Krimel, DMB, The small is better argument drops out naturally from DMB's equation for evil "Power + Error = Evil"
limiting errant power, placing boundaries around how far it is effective, automatically limits the potential evil the cosmos as a whole. The biggest evil is for humans to act is if they have power over the whole shebang. Smaller communities of influence are inherently better for progressive evolution - in bio-genetic evolution we call it bio-diversity, we don't really have a name for it in the cultural (memetic) context but it's pretty much the same mechanism - we need diversity - sub-sets of the whole. (Did I mention Quinn's "Ishmael" ?) eg1 More than one free press is better than one dominant "free" press. eg2 domestic violence is "less evil" limited to one household, than if it is widespread across the global village. The neighbouting households can be revulsed and learn from that, the global village has no neighbours to learn. Ian On 5/30/07, Krimel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > dmb says: > I'm not so sure that small scale communities enjoy any immunity to violence. > > If that were true there would be no such thing as domestic violence, crimes > of passion, incest and the like. You always hurt the one you love and all > that. I can see how the larger scale communities that come with civilization > > would precipitate a need for formal codes and laws but I'm a bit skeptical > about the effects of scale on morality per se. Its much broader than that, > no? It seems to me that there is an alienating and disturbing effect of > large scale, complex societies. There is something stressful about having to > > manage one's own life in a context that is complicated to the point that > nobody understands much beyond their own role as baker, warroir, midwife, > Queen or whatever. Seems to me that there is a psychological advantage to > living in small groups simply because social reality is within the > individual's range of comprehension. > > [Krimel] > Humans evolved by living in small groups of about 150. That is how we lived > for about a million years. Laws are not needed because there are all kinds > of social controls that function in groups of that size. You may get > domestic violence but the community knows about it. You may have thieves but > everyone knows who they are. > > Civilizations did not cause larger communities, larger communities caused > civilizations. Larger communities resulted from technological innovations in > agriculture. With larger group sizes the inherited systems of control broke > down and other more formal types of control had to be put in place to > maintain order. > > The rest of the stuff you mention specialization, social roles, codes of > morality and law, etc. are the product of this change that occurred about > 12,000 years ago. This is too short a period to have had evolutionary > significance. > > But take your leap into theology for a second. We speak of the evil with > reference to specific individuals and events. If evil were not somehow > genetically selected against wouldn't you expect to see more of it? In fact > much of the stress you mention comes from having to adapt to an environment > that we are not particularly well adapted to. > > > > > moq_discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ > moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
