Comments on: Everything you know about human nature is wrong.

By: Pace

Pace — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 14:24:13 +0000

I actually almost completely agree with you, Andrea!

…which makes me think that we’re making different assumptions rather than fundamentally disagreeing.

I think that being connected with the Divine and acting righteously is human nature. It’s the way the world is today that keeps us from being able to hear and connect with that deeper source. So maybe the assumption we’re differing on is that I view humans as part of the Divine and you view humans as separate from the Divine?

By: andrea

andrea — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 23:32:36 +0000

i like your style, and your vision, but i completely disagree with what you are saying.

its a real problem: humans are impatient, greedy, and fuck up consistently more than they succeed.
the universe, God, the Tao, or whatever you want to call our creator or source, is slow, patient, generous, and always correct, but people don’t know it, they ignore it, and do not like to yield to its ways.

any human you find who is acting righteously — being loving, patient, generous, peaceful, trustworthy, faithful, kind, giving good counsel, etc — has transcended what is called human nature and is living from the deeper source.

By: Pace

Pace — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 21:24:44 +0000

Well then, I’ll have to make some unreasonable guesses. (:

By: Hasufin

Hasufin — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 21:20:18 +0000

Well, it’s worth noting that 10 KYA wasn’t the first time humans settled down – so far that honor belongs tot he Natufian culture at 11.5 KYA. 10 KYA is simply the first time that it *worked*.

Truthfully, nobody knows quite whye sedentism arose then and not before or after. We really don’t have sufficient perspective to make anything like reasonable guesses. Maybe in a million years when chimps start building villages, or in a few centuries when we contact aliens, but until then, who knows? Maybe a few hundred thousand years is a perfectly reasonable period of time to expect a species to wander around before they figure out how to stay in one place.

By: Pace

Pace — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 21:14:14 +0000

Right, but I think that sedentism is an effect rather than the cause. Sure, people started settling down 10,000 years ago, but WHY did they start settling down?

By: Hasufin

Hasufin — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 21:10:26 +0000

From an anthropological standpoint, 10,000 years ago roughly marks the rise of sedentism – we went from being nomadic or semi-nomadic groups of “hunter-gatherers” to settled groups focused on cultivation.
Significantly, that probably represented the first time in which the bulk of human energy was directed toward social rather than survival concerns.

I am dubious whenever the term “human nature” comes up, because it implies the existence of an objective moral construct, and I remain unconvinced of such. However, in this case I think that 10,000 years ago saw the rise of a plethora of new behaviors simply because for the first time an environment existed such that they could arise.

By: Revolutionary Tuesday: An evil genius zots the dude with three memes | Pace and Kyeli

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 20:23:36 +0000

[...] last week’s episode, I talked about how most modern humans have forgotten their true human nature due to something that [...]

By: Elly

Elly — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 00:12:29 +0000

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetramorium_caespitum Ants actually engage in warfare to conquer territory and wipe out enemy colonies.

By: Oliver Danni

Oliver Danni — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 22:32:27 +0000

It’s a little hard to discern intent in another species without making the usual error…at least when we project our own experiences onto other humans, they can correct us! But I do think that, regardless of whether lions are going around thinking “hyenas are the antichrist! MUST ANNIHILATE!!”, or just tormenting and killing every hyena that they see, Elly’s example suggests that anti-hyenaism is integral to lion culture. The predator-prey dynamic in animals, as far as I’m aware with my limited science background, tends to be pretty absolutist…a housecat generally kills and eats every insect or rodent it ever sees, and goes after anything it thinks MIGHT be an insect or rodent. The cat probably wouldn’t be too disturbed if it killed the last mouse on earth, until it realized it had just wiped out its own food supply.

The difference I could see would be that humans are the only species I’m aware that systematically try to wipe out other groups of their SAME species, but throughout history when humans have tried to do this, they’ve done so by convincing themselves that the group they’re trying to wipe out is not really the same species, so I’m not convinced that this is significantly different from cats wiping out mice in that regard, especially since I don’t personally know enough cats to fairly evaluate their opinions.

Maybe the difference is that we perceive humans as being able to make moral choices about whether institutionalized murder is right or wrong, and we don’t perceive other animals as having made a moral choice when they kill each other…but again, there’s the usual error right there. How the heck do I know if a praying mantis or a great horned owl is making a moral choice or not?!

I think I might have just talked myself out of the fundamentals of my own belief system. (Again.) CRAP. *brain implodes*

By: Elly

Elly — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 21:55:44 +0000

I’m not really aware of humanity doing anything terribly different: Lions fight hyenas when they encounter them. Humans wipe out cockroaches when they encounter them. I’m not aware of any species where humanity has gone signficantly out of it’s way to wipe it out despite it not being a local competitor/pest.