08-22-2017, 02:15 PM
(08-22-2017, 11:05 AM)Dill Wrote:
"Simple biology" hardly accounts for the historical diversity of human behavior and social organization. Offhand I cannot think of any recorded human society in which "the strongest, dominant males got the first crack at any food and the most desirable mates." Maybe you know of some, or at least one, and can cite an example. Maybe you have also heard the term "social Darwinism," which, back in the 19th century, projected an oversimplified conception of "survival of the fittest" into the human social world to justify corporate power and oppose redistribution of wealth. It was then that people began imagining the stronger caveman taking food and women away from the weaker like animals--all biology, no culture.
The amount of literalism present in this analysis borders on the deliberately obtuse. I was speaking to the thousands of years of biology that took place prior to humans forming anything resembling modern society. That kind of instinct, built on hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, does not wholly disappear in the around three thousand years of modern human society. Men are still drawn to attractive healthy females, this hasn't changed at all. Woman are still drawn to powerful men, whether physically or otherwise. Like I stated in the beginning, willful obtuseness.
Quote:I think most contemporary anthropologists and ethnologists would agree that cooperation and sharing offered humans a better chance of survival than a bunch of atomistic individuals competing against each other. Why couldn't one say that letting some people live off the labor of thousands without themselves working, while others who do work starve, is "completely at odds with every instinct we possess"? That claim would square better with current ethnology and social history.
I think you're incorrectly conflating (quite deliberately incorrectly IMO) the need for human beings to cooperate to survive with the more cerebral concept of communism. Cooperation is necessary by dint, again, of our biology. Without it humans would not have survived. This kind of cooperative survival has never usurped the concept of the powerful (whether intellectually, physically or both) leading and enjoying benefits that the less gifted never achieve.
Quote:I wonder where you learned that there is "no incentive to achieve" under Communism.
By dint of it's very structure. I produce twenty units you produce two, we both get eleven units. What incentive do I have to keep producing twenty? For someone who frequently attempts to claim the intellectual high ground your failure to grasp this simple concept is telling.
Quote:Was it in a US public school? You may not remember. Would it be fair to say that at some point you could "see for yourself" that Communism does not work? I am guessing you learned about all the "hard wiring" more recently.
Probably when I read Das Kapital and determined how utterly unworkable the concept was. You see, I'm one of those guys who doesn't slavishly adhere to any one ideology. Logic would tell a person that no one theory has the answer to every problem, therefore a hybrid idea, gleaning the best, and compatible, concepts from multiple sources has the best chance of succeeding. Pure socialism has not worked once in any country on the globe under any circumstances. Of course, every time it fails adherents like yourself always whinge that, "It wasn't done right that time". Communism doesn't work and will never work beyond small communities of like minded people. As a form of national governance it is utterly unworkable.
(08-22-2017, 11:14 AM)GMDino Wrote: Weird to people still talk about "survival of the fittest" in 2017. As if we haven't evolved to the point where science has allowed even the "weak" to reproduce.
It would be weird if that was actually happening. Reading comprehension fail #4,506,182 for you.
Quote:If we could get past our primal urge of greed perhaps we could learn to help each other and make it a better world for all.
I'd counter that expecting to get more because you produce more isn't greed, it's just.
Quote:I know that's a nirvana pipe dream...but still better than just accepting that there are aholes and so we to all be aholes.
Nope, the spectrum isn't communism and then greedy asshole. Understanding that would require nuance though.
