this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2023
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That capitalism is not the cause of most societal grief. Pathological self preservation is a fundamental human problem. It’s the reason we’re okay with seeing hordes of homeless people, or with killing people to resolve geopolitical issues. Greed can optimize any system to work for itself, people who are or will be adept at such optimization would thrive under any kind of socioeconomic or cultural system, including extremely leftist systems. Just spit ballin’ tho, haven’t thought about it much tbh.
I think that you are under informed and miseducated as to both the dynamics of complex adaptive social systems - particularly human ones but also as a theoretical concept. You’re also under formed about the diversity of actual human societies.
David Graeber was arguably the most gifted anthropologist of our generation, and both explicitly and repeatedly disproved your assertions as being native to humanity through rigorous investigation of actual human cultures spanning the globe and the past 10,000 years. I strongly encourage you to look into some of his books.
Interesting research to bring up, but I think there are a lot of valid points brought up against some of his and his colleagues’ work. Here’s a blog by someone who has the same politics as him: https://climateandcapitalism.com/2021/12/17/the-dawn-of-everything-gets-human-history-wrong/
Besides that I think some archeologists often fail to compare the boundary conditions under which past societal norms were shaped relative to those we have today. For example, it’s a lot easier to imagine an egalitarian structure to be acceptable amongst members of a community when we didn’t have that much skill difference or specialization, or when society was just you and your tribe. We have a lot more information, historical baggage and means of self-realization now. Tbh, I find some researchers divorced from reality (the kind of stuff that gives rise to realpolitiks) but maybe I am just stupid.
Interesting. Will do
I disagree, although many would agree with the misanthropes that pathological self preservation may indeed be a very human problem, it however does not necessarily result in homelessness, murder or chaos, but it is certainly not suited yet to our complex systems of society that we have built ourselves today.
Recognizing where we, or humanity, has not taken maximum benefit or advantage of its child constructions and have in fact maladaptive behaviours is key to recognising where there is a disharmony. Some would prefer to attack the system rather than human nature itself. However this may be a reflection of anthro-philism.
So you say greety and selfish people would thrive under systems not built on money and manipulation? Brave claim for sure.
People that are selfish would not become part of those systems in theory, and if 'being a good neighbor' was the reason why people get stuff like healthcare, elderly care etc, then they would have no luck.
But how a system that gives everyone equal chances and rights would self regulate is interesting. We are way too many people. I mean thats by far not the reason why we are killing the planet, but still
my dude, most people aren't okay with those things... that's the reason shelters and aid programs exist, and why people protest in the street. just because the current geopolitical system is fine with those things, doesn't mean people are. the people ruling those systems are a very, very small percentage of the population.
Is that what you think the massively rich and giant corporations are doing, "self preservation"??
I'm not "okay" with the unhoused and killing innocent people issues (and I think most aren't), but the system of unchecked greed, outsized political influence, and limitless quarterly growth is what ignores and preys upon these desperate people...
I am saying that any system will have “unchecked greed, outsized political influence, and limitless quarterly [metric of system quality]. Maybe it won’t have “massive corporations”, but small committees, but the fundamental issue of self preservation will remain, and that’s how you get corruption. Why do you think it was easy to overthrow or cause turmoil in non-capitalists countries? Practically the U.S. and similar countries would benefit from using a European model of social welfare. We need ways to talk about such things and come up with ways to address them, and not pretend that some ideologies are immune to systemic problems caused by human fragility 💩