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For the past five or six millennia, nine-tenths of all the people who ever lived did so as peasants or as members of some other servile caste or class. With the rise of the State, ordinary men seeking to use nature's bounty had to get someone else's permission and had to pay for it with taxes, tribute, or extra labor. The weapons and techniques of war and organized aggression were taken away from them and turned over to specialist-soldiers and policemen controlled by military, religious, and civil bureaucrats. For the first time there appeared on earth kings, dictators, high priests, emperors, prime ministers, presidents, governors, mayors, generals, admirals, police chiefs, judges, lawyers, and jailers, along with dungeons, jails, penitentiaries, and concentration camps. Under the tutelage of the state, human beings learned for the first time how to bow, grovel, kneel, and kowtow. In many ways the rise of the state was the descent of the world from freedom to slavery.  --from Cannibals and Kings

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DividedQuantum said:

Nature may appear brutal from a certain perspective -- even "red in tooth and claw" -- but it strikes me that it could possibly still be a more intelligent system than what man has created from scratch. Throughout history, civilization has generated more murder and mayhem than any ecosystem ever documented, with the notable exception of great extinction events -- one of which, I must point out, is right now being perpetrated by man and his institutions.

Does this seem to you to be a valid observation? Who is wiser: Nature or man? (And please, do not get carried away with the tired assertion that man is a part of Nature. I present this dichotomy strictly as between the biological world (which includes tribal societies) and man's artificial sedentary societies with their institutions and ideologies. Let's not get caught up in a game of semantics.)

I think this quote by Marvin Harris is relevant:

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For the past five or six millennia, nine-tenths of all the people who ever lived did so as peasants or as members of some other servile caste or class. With the rise of the State, ordinary men seeking to use nature's bounty had to get someone else's permission and had to pay for it with taxes, tribute, or extra labor. The weapons and techniques of war and organized aggression were taken away from them and turned over to specialist-soldiers and policemen controlled by military, religious, and civil bureaucrats. For the first time there appeared on earth kings, dictators, high priests, emperors, prime ministers, presidents, governors, mayors, generals, admirals, police chiefs, judges, lawyers, and jailers, along with dungeons, jails, penitentiaries, and concentration camps. Under the tutelage of the state, human beings learned for the first time how to bow, grovel, kneel, and kowtow. In many ways the rise of the state was the descent of the world from freedom to slavery.  --from Cannibals and Kings

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blingbling said:

1. Even a cursory look over the predatory-prey dynamics that have spontaneously formed in nature shows us how heartless nature is, our modern societies for all their faults are in my opinion at least, better equipped to promote human welfare than raw nature.

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sudly said:

Given the amount of time we've been here's that's like asking who is 'more intelligent', a toddler or a professor?

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Jokeshopbeard said:

blingbling said:

1. Even a cursory look over the predatory-prey dynamics that have spontaneously formed in nature shows us how heartless nature is, our modern societies for all their faults are in my opinion at least, better equipped to promote human welfare than raw nature.

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Fucking LOL. I find this hysterical.

Modern society is absolutely horrific in regards to the promotion of human welfare. I'm sure the brainwashing provided wants us to believe that 'it's best for us all', but to that I say; LIKE FUCK.

Fuck everything to do with 'man's artificial sedentary societies with their institutions and ideologies'. Fuck em and all that they stand for.

The rest of my life will be geared towards getting as far away from that disastrously unhealthy shit as possible.

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DividedQuantum said:

I'm more in tune with your perspective, Jsb. Civilization surely has a lot to offer, and it's not going anywhere anytime soon, but the planet had remained pretty well balanced, perfectly sustainably, for literally billions of years, only interrupted by great extinctions, until civilization appeared around 8000 BC. In 10,000 years we have exploded the balance of this planet to the point of crisis, taking out millions of species, and destroying the Earth's living habitats -- which of course are our own habitats just as much as they are those of others. It will take some miracle to fix this mess given the population size.

In that sense, it seems the various ecosystems, when they are healthy, operate more successfully over the long term than man's system of institutions and their associated ideological framework. That is what I meant when I suggested that man has not yet surpassed nature in terms of having a balanced, sustainable system, and that nature is therefore more fundamentally intelligent.

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blingbling said:

What do you think of the idea that the human race is like a seed pod in the sense that we take up a lot of energy to produce but we spread the genetic heritage of the organism to new worlds ie. we might be the ones that seed new planets with life. Would our environmental destruction be morally justified if we were to create new worlds?

