5 ms·

>We need to stick with tribalism, but make everyone part of the same tribe. That sounds completely psychotic to me.

by Enginerrrd 5y ago

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
- slver 5y ago
  What you're witnessing in the US is not systems competing on their merit, but rather competing by throwing money at various social manipulation techniques, misinformation campaigns and so on. That's not diversity of thought. That's lack of thought, with a few different colors of paint on each side. Tribalism isn't merely "competing ideas". It's literally the tribal members suppressing their own thought process in order to align WITH their tribe and AGAINST the other tribe. This alignment makes otherwise intelligent individuals collectively quite stupid and easy to mislead and manipulate.
PeterisP 5y ago
Arguably, that is what we've seen happening throughout history - keeping the conceptual intuitive tribalism but significantly extending what the "tribe" means. The basics of tribalism comes either from isolated tribes (generally under Dunbar's number) for hunter-gatherers or, later with agriculture, extended family units/clans - where you have both close blood relations and know each other. Then we see city-states and various unions of many tribes (e.g. for nomadic steppe peoples) forming a much larger shared identity that is using the same behavior and loyalty principles, but you're much more distantly related and can't know everyone anymore. And this starts a trend of the "larger tribe" intervening in the "smaller tribes" to prevent conflict with them and have individuals of different "subtribes" interact between tribes with a shared goal instead of defending the tribal identity; they start punishing raids and violence between the "subtribes", and form a larger shared identity based on culture, religion, etc. Fast forward a few centuries and we see the great "religious tribes" unifying many decentralized rulers; and then we see the age of nationalism in 1800s which in many cases unified many smaller states with aggressive unification of their identities and elimination of dialects so that the "tribe that includes everyone" is stronger, but despite the suppression of "smaller tribes" IMHO it's quite clear that the peak nationalism was also very much a peak of tribalism attitudes. In that regard, humanism is essentially nothing else than treating all humans as a single tribe, and it is an extension of the same trend and practice; we know that dissolving the smaller tribes in order the larger tribe stronger works and is possible as we have done that before; though, often the unification was facilitated and driven by external threats.
- nanagojo 5y ago
  > In that regard, humanism is essentially nothing else than treating all humans as a single tribe, and it is an extension of the same trend and practice; we know that dissolving the smaller tribes in order the larger tribe stronger works and is possible as we have done that before; though, often the unification was facilitated and driven by external threats. Sure, but it always comes at the expense of "smaller" tribes. Either in the form of losing their language and culture, or their economic independence. Even within countries you get tribalism in many forms, whether it be accents/dialects or their morality that varies state to state. So making people to conform to a single ideology [in public] only works with tyranny. Of course secretly they resent it.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

>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

slver 5y ago
What you're witnessing in the US is not systems competing on their merit, but rather competing by throwing money at various social manipulation techniques, misinformation campaigns and so on. That's not diversity of thought. That's lack of thought, with a few different colors of paint on each side. Tribalism isn't merely "competing ideas". It's literally the tribal members suppressing their own thought process in order to align WITH their tribe and AGAINST the other tribe. This alignment makes otherwise intelligent individuals collectively quite stupid and easy to mislead and manipulate.

PeterisP 5y ago

Arguably, that is what we've seen happening throughout history - keeping the conceptual intuitive tribalism but significantly extending what the "tribe" means. The basics of tribalism comes either from isolated tribes (generally under Dunbar's number) for hunter-gatherers or, later with agriculture, extended family units/clans - where you have both close blood relations and know each other. Then we see city-states and various unions of many tribes (e.g. for nomadic steppe peoples) forming a much larger shared identity that is using the same behavior and loyalty principles, but you're much more distantly related and can't know everyone anymore. And this starts a trend of the "larger tribe" intervening in the "smaller tribes" to prevent conflict with them and have individuals of different "subtribes" interact between tribes with a shared goal instead of defending the tribal identity; they start punishing raids and violence between the "subtribes", and form a larger shared identity based on culture, religion, etc. Fast forward a few centuries and we see the great "religious tribes" unifying many decentralized rulers; and then we see the age of nationalism in 1800s which in many cases unified many smaller states with aggressive unification of their identities and elimination of dialects so that the "tribe that includes everyone" is stronger, but despite the suppression of "smaller tribes" IMHO it's quite clear that the peak nationalism was also very much a peak of tribalism attitudes. In that regard, humanism is essentially nothing else than treating all humans as a single tribe, and it is an extension of the same trend and practice; we know that dissolving the smaller tribes in order the larger tribe stronger works and is possible as we have done that before; though, often the unification was facilitated and driven by external threats.

nanagojo 5y ago
> In that regard, humanism is essentially nothing else than treating all humans as a single tribe, and it is an extension of the same trend and practice; we know that dissolving the smaller tribes in order the larger tribe stronger works and is possible as we have done that before; though, often the unification was facilitated and driven by external threats. Sure, but it always comes at the expense of "smaller" tribes. Either in the form of losing their language and culture, or their economic independence. Even within countries you get tribalism in many forms, whether it be accents/dialects or their morality that varies state to state. So making people to conform to a single ideology [in public] only works with tyranny. Of course secretly they resent it.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]