4 ms·

It's painful having to remind people of this. Also the fact that everyone alive today is so as a result of either being on the winning side of colonialism or f

It's painful having to remind people of this. Also the fact that everyone alive today is so as a result of either being on the winning side of colonialism or from their ancestors otherwise clubbing somebody else over the head.

PittleyDunkin 2y ago
> Also the fact that everyone alive today is so as a result of either being on the winning side of colonialism or from their ancestors otherwise clubbing somebody else over the head. That's a poor justification for it, though, and I don't want to live in a society that goes out of its way to view itself as Hobbesian.
- busterarm 2y ago
  Violent conflict between human beings is inevitable. It stems from our conflict with nature. We're all winners here and that's far better than the alternative.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  You have to work with the world as it is, not as you'd wish it to work (especially that it likely couldn't possibly work that way anyway). "State of nature" sucks, because nature sucks. All the nice and good things come from building systems, social or otherwise, on top of the natural state of things - systems that work with our natural inclinations, instead of pretending they don't exist.
  - PittleyDunkin 2y ago
    Right but nature doesn't suck. You make humans sound incapable of cooperation when this evidently isn't true. In this world uncooperative behavior is mostly a choice. Particularly in the west.
    - TeMPOraL 2y ago
      To the extent humans fail at cooperation, that's nature at work. When we cooperate, we defy nature.
      - PittleyDunkin 2y ago
        > To the extent humans fail at cooperation, that's nature at work. When we cooperate, we defy nature. Well that seems a little silly, no? Humans are social creatures; cooperation is just as natural as any other human behavior (including fallibility). It seems almost a little christian in its doomful profession that humans are only our worst attributes.
- busterarm 2y ago
  Peace and love is all well and good until your crops have failed for the third year in a row. Your food stores are empty. You killed and ate all of the livestock last season because there was nothing left to feed them. There's nothing wild to hunt. Your village has resorted to eating anything it can scavenge, even if it's inedible or even poisonous. People are gnawing on their fingers. And it's like this for your village and your neighboring village and their neighboring village and so on. Tell me about it when your neighboring villages' adult men are charging down the hill at you, filthy, starving, crazed and screaming at the top of their lungs, axes in hand.
  - PittleyDunkin 2y ago
    Sure, but we are capable of more cooperation than your fantasy admits. Let's wait until there's no alternative to misanthropic behavior to indulge.
meiraleal 2y ago
Surviving industrial level mass-enslavement is now considered the winning side of colonialism or you still don't consider native Americans and African descendants as people?
- asdff 2y ago
  Well surviving it till today sure beats being part of a lineage that was snuffed out by some evil slave owner in 1846.
- busterarm 2y ago
  When colonizers first arrived in the Americas, ritualistic human sacrifice was common practice and contact between different tribes meant violence and death. Also the African slave trade largely existed off the back of tribes conquering each other and selling the losers into slavery, which is also commonly how slavery works back into antiquity. The alternative to being sold into slavery is that they kill you.
  - meiraleal 2y ago
    A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world

PittleyDunkin 2y ago

> Also the fact that everyone alive today is so as a result of either being on the winning side of colonialism or from their ancestors otherwise clubbing somebody else over the head. That's a poor justification for it, though, and I don't want to live in a society that goes out of its way to view itself as Hobbesian.

busterarm 2y ago
Violent conflict between human beings is inevitable. It stems from our conflict with nature. We're all winners here and that's far better than the alternative.
TeMPOraL 2y ago
You have to work with the world as it is, not as you'd wish it to work (especially that it likely couldn't possibly work that way anyway). "State of nature" sucks, because nature sucks. All the nice and good things come from building systems, social or otherwise, on top of the natural state of things - systems that work with our natural inclinations, instead of pretending they don't exist.
- PittleyDunkin 2y ago
  Right but nature doesn't suck. You make humans sound incapable of cooperation when this evidently isn't true. In this world uncooperative behavior is mostly a choice. Particularly in the west.
  - TeMPOraL 2y ago
    To the extent humans fail at cooperation, that's nature at work. When we cooperate, we defy nature.
    - PittleyDunkin 2y ago
      > To the extent humans fail at cooperation, that's nature at work. When we cooperate, we defy nature. Well that seems a little silly, no? Humans are social creatures; cooperation is just as natural as any other human behavior (including fallibility). It seems almost a little christian in its doomful profession that humans are only our worst attributes.
busterarm 2y ago
Peace and love is all well and good until your crops have failed for the third year in a row. Your food stores are empty. You killed and ate all of the livestock last season because there was nothing left to feed them. There's nothing wild to hunt. Your village has resorted to eating anything it can scavenge, even if it's inedible or even poisonous. People are gnawing on their fingers. And it's like this for your village and your neighboring village and their neighboring village and so on. Tell me about it when your neighboring villages' adult men are charging down the hill at you, filthy, starving, crazed and screaming at the top of their lungs, axes in hand.
- PittleyDunkin 2y ago
  Sure, but we are capable of more cooperation than your fantasy admits. Let's wait until there's no alternative to misanthropic behavior to indulge.

meiraleal 2y ago

Surviving industrial level mass-enslavement is now considered the winning side of colonialism or you still don't consider native Americans and African descendants as people?

asdff 2y ago
Well surviving it till today sure beats being part of a lineage that was snuffed out by some evil slave owner in 1846.
busterarm 2y ago
When colonizers first arrived in the Americas, ritualistic human sacrifice was common practice and contact between different tribes meant violence and death. Also the African slave trade largely existed off the back of tribes conquering each other and selling the losers into slavery, which is also commonly how slavery works back into antiquity. The alternative to being sold into slavery is that they kill you.
- meiraleal 2y ago
  A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world