> I keep waiting for Keith to jump in, as he is far more optimistic >about human nature than I.
That's not quite the full picture Robert. This is a cyclical discussion here, and am I right in thinking that the cycle is speeding up? Anyway, you usually say I'm more optimistic than you are, as if that explains it. Actually, it's been accepted here before that there's no contradiction between optimism and realism. So what do you really mean when you say I'm "optimistic"? Maybe I'd call it "realistic". If you take a good look at previous discussions I think you can see why. In fact it's not a matter of opinion, there's an ever-growing preponderence of scientific evidence to support it. (Though Joe went into denial over that a few months back.) Now, wouldn't it then be more rational to attribute your view of things to simple pessimism? Eg. "Robert is far more pessimistic about human nature than I am." Hm? Also, I often have to insist on a clear distinction between human behaviour and the behaviour of not-human "persons", but then the waters get muddied again and soon enough the dire consequences of one type of behaviour are being attributed to the basic innate rottenness of the other type of person, or "person", I'll leave you to decide which is which. "Wisdom is the domain of the wis, which is now extinct." - Frank Zappa. Bullshit, Frank. From a recent post: >It seems to me that the higher a country's per-capita advertising >and PR budget gets, the more likely people are to think humanity is >a disease, and the bigger their eco-footprints get too. They're only >a minority, but they've already far outgrown Earth's carrying >capacity. > >If you start at the other end of the scale, with countries that >don't even have an advertising budget, people, even poor people, >tend to have much happier views, and their feet fit the planet with >lots of room to spare. That's most people, they're the majority. > >Back at the rich end there's a tiny minority with truly monstrous >eco-footprints, but, persons or not, they're not human at all. Best Keith >On 5/15/2011 6:56 AM, Chip Mefford wrote: >> Interesting discussion; >> I've heard it postulated that having a significant prefrontal >>cortex allows us >> humans to -if we work really really hard at it- achieve something that isn't >> pure evil. That said, we -as a species- don't really like to use >>our prefrontal >> cortex all that much. We prefer to act based on emotion, action<->re-action. >> That's much easier. We have a pretty strong evolutionary precedent >>for acting >> on what serves us in the short term, the long term nearly always can only be >> considered to beneficial to others, not us, not directly. > > You're underscoring my point. Just because we HAVE intelligence >and the ability to judge the long-term consequences of what we do >doesn't mean we will chose to act in the long-term best interest of our >species. I think, however, that even the most secular evolutionist >would argue that altruism and cooperation have individual survival >benefits. I've read essays and books from die-hard materialist >scientists, who (unlike me) do not believe in God, and yet conclude that >evolutionary pressures have resulted in the development of traits, like >sharing and labor division, that benefit the whole species precisely >because the odds of individual survival are greater in a cooperative, >social order. > > Perhaps this is wishful thinking. Or, maybe they're on to >something. We are not terribly strong, nor fast, and without a big >brain it's hard to imagine how we could have survived for long in a >world filled with fierce predators and effective competition. >> But what about yeast? How intelligent is yeast? Are there yeast >>cells that become >> aware of the walls of the petri dish? Do they tell their neighbors? Do the >> neighbors shout them down, calling them unpatriotic, traitors, >>communists, etc? >> >> No, yeast cells probably don't ever become aware of the walls of >>the petri dish, > > probably never become aware of the depletion of the agar. But >then again, neither >> do we. > > Oh, but there is historical precedent for societies surviving in >environments where others failed to thrive. China has experienced >better than 40 centuries of continuous habitation. The Inuit survived >in Greenland where the Greenland Norse did not. How did the aboriginal >peoples of the North American desert southwest manage to eek out a >living when the Anasazi could not? (Jared Diamond wrote a compelling >book on this topic entitled "Collapse.") In essence, the survivors made >choices that harmonized with the environment, and this permitted their >social order to continue. We can go WAY back into the earliest reaches >of human history on earth, where we find people who lived in what is now >South Africa changing their diet and lifestyle to accommodate climate >changes that wiped out other early humans. In all cases, people who >made intelligent decisions to live within the limits of the ecosystem >survived. > > Why can't we do the same? >> So, as an experiment goes, this is a pretty good one, and the >>empirical results are >> pretty telling. >> >> Intelligence? Where? >> > > I keep waiting for Keith to jump in, as he is far more optimistic >about human nature than I. Having written this, I don't believe for a >moment that we're doomed to extinction because we're smart. Our current >social organization is not sustainable, but those of us who KNOW that >and adapt well to the changes are more likely to survive than those who >do not. My heart goes out to the poor, who have little flexibility, and >the powerless, who are easily exploited by the powerful, yet those poor >and powerless may be the ones who laugh on the day when the wealthy and >powerful see their world crumble around them. I've read somewhere that >the meek will inherit the earth . . . > > :) _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
