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ruveyn
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01 Aug 2012, 9:31 am

AspieRogue wrote:

We have a lot in common with ants and other colonial insects, actually. These creatures have a form of civilization and humans are the only mammal that is capable of this. Ants are remarkable because of their division of labor which is what civilization is all about.


Ants have no ego. Humans have a lot of ego. Very different beings indeed.

Humans are neither hive nor herd animals. We are social primates and have something in common with the chimps.

ruveyn



01 Aug 2012, 10:55 am

ruveyn wrote:
AspieRogue wrote:

We have a lot in common with ants and other colonial insects, actually. These creatures have a form of civilization and humans are the only mammal that is capable of this. Ants are remarkable because of their division of labor which is what civilization is all about.


Ants have no ego. Humans have a lot of ego. Very different beings indeed.

Humans are neither hive nor herd animals. We are social primates and have something in common with the chimps.

ruveyn



Modern humans live in MUCH larger groups than other primates. Primate groups have no division of labor, no means of producing their own food, and no domestication of other species. Ants, however, have all 3 of those despite a lack of ego. A hive is a structure that colonial insects build, and some of them can be of enormous size compared to the creatures that build them. It's almost like a city in a single mound.



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01 Aug 2012, 11:26 am

AspieRogue wrote:


Modern humans live in MUCH larger groups than other primates. Primate groups have no division of labor, no means of producing their own food, and no domestication of other species. Ants, however, have all 3 of those despite a lack of ego. A hive is a structure that colonial insects build, and some of them can be of enormous size compared to the creatures that build them. It's almost like a city in a single mound.


Humans are still innately selfish and egotistical. Which distinguishes them from the hive animals.

The specialization of labor is a "killer app" that humans took for their use about 10,000 - 15,000 years ago. It is learned invented behavior, not at all instinctive. It is such a great and productive and pro survival trick that it has never been abandoned by the human race. (homo sapien).

ruveyn



01 Aug 2012, 12:42 pm

ruveyn wrote:
AspieRogue wrote:


Modern humans live in MUCH larger groups than other primates. Primate groups have no division of labor, no means of producing their own food, and no domestication of other species. Ants, however, have all 3 of those despite a lack of ego. A hive is a structure that colonial insects build, and some of them can be of enormous size compared to the creatures that build them. It's almost like a city in a single mound.


Humans are still innately selfish and egotistical. Which distinguishes them from the hive animals.

The specialization of labor is a "killer app" that humans took for their use about 10,000 - 15,000 years ago. It is learned invented behavior, not at all instinctive. It is such a great and productive and pro survival trick that it has never been abandoned by the human race. (homo sapien).

ruveyn




Yet despite innate selfishness, people can be manipulated into selflessness and unquestioning self-sacrifice. And that is what makes civilization possible. People will go along with absolutely anything if it's presented to them in a persuasive fashion. In fact, I daresay that humans are pack animals and at least 90% of people in this world have a collectivist drive. True individuals are rare, and it's usually because either the don't fit in with the rest of the pack or they are suave enough to manipulate the rest of the pack.



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01 Aug 2012, 1:11 pm

It is possible on a small scale, but not on a large scale. Human nature will take over, then you get corruption, then you get the USSR all over again.


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01 Aug 2012, 1:16 pm

AspieRogue wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
AspieRogue wrote:


Modern humans live in MUCH larger groups than other primates. Primate groups have no division of labor, no means of producing their own food, and no domestication of other species. Ants, however, have all 3 of those despite a lack of ego. A hive is a structure that colonial insects build, and some of them can be of enormous size compared to the creatures that build them. It's almost like a city in a single mound.


Humans are still innately selfish and egotistical. Which distinguishes them from the hive animals.

The specialization of labor is a "killer app" that humans took for their use about 10,000 - 15,000 years ago. It is learned invented behavior, not at all instinctive. It is such a great and productive and pro survival trick that it has never been abandoned by the human race. (homo sapien).

ruveyn




Yet despite innate selfishness, people can be manipulated into selflessness and unquestioning self-sacrifice. And that is what makes civilization possible. People will go along with absolutely anything if it's presented to them in a persuasive fashion. In fact, I daresay that humans are pack animals and at least 90% of people in this world have a collectivist drive. True individuals are rare, and it's usually because either the don't fit in with the rest of the pack or they are suave enough to manipulate the rest of the pack.


