6 ms·

I produced a free ebook edition of Mutual Aid for Standard Ebooks last year: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/peter-kropotkin/mutual-aid https://standardebooks

by acabal 4y ago

I produced a free ebook edition of Mutual Aid for Standard Ebooks last year: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/peter-kropotkin/mutual-aid https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/peter-kropotkin/mutual-aid It's very readable and quite interesting. It aimed to have a veneer of science, when the science of animals and nature was still fairly undeveloped; and it succeeded in a sense, because its observations are still held in regard, but I think it succeeded much better as a work of philosophy. In any case, it suffers a little for what I think is the naive thesis of "if only mankind could cooperate like the animals do, we would live in a utopia." Of course, mankind has demonstrated through thousands of years of history that tribes of men can't really cooperate in any grand sense, so the point seems rather moot.

culi 4y ago
In what ways has mankind demonstrated that "tribes of men" can't cooperate? Humans have been able to live in large decentralized polities for millennia and modern archeology strongly backs this up. Göbekli Tepe (~11kya), the still-standing mammoth houses of North Eastern Europe (~15kya), or perhaps best exemplified by "the new archaic" or "monuments without kings"[^0] which is a term used by archeologists to describe the study of certain North American monument sites like Poverty Point where massive complex monuments were built by mobile groups of foragers without the need for permanent habitation. These massive geo-engineering projects were taken on by many different independent but connected tribes of peoples. Wherever you look we see constant evidence of humanity's ability to cooperate to achieve grand accomplishments. I mean we're on the internet ffs. Ever heard of Wikipedia? Or how most modern tech companies are only possible because of the massive efforts of the open source communities? These aren't really new behaviors for humanity. In fact, I'd argue that if you take a look at the way language evolved you'd find a lot of support for the idea that it's actually a defining characteristic of humanity [^0]: https://documents.saa.org/container/docs/default-source/doc-publications/publications/the-saa-archaeological-record/tsar-2008/nov08.pdf?sfvrsn=b93c98bb_2 https://documents.saa.org/container/docs/default-source/doc-...
- 082349872349872 4y ago
  Mutual Aid Among Animals mentions the existence of Defectors. I would argue both that the existence of the internet in particular and civilisation in general is a sign that great numbers of people can cooperate effectively, and that the woeful Covid response is a sign that small numbers of people defecting can be ruinous. The best laid plans of mice and men, therefore, would seem to be those that (a) allow Cooperators to combine with at least linear effect, and (b) are resistant to sizeable Defecting populations.
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    Defectors implies authoritarianism, and my way or the highway thinking. which have generally been the enemy of overall cooperation. Wikipedia and the internet work because they mostly aren't like that, and are at their worst when they are.
    - Gravityloss 4y ago
      Hmm, if someone "defects" wikipedia and doesn't edit it, no big deal. But there absolutely are edit wars and battles of authority and admin bans etc.
      - robertlagrant 4y ago
        Indeed. Hence my final phrase :)
        082349872349872 4y ago
        OK, so what model of overall cooperation would avoid Wikipedia drama? (having seen humanity's response to Covid, I'm not willing to admit "the spirit of full cooperation will bloom as defecting behaviour withers away" as axiomatic. But I am curious as to what you have in mind?)
        4y ago
rowanajmarshall 4y ago
> mankind has demonstrated through thousands of years of history that tribes of men can't really cooperate in any grand sense I'd argue the fact that humans can live in reasonably stable polities of more than a billion people proves, and in an economic space of practically the entire planet (globalisation!) proves we absolutely can cooperate at grand, epic scales.Whether or not that means Kropotkin is right is another thing, but we're built for cooperation.
- PeterisP 4y ago
