Have you ever worked anywhere and saw that people didn’t put their friends, family and coworkers ahead of the others?
Have you ever seen a human system that didn’t put “others” behind whatever group they decided to create?
Even nonprofits and charities end up playing favorites. Once any organization gets to any real size it’s going to be corrupt. It’s human nature. All of humanity competes over this world’s limited resources. People will do anything to win.
Nature in and of itself is competition. The theory of evolution depends on it. The strong survive and the weak perish because of natural selection. The strong multiply and become our future generation.
It can be smart to keep the weak around. Like a weak animal in a big herd. Sometimes a sacrificial lamb is useful when it’s time to ride or die. Your kids though, they HAVE to survive, right? Two kids are about to get killed and you can choose to save only one. It’s always yours, right? This example only works if you’re a parent but I don’t think you’d find many parents who would put a stranger’s child over their own.
Sure, maybe tens or hundreds of thousands of years ago we decided as a society to eliminate people who put their family and friends above others’ a different human imperative could have emerged, but like it or not this one is the dominant one. Ignoring the competitors just takes you out of the running and statistically means you will not be moving up the ladder very much if at all.
Nature is not just competition! It’s also cooperation and companionship and symbiosis. Cultivating a different human nature is entirely possible if we decide we want to - a world where no one puts their own children ahead of anyone else’s is not unimaginable.
The concept of parenthood isn’t even universal! Some human societies view all children as the collective children of the tribe. The nuclear family is actually fairly new.
Your choice of companion is part of how you compete.
People generally pick friends based on what their friends do for them and how their reputation (e.g. influence) is, whether or not they actually realize that. So much of this is done subconsciously.
Nobody wants to keep the friend around who is always asking for help… everybody wants the friend who asks for little and is always there for them.
I do agree that the social construct of nuclear families is not natural in any way. You see this with divorce rates quite clearly. It’s quite common to find the rich, powerful, influential and attractive having many sexual partners and many followers. Without things like child support I suspect there would be many MANY more bastards out there than there already are.
Anyway, you are looking at things through an idealist lens. I’m pointing things out in a blunt narcissistic lens. People are shades of gray, not black and white. If you ignore the competition and pretend everyone will be nice you’ll quickly find this doesn’t work when scaled out past a small community. It just doesn’t. It never has. It never will.
People are competitive within a competitive framework because human nature is contingent on the material conditions. I’m not some fucking idealist, I understand competition exists lol
In fact, I literally said “nature is not just competition” - that necessarily means that it is also competition. It’s just more than competition. Get it?
No, this is Capitalism and our culture. There were and still are societies where there is very little competition between individuals or even where the concept of “competition” is unknown.
This works with small communuties living naturally, like tribes in South America. But I think with technological advancement and a cultural shift towards are more social and less individualistic society this could also work on greater scales.
Nepotism is prevalent everywhere, sure. On another level, network and connections matter. Rich have connections and the consequences of not kissing their ass can backfire.
But in theory, we should all recognize that regulations should be in place to inhibit such acts. It’s like saying the family of the victim a HP be the judge, jury, and executioner in a court of justice. Obviously we’d all be happy to take up that role… But is that what’s best for society?
What is best for society is generally not what is best for the individual.
Enforcement of rules and regulations is one area that seems to always have potential corruption since nobody wants someone looking over their shoulder all the time for things that they are not doing right. It’s easy to say “investigate those crooks!” so long as those investigations aren’t targeting us.
If a bunch of people become stranded on an island it doesn’t become lord of the flies turns out. Human nature is to help one another because what is good for the tribe is good for you.
We know this because it has happened, there are documentaries about it, and those are circumstances where there are actually limited resources. Currently there may as well be unlimited resources because there aren’t enough resources for one person to completely consume. I think it is perfectly unnatural the way the rich in particular act, and I believe it is under our current system in particular that drives people to act that way.
If you’re trapped on an island with a group you’re probably under the size of the monkeysphere.
When group or tribe size exceeds the monkeysphere, that’s when you start seeing all the weird shit and blatant exploitation.
It’s usually not the rich and wealthy directly doing evil shit either, it’s the people under them following through on it to reach an objective - generally more money or resources for the ones on top of the food chain. By utilizing middlemen who feel like they have no choice if they want to “climb the ladder” no one feels like it’s their fault for causing the pain, so no one thinks they are a psychopath and no one person is blamed for the fault- it’s all those “big companies”
The nuance for this stuff goes on and on and on and on.
On what level?
Have you ever worked anywhere and saw that people didn’t put their friends, family and coworkers ahead of the others?
Have you ever seen a human system that didn’t put “others” behind whatever group they decided to create?