This innate selfishness axiom is eroding.
Link to review of Bowles and Gintis paper

What if it turns out we are eusocial?


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01 Aug 2012, 1:35 pm

ruveyn wrote:
AspieRogue wrote:
Modern humans live in MUCH larger groups than other primates. Primate groups have no division of labor, no means of producing their own food, and no domestication of other species. Ants, however, have all 3 of those despite a lack of ego. A hive is a structure that colonial insects build, and some of them can be of enormous size compared to the creatures that build them. It's almost like a city in a single mound.


Humans are still innately selfish and egotistical. Which distinguishes them from the hive animals.

The specialization of labor is a "killer app" that humans took for their use about 10,000 - 15,000 years ago. It is learned invented behavior, not at all instinctive. It is such a great and productive and pro survival trick that it has never been abandoned by the human race. (homo sapien).

ruveyn


Primates do have division of labor, split along sex lines similar to many primitive human cultures.

It is surprising how basic many human cultures have been in that regard. If you look at most of North/South America, Australian aborigines etc pretty much the only form of specialism is the secret knowledge of shamans. Everybody else is familiar with construction of dwellings, hunting & foraging, limited farming, wood carving, weapon making etc

Dotted around Europe there are various historical recreations where people live like celts, vikings, anglo-saxons and a single person after a few years of living like that can reproduce quite easily the entire range of technology available at the time.

High levels of specialisation only seem to arise when you have a large amount of centralised authority, taxation and wealth redistribution to support different trades people.



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01 Aug 2012, 3:03 pm

I don't see how of communism (i.e. common ownership of means of production) is unworkable on the large scale. Especially, I don't see how the USSR is an example of anything. As many left-wing critics have said at least since the 1930s, in the USSR, there was state ownership, not common ownership. As such, it needed a large bureaucratic apparatus, which is where the problems started (Lenin himself saw the problem as early as 1921, but it was already too late).

A better example would be the anarchist communes during the Spanish Civil War, about which I admittedly know little except that they existed and worked fine. Of course, communes are themselves operated on a small scale, but one can implement such small scale structures on a large scale -- have many of them, everywhere. Of course, these communes were overrun by Franco, but so was the rest of the country.


The frequent mention of "human nature" is particularly strange. What in "human nature" makes common ownership so impossible? Just so you know, this is basically the same argument as was used against democracy until we actually tried it: "It wouldn't work, because it just wouldn't." What in this "human nature" would make communism not work?

Evidently, human tends to create social hierarchies amongst themselves, but that has nothing to do with property. It derives more from recognition of a social status by others than from economic realities

I think what can be perceived in the "human nature" argument is a universalisation of our own Western value system, where one's social status is mostly dependent on what one can buy -- or rather, what one does buy, because it can only be recognised if it can be perceived. That is very, very not universal. Of course, there are partial analogies to that everywhere (the powerful tend to be rich and to show it, or even to be forced to show it), but they are only partial.

A few examples.

For the Roman senatorial class, wealth was entirely necessary for social recognition in that you needed some during your edility to spend for the city, but it was entirely ancillary: the objective was to defend one's dignitas, period. Besides, commercial activity was strictly forbidden to the nobilitas, and the equestrian order was richer, but subordinate. Obviously, since they were powerful, the senatorial class could easily grab land confiscated during Roman conquests, but this was a consequence of its being powerful, not the object of its power.

I am not very knowledgeable on China, but anyway... During the Ming and Qing dynasties, and probably earlier as well, the most respectable group was that of the highly educated mandarins, well versed in confucean philoshophy. Obviously, the rich could give their children a better education, and the mandarins themselves became rich as a result of their being powerful bureaucrats, but wealth was not important in itself: it the first case, it was ancillary to success, in the latter, it is a consequence of power, which is analogous to what happened in Roman society, but wealth was not itself the criterion.

