Ecological Morality

Aware-ness · February 16, 2020, 3:39am

I grew up with original sin, and just accepted it as ‘that’s the way it is,’ to explain how people can be hateful and evil to others. Now I see the wrongs others do to others as just the way of not evolved enough human primates ; Jared Diamond’s “Third Chimpanzee.” And ya can’t train a dog to meow. As I see it : I can’t change the weather, politics, women, or human nature.

I would describe it as I would describe the nature and instincts of all the other animals and critters.

And Pinker’s answer is : “The Leviathan,” which is :

The Leviathan, a state and judiciary with a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, can defuse the temptation of exploitative attack, inhibit the impulse for revenge, and circumvent the self-serving biases that make all parties believe they are on the side of the angels. Commerce is a positive-sum game in which everybody can win; as technological progress allows the exchange of goods and ideas over longer distances and among larger groups of trading partners, other people become more valuable alive than dead, and they are less likely to become targets of demonization and dehumanization.

The Leviathan theory, in a nutshell, is that law is better than war.
–Pinker, Steven. The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined . Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Of course he has much more to say about it.

Thanks for responding Ierrellus.

Ierrellus · February 16, 2020, 12:23pm

Is human nature an evolving conflict between altruism and the selfish gene?

promethean75 · February 16, 2020, 6:48pm

demonstrably false argumentum ad ignorantiam

Aware-ness · February 17, 2020, 4:00am

Interesting question. I’m not sure I understand it.

The selfish gene, as I understand it, is about the evolution of genes. Then again, we’re now editing DNA. Maybe we can find the selfish gene and remove it, thus producing altruism.

But presently, isn’t altruism a matter of cultural evolution? Pinker thinks that it’s the Leviathan, or civilization with secular laws enforced by government sanctioned policing agents. If so, we’re not completely evolved yet. More work needs to be done.

Maybe I just don’t understand the question. And this idiot needs further explanation.

Thanks for making me thing about it. Hope to hear more about it.

Harold

Ierrellus · February 17, 2020, 12:19pm

The selfish gene theory is that humans, or for that matter all living organisms, are merely the gene’s method for producing more genes or of perpetuating itself. Altruism is a social meme and is grounded in co-operation, perhaps culminating in what Hobbes calls the Leviathan. So the two paths of humanity toward a future appear to me to be individualism and co-operation. Pinker’s history of the human enlightenment seems to point to benefits of both rugged individualism and cooperative endeavor. What seems to be missing are the facts that evil can require cooperation and that the biosphere is in peril.

felix_dakat · February 17, 2020, 2:32pm

On the evolution of compassion: youtube.com/watch?v=N4wFyRGilp4 We’re in a race between the expansion of zero sum-ness and our capacity for destruction of the environment we live in.

Ierrellus · February 18, 2020, 12:43pm

Thanks, Felix. That is a good reference to the human dilemma. Isn’t the concept of the enemy also a genetic/memetic outcome? Is it zero sum position?

Ierrellus · February 18, 2020, 12:46pm

If you can read and understand Dowd and Pinker, you are certainly not an idiot.

Ierrellus · February 18, 2020, 1:10pm

promethean75:

there’s nothing that can be done to change that. i mean the existence of consumerism and its effects. even in a socialist market the same materialism (lifestyle, not the philosophy of) would exist and the desire would need to be met by a competitive market to produce commodities and services. you wouldn’t get something like communist russia where only a few essentials were allowed by the state to be produced. the only noticable difference in the market would be the fact that companies were run and controlled by many people rather than a single owner. so a consumerist culture would still be there, and all the character defects that come with it it would be there too. 'fraid shortsightedness and narrow self-interests is inherent to human nature, and that it will always be fostered by the market - any kind of market - any kind of exchange of commodities and services.

the question should be; how can we organize six billion simpletons so that their shortsightedness and narrow self-interests doesn’t interfere with the shortsightedness and narrow self-interests of the other simpletons. in other words, how do we create a peaceful coexistence between simpletons. well, for one you can eliminate one of the main forces responsible for making them hostile shortsighted and narrow minded self-interested simpletons; economic exploitation at the hands of the capitalist market.

