[kakkerlak]

Tell me if i'm wrong, but is hate not the result of fear and anger?

One thing i noticed about hate (and love for that matter) is that these emotions have the ability to blind you. Almost blocking rational thinking.

Have fun!
Don't hate!
Roach

[Ludi]

I was talking about this topic with my husband last night, and we were discussing how well humans get along compared to many animals. With many species of animal, adult males are simply not tolerated by other adult males. This is the case with most primates, many birds, ruminants, etc. Adult males will drive away or kill any unrelated adult male who comes around, or related males in the group when they reach sexual maturity. Humans have learned to tolerate each other to a remarkable extent compared to other primates.

I think a lot of our "hateful" behavior is because we are, after all, primates.

[eastbay]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'I') was talking about this topic with my husband last night, and we were discussing how well humans get along compared to many animals. With many species of animal, adult males are simply not tolerated by other adult males. This is the case with most primates, many birds, ruminants, etc. Adult males will drive away or kill any unrelated adult male who comes around, or related males in the group when they reach sexual maturity. Humans have learned to tolerate each other to a remarkable extent compared to other primates.

I think a lot of our "hateful" behavior is because we are, after all, primates.

[Ludi]

Yes, I expect people to behave in a less tolerant manner under conditions of scarcity. This doesn't mean they will immediately start killing and eating each other, though. It just means they will (probably) be more suspicious especially of people they don't know. Strangers won't be tolerated as well in the future, I expect. In communities made up mostly of strangers, such as most cities and suburbs, this will probably cause conflict.

It is very much in our nature to be territorial and suspicious of strangers. This is how humans evolved.

[BigTex]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TWilliam', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', 'T')hank you for raising the point about "isn't everything we do by definition 'natural'?" issue.

That's a tough one, since it's true that we couldn't possibly do anything UNnatural, since we are simply nature's latest experiment with life.

What I am getting at is that, unlike most life forms that blindly act according to instinct, we have a degree of choice in what we do (we could argue this point as well, but assume that we do have the ability to make choices).

Having the ability to make choices, as opposed to simply following instinct in every situation, gives us the POTENTIAL opportunity to DECIDE whether we are going to allow our instinctive drive to conquer, consume and copulate lead us into a state of overshoot from which we will not be able to recover, or whether we will decide to act counterintuitively and attempt to make changes in the way we live so that our species will have a shot at evolutionary durability in a civilized configuration.

I have stated before that the flaw in MonteQuest's reasoning may be that he assumes the human species has the capacity to make a rational decision to change the way it lives today (which WILL make life today more difficult) in the interest of long term sustainability and survival.

I'm just not convinced that making the changes we need to make is within the realm of possibility. I'm not sure there are enough people willing to sign up, and I'm certain that the current rulers would have absolutely no interest in doing away with the system they have spent their whole lives manipulating.

But thanks for raising the "it's all natural" issue, because that is a tough one.

It may be that we are going to be "natural" right up until our self-imposed "natural" extinction.

[eastbay]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'Y')es, I expect people to behave in a less tolerant manner under conditions of scarcity. This doesn't mean they will immediately start killing and eating each other, though. It just means they will (probably) be more suspicious especially of people they don't know. Strangers won't be tolerated as well in the future, I expect. In communities made up mostly of strangers, such as most cities and suburbs, this will probably cause conflict.

It is very much in our nature to be territorial and suspicious of strangers. This is how humans evolved.

[eastbay]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TWilliam', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', 'T')hank you for raising the point about "isn't everything we do by definition 'natural'?" issue.

That's a tough one, since it's true that we couldn't possibly do anything UNnatural, since we are simply nature's latest experiment with life.

What I am getting at is that, unlike most life forms that blindly act according to instinct, we have a degree of choice in what we do (we could argue this point as well, but assume that we do have the ability to make choices).

Having the ability to make choices, as opposed to simply following instinct in every situation, gives us the POTENTIAL opportunity to DECIDE whether we are going to allow our instinctive drive to conquer, consume and copulate lead us into a state of overshoot from which we will not be able to recover, or whether we will decide to act counterintuitively and attempt to make changes in the way we live so that our species will have a shot at evolutionary durability in a civilized configuration.

