environment etc. There is no excuse for bad behavior. Poverty may make you steal, not molest people or some such thing.

So how do you convince people (like my friends) that everyone deserves sympathy, including the worst?

your question comes out of a completely uneducated view of humanity. there are just as many wife beaters, molesters, drug addicts among the wealthy as there are of the "lower" classes. in hollywood, the predominant drug dealers are doctors. wealth creates vastly more crime than poverty, especially by ratio it is vastly larger. and ultimately, concentration of wealth creates poverty. and "lower" classes do not require sympathy, what they require is a world without the artificial scarcity the rich create.

[Lowtech]

^Damn, banned already. I was hoping to push hard enough in a debate that they would accidentially reveal that they were an actual troll; a live troll who makes cookies in a tree or lives under a bridge and eats goats! It would have explained why they hated people so much.

the guy (who was banned) had no real responses to anything. just condescension from an uneducated mind.