  I'd argue that the fact that humans can live in reasonably stable polities of more than a billion people only proves that there exist social systems and structures which can achieve reasonable outcomes even without cooperation by incentives which ensure that agents who do not intend to cooperate but act competitively and even maliciously still act reasonably out of pure self-interest and fear of retaliation for defecting.
- PartiallyTyped 4y ago
  We are not cooperating at grand scales, not in what matters to the average person, but we certainly cooperate on helping the rich get richer.
  - SyzygistSix 4y ago
    Are you ignoring the billion and a half people that have been lifted out of poverty since the 50s or 60s? We can definitely cooperate to benefit the masses of humankind and we do.
    - PartiallyTyped 4y ago
      Are you ignoring that despite knowing the consequences of climate change for a hundred or so years, "we" chose to ignore them for corporate profits? What's the point of lifting anyone out of poverty if we are actively ruining our environment through obviously unsustainable behaviour? How many more billions of people could we have brought out of poverty if the goal wasn't to improve bottom lines? What about all the displaced people due to wars for oil?
raybb 4y ago
What was your experience like producing the book? Have you done it before? Did you previously read the book before producing? If you already have a blog post or something I'd love to read it :)
specialist 4y ago
> men can't really cooperate in any grand sense Dawn of Everything shares the latest anthropology and archeology about prior societies. Spoiler: Science indicates a whole lot more cooperation than was previously assumed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dawn_of_Everything https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dawn_of_Everything I'm quite bullish on the future of cooperatives. Perhaps like the worker directed social enterprises advocated by Richard Wolfe. One missing "technology" is better, more durable governance. Cooperatives have been vulnerable to corporate capture (or transmutation). Like the farmer's cooperatives of yore. And they need better protection against coups, usurpers. But surely that's solvable. We have 1,000s of successful examples to learn from. Imagine a world where participating in a home owner association, local government council, or a volunteer org's executive board wasn't considered cruel and unusual punishment.
- serverholic 4y ago
  Whenever I see someone talk about The Dawn of Everything I like to link this series of video critiques. https://youtu.be/oJIHWk_M398 https://youtu.be/oJIHWk_M398 The person critiquing generally agrees that humans are cooperative but he takes issue with the author’s general position that people kinda just decide to organize culture in a certain way. Instead the video creator offers a materialist perspective that I find a lot more compelling.
andrepd 4y ago
> Of course, mankind has demonstrated through thousands of years of history that tribes of men can't really cooperate in any grand sense I'm assuming this is satire, but it's hard to tell via text.
civopsec 4y ago
> In any case, it suffers a little for what I think is the naive thesis of "if only mankind could cooperate like the animals do, we would live in a utopia." Of course, mankind has demonstrated through thousands of years of history that tribes of men can't really cooperate in any grand sense, so the point seems rather moot. In one paragraph you say that his biological observations are still held in high regard. (Nothwithstanding that the science of such things was farily “underdeveloped”, he protested… you know, like how people massively protest against Darwin’s theories, from about the same era?) Then you take a dump on those same observations in the next paragraph because people who have lived in class societies, under strict hierachies (that’s all of recorded history, yes) weren’t nice to each other? Well… why do you think anarchists proposed an alternative to that? You know what is utopian? To build a society on such a flawed human nature as what we have, centred around our selfish shortcomings—basing socity on on subjugation, oppression, and exploitation, so that (predictably) the ones who are vile and strong will take as much for themselves as they can and exploit the rest—see history—and for us collectively to doom ourselves by ruining the planet by pillaging it of its resources and all kinds of ecological balance. That’s utopian! But congrats on your ebook project. Your pathetic little gloss demonstrates how classic literature is often wasted like pearls before swine.

