3 ms·

> I've always felt that hierarchical, subservient thinking is strange I'll tell why several reasons this happens: 1. In many cultures this beaten into kids fr

by oblio 3y ago

> I've always felt that hierarchical, subservient thinking is strange I'll tell why several reasons this happens: 1. In many cultures this beaten into kids from an early age. There is no wide range of free will, just the family/tribe/clan/group hierarchy. 2. Hierarchies are... safe. You're part of a group, you roughly know where you stand. 3. Humans are social and inherently hierarchical :-) We've been like this for possibly millions of year, you're working against lots of brain machinery trying to fight this. It's probably doable but far from easy.

lapcat 3y ago
> We've been like this for possibly millions of year, you're working against lots of brain machinery trying to fight this. I think my brain is wired differently. Maybe that was a birth defect; it wouldn't be the only one. > It's probably doable but far from easy. That's certainly true.
ddq 3y ago
First two points, yes, though on point three I strongly disagree that modern mass hierarchy has existed on an evolutionary timescale. Neither Homo sapiens nor our ancestors ever had hierarchical groups larger than a village until we shifted from hunter-gatherer to agrarian around 10,000 years ago. The core concept is "natural" at a tangible, real scale where it can be seen as an extension of the parent->child form, but nothing in my research has yet refuted the idea that we're actually working against our brain machinery to scale up hierarchies orders of magnitude that defy visualization, though I can see the lizard brain appeal of submission to executive individuals. People can understand a president, CEO, captain. Parental figures. But a parent to thousands or millions, with dozens of steps between you and them? Seems like alienation would be a natural response. Of course, this is all appeal to nature, but still an interesting perspective to consider.

by oblio 3y ago

lapcat 3y ago

> We've been like this for possibly millions of year, you're working against lots of brain machinery trying to fight this. I think my brain is wired differently. Maybe that was a birth defect; it wouldn't be the only one. > It's probably doable but far from easy. That's certainly true.

ddq 3y ago

First two points, yes, though on point three I strongly disagree that modern mass hierarchy has existed on an evolutionary timescale. Neither Homo sapiens nor our ancestors ever had hierarchical groups larger than a village until we shifted from hunter-gatherer to agrarian around 10,000 years ago. The core concept is "natural" at a tangible, real scale where it can be seen as an extension of the parent->child form, but nothing in my research has yet refuted the idea that we're actually working against our brain machinery to scale up hierarchies orders of magnitude that defy visualization, though I can see the lizard brain appeal of submission to executive individuals. People can understand a president, CEO, captain. Parental figures. But a parent to thousands or millions, with dozens of steps between you and them? Seems like alienation would be a natural response. Of course, this is all appeal to nature, but still an interesting perspective to consider.