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> Why do people still think ... Because people haven't come to terms with the fact that humans are not Children of God nor disembodied Cartesian rational calcu

> Why do people still think ... Because people haven't come to terms with the fact that humans are not Children of God nor disembodied Cartesian rational calculators, but actually a loquacious and smartish hominid, designed by selection for small group interaction. There is nothing to suggest this species is capable of planet-level cooperation towards a communally-decided end. Add to that the fact that path-dependent history has placed that species today in a situation where it's organised into huge 17thC mutually-hostile groups ("States"), incapable of anything more than opportunistic cooperation because of their religious and anachronistic founding concept ("sovereignty"). Most people have no idea that this contingent organisation is not the natural and inevitable state of the world, so aren't open to the possibility that it dooms them to sclerotic inability to face today's challenges.

tejohnso 4y ago
> There is nothing to suggest this species is capable of planet-level cooperation towards a communally-decided end. Absolutely. In fact there is plenty to suggest to me that this species is completely incapable of that level of cooperation.
FredPret 4y ago
You make interesting points but I would disagree about global cooperation. Every day we cooperate in an intricate dance with people all over the world, from different ideologies and legal systems, to operate our supply chains and information networks. All we need is for the green option to be in everyone’s self-interest and the system will rapidly self-optimize. We’re already getting there with green laws being globally popular, carbon taxes, and clean tech getting cheaper.
- crispinb 4y ago
  Well it's too big a discussion to litigate here, but I don't agree that market forces + self interest have in fact been successful. Most significant problems have merely been postponed, precisely because we just don't have the cooperative mechanisms available to deal with them. Many of our ecosystems (ie. the actual physical world, rather than the virtual worlds of finance and markets) are on their last legs. I also think the very concept of 'self-interest' is incoherent (as is 'national interest'), but again that's too large a topic for an HN comment.
  - FredPret 4y ago
    My argument is that market forces have done a brilliant job in marshalling far-flung and diverse interests to optimize for the sum total of our self-interests. For instance, I'm using this device for fun and profit and it was made by actual communists on the other side of the planet. People until recently have not thought of the ecology as being in their personal interest in a direct and concrete way, only a vague and diffused good. Tragedy of the commons and all that. But that's changed because now being green can be cheaper (carbon tax, cheap solar panels, other tech progress) and cool. The market deals with all long-term significant problems this way - leave it until it's urgent, then absolutely smash it. This isn't perfect but it's probably the only way to get 8 billion decision-makers to coordinate on anything.
    - crispinb 4y ago
      My point isn't for perfection, but that we simply don't deal with many global problems at all, ever. They're not left 'till they're urgent - they are ignored until they overwhelm. This is a universal, physical, biological process that happens to all organisms whose unchecked growth damages the environment they have evolved to exist in. Abstractions like 'market forces', 'self interest' and 'decision-makers' have no causal force. They are like money - concepts that skate impotently over the surface of physical reality, until their bearers are borne away. Anyway, 'arguments' (especially those of economists - the theologians of our era, whose intellectual fairy-castles will in my view come to be seen as equally empty) are irrelevant. Rationalism lost (a historical reality economists never grappled with). Empirical reality is all. Time will tell.

tejohnso 4y ago

> There is nothing to suggest this species is capable of planet-level cooperation towards a communally-decided end. Absolutely. In fact there is plenty to suggest to me that this species is completely incapable of that level of cooperation.

FredPret 4y ago

You make interesting points but I would disagree about global cooperation. Every day we cooperate in an intricate dance with people all over the world, from different ideologies and legal systems, to operate our supply chains and information networks. All we need is for the green option to be in everyone’s self-interest and the system will rapidly self-optimize. We’re already getting there with green laws being globally popular, carbon taxes, and clean tech getting cheaper.

crispinb 4y ago
Well it's too big a discussion to litigate here, but I don't agree that market forces + self interest have in fact been successful. Most significant problems have merely been postponed, precisely because we just don't have the cooperative mechanisms available to deal with them. Many of our ecosystems (ie. the actual physical world, rather than the virtual worlds of finance and markets) are on their last legs. I also think the very concept of 'self-interest' is incoherent (as is 'national interest'), but again that's too large a topic for an HN comment.
- FredPret 4y ago
  My argument is that market forces have done a brilliant job in marshalling far-flung and diverse interests to optimize for the sum total of our self-interests. For instance, I'm using this device for fun and profit and it was made by actual communists on the other side of the planet. People until recently have not thought of the ecology as being in their personal interest in a direct and concrete way, only a vague and diffused good. Tragedy of the commons and all that. But that's changed because now being green can be cheaper (carbon tax, cheap solar panels, other tech progress) and cool. The market deals with all long-term significant problems this way - leave it until it's urgent, then absolutely smash it. This isn't perfect but it's probably the only way to get 8 billion decision-makers to coordinate on anything.
  - crispinb 4y ago
    My point isn't for perfection, but that we simply don't deal with many global problems at all, ever. They're not left 'till they're urgent - they are ignored until they overwhelm. This is a universal, physical, biological process that happens to all organisms whose unchecked growth damages the environment they have evolved to exist in. Abstractions like 'market forces', 'self interest' and 'decision-makers' have no causal force. They are like money - concepts that skate impotently over the surface of physical reality, until their bearers are borne away. Anyway, 'arguments' (especially those of economists - the theologians of our era, whose intellectual fairy-castles will in my view come to be seen as equally empty) are irrelevant. Rationalism lost (a historical reality economists never grappled with). Empirical reality is all. Time will tell.