Venator asks himself:
"Who in their right minds would want a return of...?" (p. 63)
- and then inwardly recites a list of horrors which I will reproduce as a list:
war
poverty
rampant criminality
disease
famine
cancerously swelling population
necessity to work no matter how nasty or deadening the work might be
mass lunacy
private misery
death in less than a hundred years
Thank you, Venator. That is a very good list of very bad things, a comprehensive list of horrors inflicted on human beings, some by themselves, others not. There is nothing in this list that mankind cannot in principle end in the future although right now we are stampeding the other way - either denounce or applaud mass destruction, depending on who perpetrates it.
We can certainly reply to Venator:
No one in their right mind wants war etc but we also want individual and collective self-determination and we should not be compelled to accept your peace at the expense of that.
I think that we can have it all - but let's find out.
21 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
A "cancerously swelling population"? I don't believe that because Stirling has convincingly argued we may well face a catastrophic demographic crash.
Other things, like war, ISWHBD, and can only be managed, not eliminated.
Ad astra! Sean
War can be eliminated.
OK. I have some unexpected free time this morning so I will go through it all again.
This is a hope and a speculation, not a prediction. IF advanced technology regularly produces far more than everyone needs and IF that technology is controlled democratically, with information and communication technology used to ensure genuine participatory democracy and accountability, THEN everyone will benefit, there will no longer be any need to compete for scarce resources, energy sources, trade routes, markets or profits, there will no longer be a need to distribute goods through a market place, money will be redundant, there will be no division of society into employers and employees or into rich and poor, there will be no need for security guards to protect warehouses against theft, there will be no need for an apparatus of police, courts and prisons to prevent the poor stealing from the rich because there will no longer be any rich and poor, everyone will be housed and fed and receive medical treatment without having to pay for it, there will be no motivation to scapegoat immigrants for any social ills or deprivations because there will be no such ills or deprivations, there will be no need to produce weapons or to divide humanity into armed nation-states competing for territory, levels of local, regional, national and international solidarity will be entirely positive with no need for any antagonisms.
I say all this without the slightest intention of persuading, just to demonstrate that my view stands and is rationally defended.
I suggest that we either say something genuinely new on the subject or we leave it, having apparently already said all that we are going to say.
Technology already produces more than everyone needs, in the basic sense -- malnutrititon and famine (not caused by war!) have declined immensely in the past couple of generations.
War hasn't.
That's because war isn't -about- material things. It's about power, fundamentally.
Kaor, Paul!
Stirling's comments explain very well why I don't believe in your ideas/hopes. And if your ideas/hopes don't fit the facts about what human beings are, then I can't consider them rational.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
My ideas/hopes do fit the facts about what human beings are and are fully rational. They cannot be dismissed so quickly although it is convenient to think so. Consider all the conditions in which people do interact peacefully and respectfully and then imagine those conditions extended in the future.
The present system defends itself by inculcating contempt and even hatred towards anyone who does think that the world can be made a better place. You think the thoughts that have been put into your head by a constant diet of pro-status-quo ideas in conservative media. But meanwhile this dynamic (not static) system changes itself and generates conflicts that can lead either to complete destruction or to a reconstitution of society on a different basis. Each of us chooses a side whether on a battlefield or in battles of ideas.
Paul.
Something in favor of Paul's POV
https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/public-library-restoring-trust-in-humanity-repubz/
Jim,
Could you email this link to me?
Thanks,
Paul.
Kaor, Paul and Jim!
Paul: No, "...the conditions in which people do interact peacefully and respectfully" on a large scale is only possible if the State, with its monopoly of violence, exists to keep that peace and punish criminals and the violent. I don't believe in that "extension." Take away the State and we get Haiti.
My "thoughts" are based on hard realism, experience of what I have observed human beings are like, some study of history and philosophers like Burke, the teachings of the Catholic Church. I don't believe in some magical "reconstitution" of any human society.
Jim: My view is going to remain that of Ps. 145.3 (LXX). Iow, skepticism and wariness of human beings. Which is sheer prudence.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
No. I have replied about the State before. We must stop repeating ourselves. I have replied about Haiti often and recently.
My "thoughts" (?) are based on a realistic assessment of change. Social "reconstitution" has happened often and is not magical.
We MUST stop repeating all this.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I don't believe your arguments, which a lawyer might characterize as nothing better than "assuming facts not in evidence." All you ever propose is wishful thinking, speculations, mere hopes.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But of course you don't believe my arguments! We really do not need to keep saying this!
I show evidence of fundamental, qualitative changes in the past and in the present and therefore possibly also in the future but, since you do not accept this, can we not just leave it there? Instead of repeating it endlessly?
I find this incredible: "All you ever propose is wishful thinking, speculations, mere hopes." You really do not seem to have read, or otherwise have completely forgotten, what I have in fact written. I have recently explicitly stated more than once that, when I describe what I think is a possible future, this can only be something that I HOPE for and SPECULATE about but CANNOT be an actual prediction of what is in fact going to happen. What else can I do? Indeed, I acknowledge that some alternative horrific scenarios are all too possible and plausible.
You seem to be unable to let go of a disagreement. And this repetition - and indeed misrepresentation - has now become completely sterile.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Impasse, then.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But please acknowledge that you have misrepresented what I say.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I don't believe I have truly misrepresented you, not when I recall how you have said at other times that you believe things like war/tyranny can be abolished. That goes beyond "hope," "speculate," or "cannot" be a prediction.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
It is a possibility, not a prediction.
Paul.
For example, take Putin's war on Ukraine. 350,000 Russian troops have died in it, a thousand or more are dying every week, many times that number of have been injured (some cripplingly) and for what?
Putin's sense of "Russian destiny", which also means he'll be on the top of the heap.
And Russians have put up with it.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Casualties so bad I read Putin's regime has been hiring Mid-Eastern and N Korean mercenaries to eke out their forces.
A big problem is that too many Russians think the same way as Putin, refusing to accept Russia simply no longer has the means to be a great power.
Ad astra! Sean
Events like Putin's war demonstrate two things. First, people can be conditioned to accept many different conditions as norms, even including mass slaughter. Secondly, people reach a breaking point when they overthrow dictators and CAN then establish a norm of peace. What is unpredictable is when a dictator will be overthrown, not whether dictators are overthrown.
Kaor, Paul!
Your views about wars and conflicts are inadequate. Human beings have a natural inclination to be competitive, and that can take many forms, including the organized violence of war. We have wars because humans have a natural tendency to be suspicious of or hostile to other tribes/nations.
I can agree Putin might be overthrown by a military coup or a palace conspiracy.
Ad astra! Sean
We will not have wars when humanity is no longer divided into armed nation states with bodies of armed men trained to obey orders. Technologically produced and socially controlled abundance will make all that redundant.
I have not read all the accumulated comments yet but have to go out.
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