by acabal 4y ago

culi 4y ago

In what ways has mankind demonstrated that "tribes of men" can't cooperate? Humans have been able to live in large decentralized polities for millennia and modern archeology strongly backs this up. Göbekli Tepe (~11kya), the still-standing mammoth houses of North Eastern Europe (~15kya), or perhaps best exemplified by "the new archaic" or "monuments without kings"[^0] which is a term used by archeologists to describe the study of certain North American monument sites like Poverty Point where massive complex monuments were built by mobile groups of foragers without the need for permanent habitation. These massive geo-engineering projects were taken on by many different independent but connected tribes of peoples. Wherever you look we see constant evidence of humanity's ability to cooperate to achieve grand accomplishments. I mean we're on the internet ffs. Ever heard of Wikipedia? Or how most modern tech companies are only possible because of the massive efforts of the open source communities? These aren't really new behaviors for humanity. In fact, I'd argue that if you take a look at the way language evolved you'd find a lot of support for the idea that it's actually a defining characteristic of humanity [^0]: https://documents.saa.org/container/docs/default-source/doc-publications/publications/the-saa-archaeological-record/tsar-2008/nov08.pdf?sfvrsn=b93c98bb_2 https://documents.saa.org/container/docs/default-source/doc-...

082349872349872 4y ago
Mutual Aid Among Animals mentions the existence of Defectors. I would argue both that the existence of the internet in particular and civilisation in general is a sign that great numbers of people can cooperate effectively, and that the woeful Covid response is a sign that small numbers of people defecting can be ruinous. The best laid plans of mice and men, therefore, would seem to be those that (a) allow Cooperators to combine with at least linear effect, and (b) are resistant to sizeable Defecting populations.
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  Defectors implies authoritarianism, and my way or the highway thinking. which have generally been the enemy of overall cooperation. Wikipedia and the internet work because they mostly aren't like that, and are at their worst when they are.
  - Gravityloss 4y ago
    Hmm, if someone "defects" wikipedia and doesn't edit it, no big deal. But there absolutely are edit wars and battles of authority and admin bans etc.
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      Indeed. Hence my final phrase :)
      - 082349872349872 4y ago
        OK, so what model of overall cooperation would avoid Wikipedia drama? (having seen humanity's response to Covid, I'm not willing to admit "the spirit of full cooperation will bloom as defecting behaviour withers away" as axiomatic. But I am curious as to what you have in mind?)
        4y ago

rowanajmarshall 4y ago

> mankind has demonstrated through thousands of years of history that tribes of men can't really cooperate in any grand sense I'd argue the fact that humans can live in reasonably stable polities of more than a billion people proves, and in an economic space of practically the entire planet (globalisation!) proves we absolutely can cooperate at grand, epic scales.Whether or not that means Kropotkin is right is another thing, but we're built for cooperation.

PeterisP 4y ago
I'd argue that the fact that humans can live in reasonably stable polities of more than a billion people only proves that there exist social systems and structures which can achieve reasonable outcomes even without cooperation by incentives which ensure that agents who do not intend to cooperate but act competitively and even maliciously still act reasonably out of pure self-interest and fear of retaliation for defecting.
PartiallyTyped 4y ago
We are not cooperating at grand scales, not in what matters to the average person, but we certainly cooperate on helping the rich get richer.
- SyzygistSix 4y ago
  Are you ignoring the billion and a half people that have been lifted out of poverty since the 50s or 60s? We can definitely cooperate to benefit the masses of humankind and we do.
  - PartiallyTyped 4y ago
    Are you ignoring that despite knowing the consequences of climate change for a hundred or so years, "we" chose to ignore them for corporate profits? What's the point of lifting anyone out of poverty if we are actively ruining our environment through obviously unsustainable behaviour? How many more billions of people could we have brought out of poverty if the goal wasn't to improve bottom lines? What about all the displaced people due to wars for oil?

raybb 4y ago

What was your experience like producing the book? Have you done it before? Did you previously read the book before producing? If you already have a blog post or something I'd love to read it :)

specialist 4y ago

> men can't really cooperate in any grand sense Dawn of Everything shares the latest anthropology and archeology about prior societies. Spoiler: Science indicates a whole lot more cooperation than was previously assumed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dawn_of_Everything https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dawn_of_Everything I'm quite bullish on the future of cooperatives. Perhaps like the worker directed social enterprises advocated by Richard Wolfe. One missing "technology" is better, more durable governance. Cooperatives have been vulnerable to corporate capture (or transmutation). Like the farmer's cooperatives of yore. And they need better protection against coups, usurpers. But surely that's solvable. We have 1,000s of successful examples to learn from. Imagine a world where participating in a home owner association, local government council, or a volunteer org's executive board wasn't considered cruel and unusual punishment.

serverholic 4y ago
Whenever I see someone talk about The Dawn of Everything I like to link this series of video critiques. https://youtu.be/oJIHWk_M398 https://youtu.be/oJIHWk_M398 The person critiquing generally agrees that humans are cooperative but he takes issue with the author’s general position that people kinda just decide to organize culture in a certain way. Instead the video creator offers a materialist perspective that I find a lot more compelling.

andrepd 4y ago

> Of course, mankind has demonstrated through thousands of years of history that tribes of men can't really cooperate in any grand sense I'm assuming this is satire, but it's hard to tell via text.

civopsec 4y ago

> In any case, it suffers a little for what I think is the naive thesis of "if only mankind could cooperate like the animals do, we would live in a utopia." Of course, mankind has demonstrated through thousands of years of history that tribes of men can't really cooperate in any grand sense, so the point seems rather moot. In one paragraph you say that his biological observations are still held in high regard. (Nothwithstanding that the science of such things was farily “underdeveloped”, he protested… you know, like how people massively protest against Darwin’s theories, from about the same era?) Then you take a dump on those same observations in the next paragraph because people who have lived in class societies, under strict hierachies (that’s all of recorded history, yes) weren’t nice to each other? Well… why do you think anarchists proposed an alternative to that? You know what is utopian? To build a society on such a flawed human nature as what we have, centred around our selfish shortcomings—basing socity on on subjugation, oppression, and exploitation, so that (predictably) the ones who are vile and strong will take as much for themselves as they can and exploit the rest—see history—and for us collectively to doom ourselves by ruining the planet by pillaging it of its resources and all kinds of ecological balance. That’s utopian! But congrats on your ebook project. Your pathetic little gloss demonstrates how classic literature is often wasted like pearls before swine.