7 ms·

The premise is quite weird, because we're not "cut out". We've evolved, and still evolving. The best thing evolution did to us is to make a lot of our behavior

• BobbyJo 5y ago
  > We need to stick with tribalism, but make everyone part of the same tribe. How is that different than giving up tribalism?
  • slver 5y ago
    Because you still have things you're for and against. But they shouldn't be aligned along trivial lines like sports, religion and politics. And yeah I know calling these "trivial" sounds odd, but they really are.
    • simonh 5y ago
      On the contrary I think splitting society on trivial lines is exactly what we need to encourage. It’s healthy and beneficial. Not everyone has to care about the same sports, the same hobbies, the same tv shows or even the same politics. Two people can support different football teams, but still serve in the same army side by side, or work for the same company. They can support different politics and even be friends. Yes really. Erasing group identities is user dumb. Why not just promote and encourage tolerant civilised behaviour. Since when did that become unthinkable? Well, we need to buckle down and think it. That is the way forward.
      • BobbyJo 5y ago
        There's a balance in there that needs to be struck on practical grounds. You don't get groups without in-group bias. You don't get in-group bias without prejudice. Getting rid of groups/tribes/whatever is obviously impossible, but the more you temper how much human identity is derived from them, the more you reduce the downstream negative (and positive) effects. They aren't all good, and they aren't all bad, like everything else. You can't have all the good without the bad unfortunately.
    • BobbyJo 5y ago
      I don't get how that's tribalism but with everyone in the same tribe.
    • mantas 5y ago
      ... and who ensures that everybody has for and against the same things? Even twins raised together sometimes end up complete opposites.
    • mensetmanusman 5y ago
      Everything is trivial?
• moreira 5y ago
  Tribalism necessitates an “other”. If we discovered intelligent life on other planets and were suddenly given that “other”, I imagine humans would very quickly all come together as the same tribe. Minor differences between humans (including nationality) would stop mattering in less than a lifetime.
  • slver 5y ago
    Yes it needs "other". We can however define this "other" intelligently to encircle the negative phenomena of society and define the rest as the society we are. And hopefully it doesn't split even parents and children or husbands and wives like it does right now, based in silly things like sports, religion and politics. By saying this I've pretty much killed my cred for anyone reading this in the US right now. But that's kind of the problem.
    • pessimizer 5y ago
      > By saying this I've pretty much killed my cred for anyone reading this in the US right now. Because you're saying that we need to unite and expel the "negative," but you're either suggesting that we don't use any criteria for that, or you're using a special definition of "religion and politics" that doesn't encompass all forms of human organization and ranges of perceptions of our environment. I suppose this is just another suggestion that we use rational, objective criteria, like the ones the person making the suggestion uses (when they're at their self-assessed best.) Once we're using those criteria, uniting to eradicate the "other" is fully rationalized, er, rational.
      • slver 5y ago
        You know, I think the "rational" approach is completely hopeless actually. You need a rational frame, but you can't inspire people by telling them how it's rational to do what you want them to do.
    • kodah 5y ago
      Tribalism doesn't necessitate an other, that's just where our understanding is at, imo. I'm not a Democrat or Republican, but the amount of deceptive and straw man arguments I see between the constituents of both is a real spectacle. For instance, try mentioning Democrats or Progressives by name in criticism anywhere and you'll get a flood of negative reactions, even if it's a mild criticism or obvious behavioral note. If you mention the two, you "must" be the other right? Yet this forum has a lot of independents, which I think is fairly well known. One could argue people are tired of hearing groups cast broadly, but wide criticism of Republicans seems to be fairly in-game still. I think if you commit yourself to listening to critique then the "other" fades away. If you commit yourself to the party, or inextricable party ideals then the other is always a reasonable option to reach for.
• Enginerrrd 5y ago
  >We need to stick with tribalism, but make everyone part of the same tribe. That sounds completely psychotic to me.
  • slver 5y ago
    Well in this case we can make the aliens I'm talking to part of the other tribe. Down with the aliens.