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Ah, yeah. We're gonna go to Mars. And then of course we're gonna colonize deep space. With our microwave hot dogs and plastic vomit, fake dog shit and cinnamon dental floss, lemon-scented toilet paper and sneakers with lights in the heels. And all these other impressive things we've done down here. But let me ask you this: what are we gonna tell the intergalactic council of ministers the first time one of our teenage mothers throws their newborn baby into a dumpster? How are we gonna explain that to the space people? How are we gonna let them know that our ambassador was only late for the meeting because his breakfast was cold and he had to spend half an hour punching his wife around the kitchen? And what are they gonna think when they find out, its just a local custom, that over 80 million women in the Third world have had their clitorises forcibly removed in order to reduce their sexual pleasure so they won't cheat on their husbands? Can't you just sense how eager the rest of the universe is for us to show up?

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Blue Wrench said:

Interestingly enough this is what the bible has been saying all along, mankind is stupid as shit compared to God. I mean if we are personifying the force of mother nature and calling it "wise" then we might as well agree it is synonymous with a supreme diety or "God."

Not trying to validate the bible or anything, just saying that observations of this sort are nothing new and your OP reminded me a lot of a sermon I heard when I was a kid in church, reminding the congregation that all the wisdom of man is inevitabley doomed towards failure. Although my experience was more to get a "So you better fucking get on your knees and beg forgiveness" sort of response.

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Quote:

Our entire much-praised technological progress, and civilization generally, could be compared to an axe in the hand of a pathological criminal.  -- Albert Einstein

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DividedQuantum said:

blingbling said:

What do you think of the idea that the human race is like a seed pod in the sense that we take up a lot of energy to produce but we spread the genetic heritage of the organism to new worlds ie. we might be the ones that seed new planets with life. Would our environmental destruction be morally justified if we were to create new worlds?

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But where does it stop? If all we do is grow for the sake of growth, we'll just go on to destroy other worlds too. But it occurs to me that, as one poster pointed out above, A.I. will be a major factor. It seems to me that man is not destined for the stars, but our cybernetic descendants would be perfectly suited to it. They could send out millions of robotic probes, whereas humans require a ridiculous degree of life support just for something so trivial as a single mission to Mars.


I am reminded of this bit by George Carlin:

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Ah, yeah. We're gonna go to Mars. And then of course we're gonna colonize deep space. With our microwave hot dogs and plastic vomit, fake dog shit and cinnamon dental floss, lemon-scented toilet paper and sneakers with lights in the heels. And all these other impressive things we've done down here. But let me ask you this: what are we gonna tell the intergalactic council of ministers the first time one of our teenage mothers throws their newborn baby into a dumpster? How are we gonna explain that to the space people? How are we gonna let them know that our ambassador was only late for the meeting because his breakfast was cold and he had to spend half an hour punching his wife around the kitchen? And what are they gonna think when they find out, its just a local custom, that over 80 million women in the Third world have had their clitorises forcibly removed in order to reduce their sexual pleasure so they won't cheat on their husbands? Can't you just sense how eager the rest of the universe is for us to show up?

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Quote:

people like you

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DividedQuantum said:

I just mean people who believe that unlimited growth = progress.

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Quote:

perhaps man may not improve the cosmos by colonizing it

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Ferdinando said:

yes and maybe lend (on) how we succeeded if we suceeded

success is possible in many ways

taking care of weedds

putting positive things in the garden

meditating

going high

redgreenvines is a man of big success and he is sharing here

and I am giving good pushes

I have also screwed up

I think there is infinite potential

I think the state can approac infinitely good (or infinitely positive).

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DividedQuantum said:

No personalism. I just mean people who believe that unlimited growth = progress.

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DividedQuantum said:

I think what Mr. Carlin (and I) were trying to say is that perhaps man may not improve the cosmos by colonizing it, for a variety of reasons. I know this causes cognitive dissonance in people like you, but the fact of the matter is that it could possibly be the case.

And why, pray tell, do you imagine humans will follow A.I. entities into the cosmos? Not to get off topic, but do you see a future for biological man if an A.I. revolution -- a singularity -- takes place? I think that, no matter what happens, man's days (at least as biological beings) are numbered, personally.

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DividedQuantum said:

What I mean by "intelligent" is that Nature and evolution are not random processes, but unfold in an orderly and subtly structured way. I feel there is a dimension of order along with the chaos.

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DividedQuantum said:

What I mean by "intelligent" is that Nature and evolution are not random processes, but unfold in an orderly and subtly structured way. I feel there is a dimension of order along with the chaos.

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Perhaps there is only chaos in the mind. Nature has parallels to intelligence, but to call it such seems at a lack for words.