I have stated before that the flaw in MonteQuest's reasoning may be that he assumes the human species has the capacity to make a rational decision to change the way it lives today (which WILL make life today more difficult) in the interest of long term sustainability and survival.

I'm just not convinced that making the changes we need to make is within the realm of possibility. I'm not sure there are enough people willing to sign up, and I'm certain that the current rulers would have absolutely no interest in doing away with the system they have spent their whole lives manipulating.

But thanks for raising the "it's all natural" issue, because that is a tough one.

It may be that we are going to be "natural" right up until our self-imposed "natural" extinction.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote(' ', '
')
It also makes it look clearer and clearer that humanity may be an evolutionary dead end. No matter how clever, enlightened or god-like we imagine ourselves to be, if we don't have the capacity to SEE when our self-expression destroys our habitat, then we may have a fatal flaw in our design.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', ' ')Stone-age cultures don't destroy their own habitats

[threadbear]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TWilliam', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('zensui', 'b')ullshit, what's anti-nature is our technological civilization that destroys nature without constraint. what we do to each other within this technological civilization, to preserve it, can only be anti-nature because it supports the paradigm. If anything, going back to harmony and peace is much more natural than living like hamsters in cages that only want free food and will never be free, even if there current house smells like crap and urine.

[threadbear]

Hate is primarily a lack of foundational security. It is no wonder people have all kinds of emotions about that central point of our existence. Whether it manifests clearly as a straight physical survival issue, or presents more indirectly as jealousy or bitterness, due to positioning on the social totem pole, it is valid.

The very worst thing you can do is dismiss hatred and fear as pointless aberrations of human feeling and behaviour. They are rooted in very real existential difficulties. It's not easy being a multi-dimensional being trapped in matter and having to support a physical form.

[BigTex]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote(' ', '
')
It also makes it look clearer and clearer that humanity may be an evolutionary dead end. No matter how clever, enlightened or god-like we imagine ourselves to be, if we don't have the capacity to SEE when our self-expression destroys our habitat, then we may have a fatal flaw in our design.

[bodigami]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '(')...)

Humanity isn't monolithic. Humanity includes all cultures and all religions and all levels of education and all kinds of personalities and behaviors.

It is precisely the heterogeneity of humanity that helps insure survival. For instance, Stone-age cultures don't destroy their own habitats and are highly susceptible to famines and natural events and influenza and other common diseases but don't rely on oil. Highly technical cultures, in contrast, are highly susceptible to events like nuclear war and highly dependent on oil. Different kinds of cultures and peoples have very different levels of survivability in response to different kinds of events

[TWilliam]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 'S')tone-age cultures don't destroy their own habitats

[Ludi]

TWilliam, I think you guys might be talking about two different "stone age" groups. You're talking about the literal stone age peoples during the Paleolithic, who migrated around the globe. Pantagenent is talking about more recent "stone age" cultures (tribal peoples). They don't/didn't "constantly migrate" because next door is/was another tribe who lived in that territory. This physical reality of finite territories is what made the non-civilized peoples in general more "sustainable" than our culture - they usually had to live thousands, even tens of thousands of years in the same area. They were very aware of the limits of their resources.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TWilliam', '[')every species will consume the available resources to the point of exhaustion.

[TWilliam]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TWilliam', '[')every species will consume the available resources to the point of exhaustion.

[Ludi]

Except that inter-tribal warfare often didn't result in deaths.


Do you consider birth control/population control "predation"? Because non-civilized peoples in general used forms of birth control and population control.

[Ludi]

I guess what I'm not sure about is, why is it so difficult to believe humans are/were capable of noticing changes in their surroundings and avoiding the worst effects of overuse?

These people weren't stupid, and they were very observant. They had to be or they would die.

[TWilliam]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'E')xcept that inter-tribal warfare often didn't result in deaths.