    • DizzyDoo 5y ago
      I think what Enginerrrd is calling psychotic is that there's no way to, as you say, "make someone part of the same tribe" without employing a great deal of force to coerce (and crush) people.
      • slver 5y ago
        I didn't intent to say we need to "crush" people into changing, rather the definition of our tribes should change. You know, when a president says "we gotta unite the nation" in a speech, that's kinda what they're trying to do. Except just saying "oh yeah, let's unite" falls quite short of achieving that goal. But no, it's not about coercing and crushing anyone.
        • pessimizer 5y ago
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_gap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_gap
  • loudtieblahblah 5y ago
    Absolutely. IMHO, the best outcomes come from moral, economic, political systems competing with each other. Show me an instance of purity and a lack of competition of ideas that ever turned out well. It always turns out tyrannical, hypocritical, and oppressive. Always. Diversity of thought, as taboo as it might be to say today, is more important than what people tend to think of when thinking of diversity. But it can't be so diverse than millions of people are all going their rabid individualistic path. It needs to be a competition and inter-influence of tribes
• sportslife 5y ago
  As much as I think global unity would be nice, it reminds me of hearing that cows once their herd reaches a certain size split off into two herds [1]. If I'm remembering correctly, a mathematician, biologist and cattle farmer all saw reasons it might be good for the cows. I wouldn't be surprised if the same forces acting on the cows are acting on us. [1] https://www.stitcher.com/show/odd-lots/episode/52-what-math-models-of-herding-cows-can-teach-us-about-markets-48080146 https://www.stitcher.com/show/odd-lots/episode/52-what-math-...
  • warent 5y ago
    I see where you're coming from, and I'm not offended by being compared to cows... that being said, this connection seems very tenuous. This is really comparing apples to oranges here
  • mantas 5y ago
    The best example is West-based colonies in the new world. Why did Canada or Australia went their own way? Why is USA seemingly splitting apart? UK? If someone would manage to establish single world order, it's only a matter of time when it would fracture into pieces.
    • fighterpilot 5y ago
      The trend is steadily towards a more inclusive global tribe over all of human history. There aren't many objective signs that this trend is reversing in any nontrivial way. It wasn't long ago that Europe was constantly engaged in warfare within itself. Compare today with 50 years ago or 150 years ago. We've arguably backslid in some places over a 20 year lookback but those backslides are fairly minor in historical context.
      • mantas 5y ago
        Not so long ago vast majority of Europe was controlled by a single extended family. Now it's gone. Roman empire collapsed. HRE collapsed. Austro-Hungary collapsed. Tsarist Russia + Soviet union collapsed. Ottoman empire collapsed. UK is still slowly collapsing. Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth went separate ways. Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia split. Roman catholic church was pretty close to superstate at it's height.
• HKH2 5y ago
  There will always be leaders branching off with their own tribes. No doubt you've experienced that in microcosms. At first, giving up tribalism is just the formation of another tribe. Then there become multiple tribes that exist to define what it means to truly give up tribalism and so forth.
• sebastialonso 5y ago
  I agree with everything except the last part, because it sounds really warm tummy but by definition is impossible. The tribalism the author uses is the same created by your argument that evolution forged our behaviors. The tribalism evolution forged is a space-dependent concept, it's almost literally those who exist within 5 meters of myself, who eat, shit and sleep with me. I don't necessarily think we need to ditch it, it might be useful for something. But we need an equivalent for the whole species, independent of time, planet or place, and also as someone else said, to include other species. Ol' tribalism needs to be taken down to the cellar, mercilessly beaten and left chained there until we are attacked by aliens or something else accordingly.
• nanagojo 5y ago
  > So how we perceive morality is something we can learn, and we can pass onto generations, basically recreating the concept of evolution through culture, at a much faster pace. That does not really work since nothing would stop people from changing their minds years later, especially when it feeds into the human instinct of tribalism. See WW1, WW2, how the nazi party rose, etc. > We've evolved, and still evolving. Only if those with non-tribalistic tendencies outbreed the rest of the population.