forget about that nonsense of the ‘engineering a new, better man’ utopian myth that surrounds marxism. that was a bit of over-optimistic philanthropy on marx’s part. not all of us can be ‘the better man’. but you can, still, create a society in which simpletons create less problems while there’s still enough freedom and incentive for exceptional individuals to develop and be properly rewarded for their talents.

see formerly elitist philosophers thought simpletons existed to be exploited, so that’s what they did. but in doing so, two disasters resulted. one, the elitists had nothing to show for justifying that exploitation and instead became super-charged simpletons with a shit load of money they did simpleton shit with. second, they created an incredible burden on the already stressed out simpletons and turned them into walking problem-makers.

now we look at society and ask ‘why was it done this way, when we coulda gotten the same results had we dunnit the socialist way and prevented all that extra bullshit from happening’. in other words, we woulda gotten the same net result - simpletons doing simpleton shit with their money - but minus all the unecessary social problems created by the divided classes in violent conflict with one another.

if you have any questions, don’t ax a conservative or a liberal because they’re gonna put a ‘spin’ on the answers. conservative’ll tell you ‘yada yada yada greatness wouldn’t be possible in a socialist society’, while the liberal’ll tell you ‘yada yada yada omg i am not a simpleton! that’s insensitive and politically incorrect!’

the troof is, the conservative is not great and the liberal is a simpleton. ergo; the right and left are simpletons. look i’m trying to be realistic here… even if it means shattering your dreams about man. fact is, there will always be simpletons… and the only thing you can do is arrange a society in which everybody is simple together. no more capitalists parading around like they’re the greatest thing since cheese whiz, and no more liberals bitching and complaining because they can’t afford health care or tuition or a mortgage because the capitalist shitstick they work for is keeping all their money.

you want the troof, ax an anarchist. we have a bird’s eye view on the whole circus and can tell you timeless troofs about it. all this nonsense started all the way back in b.c. same shit then, more complex now. better, more persuasive lies. philosophy and language are to blame for this, btw.

Society is an abstract contributor to the problem of man’s inhumanity to man. Anarchy may reveal the problem but offers no remedy for it. The roots of the problem are to be found in the evolution of genes and social memes. We need to foster memes of empathy and compassion toward each other in order to challenge our genetic heritage.

Ierrellus · February 18, 2020, 1:13pm

Good to see you are still around. What will it take for us to realize that we are consuming ourselves out of existence?

felix_dakat · February 18, 2020, 2:31pm

Probably a catastrophe or even a major series of catastrophes that involve large segments of the world’s human population. I mean you would think that the 6th Great Extinction would be enough. But people are consumed with their narrow self-interests. In the year 2020 the best thing Americans can do for the environment is to vote Donald Trump out of office and vote in a president who will reverse his destructive environmental policy and institute a more aggressive policy of international cooperation to curb climate change then has been previously proposed.

phyllo · February 18, 2020, 8:38pm

Australians are calling for changes as a result of the fires.

Flooding in Canada produced a similar call for changes. Once-in-a-hundred-years floods are happening every 5 years.

Who knows how much traction that will get or how long it will last.

Ierrellus · February 19, 2020, 12:46pm

When an economy is good people tend to forget ecological morality. We now have a decent economy in the U.S along with a president who does not believe in the science of global warming. But a price will have to be paid for getting the goods at the expense of Nature. The hubris of having is yet to meet the nemesis of depravation. It is good to see there are some countries realize this and are seeking to address the old Man holds dominion over Nature lie of exploitation.

Ierrellus · February 19, 2020, 2:41pm

Ideas from religions of the past may be enjoying a new presence as many take a good look at the price of our exploitation of Nature and have hopes for a decent future for mankind. Pinker and others have written of tremendous progress in goods and services for people since the enlightenment. Problem is the progress excludes indigenous people.

Aware-ness · February 20, 2020, 12:10am

The unavoidable consumption is food and sustenance. And the need for shelter. And all that it takes to deliver and provide it.

Danial Quinn explains this relationship in his Ishmael series, and The Story of B ; the relationship between food and population ; basically, more food produces more population, and more consumers.

