[ExI] socialism

Mon Feb 25 18:49:20 UTC 2019

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of John Clark
Sent: Monday, February 25, 2019 10:21 AM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] socialism

On Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 12:33 PM <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:

>> If any society anywhere creates an adequate safety net such that falling into it is not terrifying, the masses will come running from all corners of the globe to leap into it. 

>…That argument had a lot more power a few decades ago than it does now. I always knew someday radical libertarianism would have to be modified when it comes to economic issues…The times are changing and we need to change with the times…John K Clark

I am all for changing with the times.

Let us look at the question from an evolutionary psychology point of view, to see if that discipline has any guidance for us.

Imagine the first species to control fire.  That may have been a precursor to all other technologies (if otherwise do correct me.)  Early protohuman/chimpanzees likely figured out how to control fire first, along with technology to carry water and chip stone to an edge, that kinda thing.  Sound right?

OK so now we can imagine early protohuman/chimps which can build rudimentary shelters along with relying on a few natural shelters, figuring out how to control fire, so now their shelter is relatively comfortable, compared to those beasts which do not control fire.  They still need to go out and get food, but think of it this way: if they didn’t face immediate hunger, they could choose to stay in their nice warm safe shelter.

For sub-Saharan proto-humans, that staying warm business was not so critical, but with fire, proto-humanity could wander outside the range of their closely related non-fire controlling proto-chimpanzee species, so off they went.

Especially for those early humans who radiated south and north away from the sub-Saharan region, that drive to get out of that nice warm safe shelter and do something had to become an ever stronger factor.  This species was well outside of the range where it could survive without technology (sound familiar?) so they did what they needed to do: hunger drove them, and hunger drove the evolution of technology, to deal with ever more challenging environments as they radiated ever farther from their natural habitat.

The whole notion of humans being driven by hunger is so deep within us, there is no changing it.  In far too much of modern humanity, without hunger, there is no drive.  Many moderns believe we can get people to move out of their warm safe shelters, even without the threat of hunger.  I suspect we cannot.

spike 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20190225/83aec957/attachment.html>