Of course, in my first paragraph, I said "workable", not "implementable". We are that society where possession per se is the basis of status. I don't mean to say that it is a bad thing, because it allows for a lot of social mobility in relation to economic success. It is not good either: it just is. I don't know how or if it could be implemented among us; still, that doesn't mean it is "against human nature", only against our own human and social experience.



01 Aug 2012, 5:02 pm

enrico_dandolo wrote:

A better example would be the anarchist communes during the Spanish Civil War, about which I admittedly know little except that they existed and worked fine. Of course, communes are themselves operated on a small scale, but one can implement such small scale structures on a large scale -- have many of them, everywhere. Of course, these communes were overrun by Franco, but so was the rest of the country.


The frequent mention of "human nature" is particularly strange. What in "human nature" makes common ownership so impossible? Just so you know, this is basically the same argument as was used against democracy until we actually tried it: "It wouldn't work, because it just wouldn't." What in this "human nature" would make communism not work?

Evidently, human tends to create social hierarchies amongst themselves, but that has nothing to do with property. It derives more from recognition of a social status by others than from economic realities

I think what can be perceived in the "human nature" argument is a universalisation of our own Western value system, where one's social status is mostly dependent on what one can buy -- or rather, what one does buy, because it can only be recognised if it can be perceived. That is very, very not universal. Of course, there are partial analogies to that everywhere (the powerful tend to be rich and to show it, or even to be forced to show it), but they are only partial.

A few examples.

For the Roman senatorial class, wealth was entirely necessary for social recognition in that you needed some during your edility to spend for the city, but it was entirely ancillary: the objective was to defend one's dignitas, period. Besides, commercial activity was strictly forbidden to the nobilitas, and the equestrian order was richer, but subordinate. Obviously, since they were powerful, the senatorial class could easily grab land confiscated during Roman conquests, but this was a consequence of its being powerful, not the object of its power.

I am not very knowledgeable on China, but anyway... During the Ming and Qing dynasties, and probably earlier as well, the most respectable group was that of the highly educated mandarins, well versed in confucean philoshophy. Obviously, the rich could give their children a better education, and the mandarins themselves became rich as a result of their being powerful bureaucrats, but wealth was not important in itself: it the first case, it was ancillary to success, in the latter, it is a consequence of power, which is analogous to what happened in Roman society, but wealth was not itself the criterion.

Of course, in my first paragraph, I said "workable", not "implementable". We are that society where possession per se is the basis of status. I don't mean to say that it is a bad thing, because it allows for a lot of social mobility in relation to economic success. It is not good either: it just is. I don't know how or if it could be implemented among us; still, that doesn't mean it is "against human nature", only against our own human and social experience.



Anarcha-communism is clearly incompatible with human nature. Because like ALL SOCIAL ANIMALS, humans are hierarchical. If you have some sort of "anarchist commune" where everything is communal, there have to be rules about sharing otherwise people will fight over who gets to use what when. Also, suppose someone in that commune is very suave and highly manipulative and becomes a person who everybody likes the most? Well, once somebody reaches the top of the social ladder, it won't be hard for them to use their social influence to monopolize resources even though everything is ostensibly communally owned. Property in ALL civilization has been distributed according to social status. Greed is not something that is unique to western societies. Until you can demonstrated that a society without a government with economic equality CAN exist, I remain extremely cynical.

Many, many attempts where made to create such societies, and every attempt so far has ended in failure. Without a government to legitimize property ownership, cooperation breaks down because there is no central authority to resolve conflicts over resources and the end result is a downward spiral into violence and warlordism.



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01 Aug 2012, 5:46 pm

Why can't the whole country resolve conflects over resorces on a website? I believe the internet can be a very powerful tool to use for direct democracy.



