1252
Profit over people is a failed system (thelemmy.club)
submitted 1 day ago by to c/workreform@lemmy.world
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[–] -1 points 13 hours ago (1 child)

instead of us killing each other

Um what. Where in the history textbook did you read this part about humanity not killing each other?

The entire course of human civilization has been about humans killing each other, sects killing each other, kingdoms and nations killing each other.

The only reason we've enjoyed relative peace for the last 80 years (and I understand how much weight that "relative" is pulling) is because of the rules-based-order that emerged as a result of human societies utilizing governments as a medium through which to engage in diplomacy. Which, in case you missed it, largely occurred due to each respective nation-state engaging due to self-interest.

So no, we're not some essentially altruistic species that only survived to procreate and evolve due to our perfect selflessness. Humans are primarily egocentric, and as individuals develop they expand their "sense of self" to larger in-groups: to their family, to their neighborhood, to their schoolmates, to their subcultures, to their geographical region, to their nation, and if they don't stop there, the enlightened cosmopolitans among us might expand our sense of identity to humanity as a whole, or to the entire planet, or to all sentient life throughout the universe. But that is far from the default state of humanity, and the relative few who reach that level of collective awareness are a very small minority indeed. And most people who stop short of reaching that level of consciousness only end up killing whoever is left outside of their personal "in-group" anyway, no matter how small or large that in-group becomes.

The altruistic few are mostly even regarded with suspicion by their peers and estranged from society, because most people simply don't trust the intentions of someone claiming to have a selfless motivation.

Resting the fate of society as a whole on the good will and inclinations of the average member of it is a terrible idea, especially when billionaire oligarchs are already being allowed to basically live anarchistically, and they show you every single day what they're deciding to do with that. I'll give you a hint, it's not altruism.

So no, you're wrong, and telling me to stop contributing to the discussion is not going to change that. Seriously, what kind of anarchist tries to win a discussion by bullying into silence anyone who shares a conflicting opinion? 👀 Hmmm...

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  • [–] 1 point 13 hours ago (1 child)

    Nice way to cut off "killing each other to extinction" so you could make your point. You had to misquote me to do this.

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  • [–] -2 points 13 hours ago (1 child)

    What part of

    So no, we're not some essentially altruistic species that only survived to procreate and evolve due to our perfect selflessness.

    did you miss?

    Humans didn't go extinct, not because we're altruistic, but because we're self-interested. The post-WWII peace period (again, very relative), the UN, the rules-based-order, nuclear non-proliferation; there's about four reasons why we didn't go extinct in just the last century, and every single one of those reasons only happened because of nations engaging due to self-interest.

    It's also too early to claim humans haven't wiped ourselves out yet, because so far it's looking like nothing is going to be done to stop climate change or AI from leading to our extinction, unless the oligarch-class decides it's in their self-interest to do something to stop it; or, ideally, concerned citizens acting in self-interest finally convince their political representative (who are also, by the way, acting in self-interest) to impose and enforce regulations to put a halt to that destruction.

    Humans didn't survive the past several millennia since the dawn of settled civilizations because of altruism. All along the way, civilizations have been conquering, overthrowing, dominating, colonizing, and enslaving each other. They keep the local people alive (when they do) only out of self-interest, because slaves and serfs are more valuable to them than corpses.

    Now, before you misattributed evil inclinations to me, I'm not saying there's anything morally right or good or just about that. But no honest reading of history will tell you anything to the contrary.

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  • [–] 0 points 13 hours ago (1 child)

    If the natural instinct of human fucking beings was to just murder and cheat each other we would never have formed society to get into wars in the first fucking place. It takes trust and mutual aid to build society. I dont need to read your madman eugenics scrawlings about the finality of evil to disprove this. The world we live in literally would not even exist in the capacity it does if human society was built on deception instead of trust. This is factually why it is falling about now.

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  • [–] -2 points 13 hours ago* (1 child)

    If the natural instinct of human fucking beings was to just murder and cheat each other we would never have formed society to get into wars in the first fucking place.

    Yes we would have. And we did. It was all in self-interest.

    It takes trust and mutual aid to build society.

    That's just the expansion of in-groups due to expediency. Show me the society, in history or modern times, that reached the level of perfectly altruistic cosmopolitanism, inclusion, tolerance, multiculturalism, diversity, or whatever else you want to call it. Because that's what you seem to be claiming humanity is and has been from the start.

    I dont need to read your madman eugenics scrawlings about the finality of evil to disprove this.

    See, I knew you would try to attribute some weird shit like that to me. Nothing I said was in support of eugenics. In fact I outright reject them as I consider them an atrocity. But if you think eugenics hasn't featured prominently in human history, then you haven't been paying close enough attention. And denying that reality is a disservice to all of its victims in past, present, and future.

    I also said nothing about "the finality of evil." I said it's not the default state of humanity. I never said it can't be our destiny. I would love to believe it is. I don't know the future, but I certainly believe it's possible. I feel less and less convinced as time goes on that it's even remotely likely, at least in the next several hundred years. But I'm certain that it's not a guarantee.

    The world we live in literally would not even exist in the capacity it does if human society was built on deception instead of trust.

    Yes it would. And I hate to break this to you, but, it is.

    This is factually why it is falling about now.

    Yes. Finally a statement I can agree with.

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  • [–] -1 points 13 hours ago (1 child)

    m4ks3oOShABxcuM.jpg

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  • [–] 3 points 12 hours ago (1 child)

    I see you have nothing rational to add to the discussion.

    Observing a characteristic of society is not a statement of my personal dispositions. And this is at least the third time in this short conversation that you've attempted to conflate the two.

    It seems that in order to be a considered a good person in your view, someone has to believe that all humans are perfectly good and just beings and human society has never had a flaw worth mentioning. That's called "toxic positivity" and ironically enough is a tool often used by fascism.

    It's the same thing as when magats deny that slavery and genocide played a prominent role in the founding of the United States. But you probably think me pointing that out is an expression of support for those atrocities, so I can't expect you to have anything rational to say in response. I don't know why I even try.

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  • [–] -3 points 12 hours ago (1 child)

    This is a lot of words for "I'm sorry I sling eugenics bullshit and think most people should die"

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  • [–] 3 points 7 hours ago

    What a blatant fucking strawman you're constructing there. You are not a serious person, and you are not arguing in good faith. You've shown yourself multiple times throughout this conversation to be incapable of rational discussion.

    Living in an anarchic society with someone like you would be god-awful, because you'd be exactly the one to go around bullying people for having the audacity to publicly disagree with you, and you would make shit up about people to accuse them of to try to get them ostracized by their peers and rejected from the herd. In short, your version of anarchy is tyranny. Only, in your fantasy, you get to be the tyrant.

    You're an anarchist in name only.

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