So, at bottom, we’re eating ourselves to extinction. Or, when we reach a time when we can’t produce more food, the population will level off – as with all the critters, population is controlled by available food – and consumption will level off.

I think we screwed up by removing ourselves from the food chain.

phyllo · February 20, 2020, 1:43am

Speaking of shelter:

America’s biggest homes are getting even bigger.

The average size of homes built last year hit 2,600 square feet, an all-time high that surpassed even the housing bubble years, when homes averaged around 2,400 square feet, according to the Census Bureau.

But there is a clear difference between the days when everyone was building McMansions and what’s happening post-housing crash.

First of all, the rich have gotten richer.

“If you had a lot of money in the stock market, it has doubled since 2009,” said Stephen Melman, director of Economic Services for the National Association of Home Builders.

And many have used those riches to buy even bigger places, he said.

At the same time, relatively few first-time homebuyers – the biggest market for smaller homes – are able to buy homes, said Melman. Many young buyers are having trouble getting mortgages or are heavily in debt with student loans.

As a result, the market for smaller homes, of 1,400 square-feet and less, has shrunk to just 4% of homes built. That compares with 9% in 2005.

Meanwhile, extremely large houses – 4,000 square feet and up – have been making up a much larger slice of the new homes built.

Last year, these mega homes accounted for more than 9% of new homes. In 2005, they represented 6.6% of homes built.

Houses that are a little smaller but still verging on mansion territory, those between 3,000 and 4,000 square feet, made up 21.7% of new homes in 2013, up from 15.6% in 2005.

Not only are the homes bigger, they have more rooms as well. There’s the obligatory playroom, the home office, the den and the FROG, or family room over the garage.

And, of course, few children have to bunk up in an older siblings’ room these days. Only 59,000 homes built last year came with less than two bedrooms, compared with more than a quarter million with four bedrooms or more.

“It’s like growth is accelerating,” said Melman.

money.cnn.com/2014/06/04/real_e … home-size/

New homes in Canada and the US are big and getting bigger. The average size of a newly constructed single-family detached home is now 2,600 square feet in the US and probably 2,200 in Canada. The average size of a new house in the US has doubled since 1960. Though data is sparse for Canada, it appears that the average size of a new house has doubled since the 1970s.

We like our personal space. A lot. Indeed, space per person has been growing even faster than house size. Because as our houses have been growing, our families have been shrinking, and this means that per-capita space has increased dramatically. The graph below, from shrinkthatfootprint.com, shows that, along with Australia, Canadians and Americans enjoy the greatest per-capita floorspace in the world. The average Canadian or American each has double the residential space of the average UK, Spanish, or Italian resident.

Those of us fortunate enough to have houses are living in the biggest houses in the world and the biggest in history. And our houses continue to get bigger. This is bad for the environment, and our finances.

Big houses require more energy and materials to construct. Big houses hold more furniture and stuff—they are integral parts of high-consumption lifestyles. Big houses contribute to lower population densities and, thus, more sprawl and driving. And, all things being equal, big houses require more energy to heat and cool. In Canada and the US we are compounding our errors: making our houses bigger, and making them energy-inefficient. A 2,600 square foot home with leading edge ‘passiv haus’ construction and net-zero energy requirements is one thing, but a house that size that runs its furnace half the year and its air conditioner the other half is something else. And multiply that kind of house times millions and we create a ‘built in’ greenhouse gas emissions problem.

darrinqualman.com/house-size/

Totally unsustainable.

phyllo · February 20, 2020, 2:10am

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felix_dakat · February 21, 2020, 4:31am

True true but without systemic change of the nation states on a global level individual sacrifice will never be enough. So we must do what we can to change the system.

phyllo · February 21, 2020, 1:57pm

If enough individuals change, then the system will change.

Nations are not going to change until the general population changes.

Aware-ness · February 21, 2020, 5:04pm

Only 11 Years Left to Prevent Irreversible Damage from Climate Change, Speakers Warn during General Assembly High-Level Meeting [at UN]

https://www.un.org/press/en/2019/ga12131.doc.htm