Last edited by RushKing on 01 Aug 2012, 6:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

JakobVirgil
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01 Aug 2012, 6:24 pm

AspieRogue wrote:
enrico_dandolo wrote:

A better example would be the anarchist communes during the Spanish Civil War, about which I admittedly know little except that they existed and worked fine. Of course, communes are themselves operated on a small scale, but one can implement such small scale structures on a large scale -- have many of them, everywhere. Of course, these communes were overrun by Franco, but so was the rest of the country.


The frequent mention of "human nature" is particularly strange. What in "human nature" makes common ownership so impossible? Just so you know, this is basically the same argument as was used against democracy until we actually tried it: "It wouldn't work, because it just wouldn't." What in this "human nature" would make communism not work?

Evidently, human tends to create social hierarchies amongst themselves, but that has nothing to do with property. It derives more from recognition of a social status by others than from economic realities

I think what can be perceived in the "human nature" argument is a universalisation of our own Western value system, where one's social status is mostly dependent on what one can buy -- or rather, what one does buy, because it can only be recognised if it can be perceived. That is very, very not universal. Of course, there are partial analogies to that everywhere (the powerful tend to be rich and to show it, or even to be forced to show it), but they are only partial.

A few examples.

For the Roman senatorial class, wealth was entirely necessary for social recognition in that you needed some during your edility to spend for the city, but it was entirely ancillary: the objective was to defend one's dignitas, period. Besides, commercial activity was strictly forbidden to the nobilitas, and the equestrian order was richer, but subordinate. Obviously, since they were powerful, the senatorial class could easily grab land confiscated during Roman conquests, but this was a consequence of its being powerful, not the object of its power.

I am not very knowledgeable on China, but anyway... During the Ming and Qing dynasties, and probably earlier as well, the most respectable group was that of the highly educated mandarins, well versed in confucean philoshophy. Obviously, the rich could give their children a better education, and the mandarins themselves became rich as a result of their being powerful bureaucrats, but wealth was not important in itself: it the first case, it was ancillary to success, in the latter, it is a consequence of power, which is analogous to what happened in Roman society, but wealth was not itself the criterion.

Of course, in my first paragraph, I said "workable", not "implementable". We are that society where possession per se is the basis of status. I don't mean to say that it is a bad thing, because it allows for a lot of social mobility in relation to economic success. It is not good either: it just is. I don't know how or if it could be implemented among us; still, that doesn't mean it is "against human nature", only against our own human and social experience.



Anarcha-communism is clearly incompatible with human nature. Because like ALL SOCIAL ANIMALS, humans are hierarchical. If you have some sort of "anarchist commune" where everything is communal, there have to be rules about sharing otherwise people will fight over who gets to use what when. Also, suppose someone in that commune is very suave and highly manipulative and becomes a person who everybody likes the most? Well, once somebody reaches the top of the social ladder, it won't be hard for them to use their social influence to monopolize resources even though everything is ostensibly communally owned. Property in ALL civilization has been distributed according to social status. Greed is not something that is unique to western societies. Until you can demonstrated that a society without a government with economic equality CAN exist, I remain extremely cynical.

Many, many attempts where made to create such societies, and every attempt so far has ended in failure. Without a government to legitimize property ownership, cooperation breaks down because there is no central authority to resolve conflicts over resources and the end result is a downward spiral into violence and warlordism.


My bold. I would argue that is patently false. Social insects are not at all hierarchical ( the Queen is not really a monarch ) neither are mole rats, fish, wolves or most herd mammals. Primates on the other hand have a tendency most pronounced in Macaca and Papio but really
hierarchy is nearly absent from the animal world.

Cultures exist without property rights as well they have a hard time defending themselves against cultures that have them but they are quite durable when left alone.


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01 Aug 2012, 9:11 pm

@ AspieRogue: I am very happy when people quote my posts, but I prefer when they read them before. As such, I will answer in detail.

AspieRogue wrote:
Anarcha-communism is clearly incompatible with human nature. Because like ALL SOCIAL ANIMALS, humans are hierarchical.

If you read my post, you will notice that I actually said that.

