Immanuel, the conversation is too fragmented to be workable for me. As a windbag who likes to get a good roll
on I'd rather focus on one of the point, where focus is not on which of our warring tribes is least bad, but what brings our tribes to both formation and to war.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 25, 2017 2:11 pmGreta wrote:...today's relatively gentle way of living.
"...relatively gentle"?
See how "gentle" things are in the not-so-quickly-developing world...
Nonetheless, life is
much more gentle today for many more people than ever before. I can think of no century or culture I'd rather live in than this period spanning the 20th and 21st centuries in the west. It sucks in many ways, yes, but nowhere near as much as in the past, most of which could be fairly described as horrific by our standards. Which century would most appeal to you?
The key question: Do you believe that modern humans are smarter, more morally aware, faster and stronger than ever before?
Or do you believe we are less so?
The question hopefully clarifies the natural dynamics at play - the creation of ever more empowered concentrations at the expense of the bulk. There is no shared fate for "humanity", if there ever was. As far as I can tell it's a matter of proportions. There is the bulk of humanity and there is the economic elite of humanity. They are different groups with different interests and different fates.
The emergence of humans represents the same dynamic. We humans are basically a concentration of complexity that dominates other non-microbial organisms. The dynamic is also seen in the process of encephalisation, and in insect metamorphosis - each time a complex, organised concentration dominated the simpler bulk.
Abiogenesis too was the emergence of complex concentrations that took control over their relatively passive peers. Now "big humans" are treating "little humans" effectively as farm animals, material stock or vermin. It's just nature.
Humans, en masse, have long been compelled to do things they don't actually like doing - moving towards its inevitable fate of non-sustainability and conflict as if they were under remote control, and following orders to walk over a cliff.
So we engage in the hell of war. We cram into unpleasantly crowded cities. The wealthy won't share and and nations compete rather than cooperate in the global interest. One wicked problem and tragedy of the commons after another, leading to a logical conclusion of destruction so obvious that it's been predicted for millennia. Humans have always sensed their inherent non-sustainability.
However, every apocalypse myth posits that the destruction is not complete, that some favoured souls survive. In context it seems that "blessed" and "wealthy" are synonymous.