Even nonprofits and charities end up playing favorites. Once any organization gets to any real size it’s going to be corrupt. It’s human nature. All of humanity competes over this world’s limited resources. People will do anything to win.
It’s not “human nature” per se, it’s human nature within this specific material context.
We cultivate competition on every level of society. We shouldn’t be surprised when people turn everything into a competition.
Nature in and of itself is competition. The theory of evolution depends on it. The strong survive and the weak perish because of natural selection. The strong multiply and become our future generation.
It can be smart to keep the weak around. Like a weak animal in a big herd. Sometimes a sacrificial lamb is useful when it’s time to ride or die. Your kids though, they HAVE to survive, right? Two kids are about to get killed and you can choose to save only one. It’s always yours, right? This example only works if you’re a parent but I don’t think you’d find many parents who would put a stranger’s child over their own.
Sure, maybe tens or hundreds of thousands of years ago we decided as a society to eliminate people who put their family and friends above others’ a different human imperative could have emerged, but like it or not this one is the dominant one. Ignoring the competitors just takes you out of the running and statistically means you will not be moving up the ladder very much if at all.
Nature is not just competition! It’s also cooperation and companionship and symbiosis. Cultivating a different human nature is entirely possible if we decide we want to - a world where no one puts their own children ahead of anyone else’s is not unimaginable.
The concept of parenthood isn’t even universal! Some human societies view all children as the collective children of the tribe. The nuclear family is actually fairly new.
Human nature is a choice we all make together.
Your choice of companion is part of how you compete.
People generally pick friends based on what their friends do for them and how their reputation (e.g. influence) is, whether or not they actually realize that. So much of this is done subconsciously.
Nobody wants to keep the friend around who is always asking for help… everybody wants the friend who asks for little and is always there for them.
I do agree that the social construct of nuclear families is not natural in any way. You see this with divorce rates quite clearly. It’s quite common to find the rich, powerful, influential and attractive having many sexual partners and many followers. Without things like child support I suspect there would be many MANY more bastards out there than there already are.
Anyway, you are looking at things through an idealist lens. I’m pointing things out in a blunt narcissistic lens. People are shades of gray, not black and white. If you ignore the competition and pretend everyone will be nice you’ll quickly find this doesn’t work when scaled out past a small community. It just doesn’t. It never has. It never will.
People are competitive within a competitive framework because human nature is contingent on the material conditions. I’m not some fucking idealist, I understand competition exists lol
In fact, I literally said “nature is not just competition” - that necessarily means that it is also competition. It’s just more than competition. Get it?
No, this is Capitalism and our culture. There were and still are societies where there is very little competition between individuals or even where the concept of “competition” is unknown.
This works with small communuties living naturally, like tribes in South America. But I think with technological advancement and a cultural shift towards are more social and less individualistic society this could also work on greater scales.
Nepotism is prevalent everywhere, sure. On another level, network and connections matter. Rich have connections and the consequences of not kissing their ass can backfire.
But in theory, we should all recognize that regulations should be in place to inhibit such acts. It’s like saying the family of the victim a HP be the judge, jury, and executioner in a court of justice. Obviously we’d all be happy to take up that role… But is that what’s best for society?
What is best for society is generally not what is best for the individual.
Enforcement of rules and regulations is one area that seems to always have potential corruption since nobody wants someone looking over their shoulder all the time for things that they are not doing right. It’s easy to say “investigate those crooks!” so long as those investigations aren’t targeting us.
I just don’t believe this. This is so untrue.
If a bunch of people become stranded on an island it doesn’t become lord of the flies turns out. Human nature is to help one another because what is good for the tribe is good for you.
We know this because it has happened, there are documentaries about it, and those are circumstances where there are actually limited resources. Currently there may as well be unlimited resources because there aren’t enough resources for one person to completely consume. I think it is perfectly unnatural the way the rich in particular act, and I believe it is under our current system in particular that drives people to act that way.
“what is good for the tribe is good for you” is the key take here. They’re only nice to others when it benefits themselves.
Just a shitty fact of life.
If you’re trapped on an island with a group you’re probably under the size of the monkeysphere.
When group or tribe size exceeds the monkeysphere, that’s when you start seeing all the weird shit and blatant exploitation.
It’s usually not the rich and wealthy directly doing evil shit either, it’s the people under them following through on it to reach an objective - generally more money or resources for the ones on top of the food chain. By utilizing middlemen who feel like they have no choice if they want to “climb the ladder” no one feels like it’s their fault for causing the pain, so no one thinks they are a psychopath and no one person is blamed for the fault- it’s all those “big companies”
The nuance for this stuff goes on and on and on and on.