AspieRogue wrote:
If you have some sort of "anarchist commune" where everything is communal, there have to be rules about sharing otherwise people will fight over who gets to use what when. Also, suppose someone in that commune is very suave and highly manipulative and becomes a person who everybody likes the most? Well, once somebody reaches the top of the social ladder, it won't be hard for them to use their social influence to monopolize resources even though everything is ostensibly communally owned.

"Anarchism" has a bad reputation. It is not complete lack of order, with a result of chaos, but rather no rule from the top, no vertical domination, but rather self-rule and horizontal organisation. Under such a system, there would obviously be rules about sharing, but the point is that each community would decide these rule by itself, not receive them from an outside authority. From there, you could have very small communities settling there own affairs by themselves, and making multilateral arrangements with their neighbours when issues go beyond their scope (e.g. about the environment).

By the way, this is so not far-fatched in its workability that similar things have been done. Peasant and urban communes have existed in the Middle Ages, and even though they had internal hierarchies, these communes were also operating under a hierarchic system, with the ecclesiastical and seigneurial power on top of them. I don't see why communes couldn't operate under a "commune of communes", and from there, it is not impossible to make internal hierarchies less marked.

I don't know how it would come to be, but it is workable.

AspieRogue wrote:
Property in ALL civilization has been distributed according to social status.

Actually, I refuted that.

AspieRogue wrote:
Greed is not something that is unique to western societies.

Of course greed is not unique. Go back to my post, and notice the absence of the word "greed".

AspieRogue wrote:
Many, many attempts where made to create such societies, and every attempt so far has ended in failure.

You will notice that I did say I did not know how it could be implemented. Actually, I would even say that any attempt to create such a society would fail -- but that doesn't mean that if it came to be, it would not be workable.

Also, very few attempts have been made to create common ownership -- only state ownership.

AspieRogue wrote:
Without a government to legitimize property ownership, cooperation breaks down because there is no central authority to resolve conflicts over resources and the end result is a downward spiral into violence and warlordism.

This is ideology, nothing else.

Life can prosper under decentralisation. It does not lead to "violence and warlordism". If anything, it leads to weakness against external opponents, but certainly not internal instability -- that is the fault of centralisation, which is always to the advantage of a centre and the disadvantage of its circumference.



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01 Aug 2012, 9:30 pm

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
It is not only possible but the norm for most of human history.

It is funny how firm people are in their social science convictions
when no social science is predictive.


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02 Aug 2012, 5:30 am

Communism promises stuff that it in fact requires. On small scale and with 0% corruption, perhaps it micht work. But example of Bolshevik Russia, and China is what happens on large scale. One is certain: Where one tries to create utopia, hell is created.



02 Aug 2012, 8:15 am

JakobVirgil wrote:
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
It is not only possible but the norm for most of human history.

It is funny how firm people are in their social science convictions
when no social science is predictive.


The Queen among colonial insects most certainly is the highest status member of the hive in that all other members of the hive tend to her and sacrifice themselves to ensure her survival and well being. This is analogous to a monarch. Herd animals have a leader, even though it may not be obvious to human observers from the outside at first.



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02 Aug 2012, 9:15 am

AspieRogue wrote:
JakobVirgil wrote:
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
It is not only possible but the norm for most of human history.

It is funny how firm people are in their social science convictions
when no social science is predictive.


The Queen among colonial insects most certainly is the highest status member of the hive in that all other members of the hive tend to her and sacrifice themselves to ensure her survival and well being. This is analogous to a monarch. Herd animals have a leader, even though it may not be obvious to human observers from the outside at first.


cite some papers you are getting into my field.
your assertions are not doing it for me.

The Queen could be seen as the reproductive Organ of a compound creature the hives vagina not its head.
I even have scripture to back it up

Quote:
Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise:
Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler,
Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.


:D the bible is wrong on almost everything but gets ants dead right. even the gender.
It is only in the bad analogy of royalty that she is the leader.

Quite a few herd animals have reproductive pecking orders but nearly none have "leaders" and "followers". Most of the seemingly coordinated movement it a product of emergence. Elephants come to mind as a counter example. Your statement herd animals have leaders is much to broad to be true. (there as lots o different kinds of herd animals.)


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We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots??

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