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> broad alignment between people is natural Uh, what? People have been killing each other over values misalignments since there have been people. We invented c
by JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
> broad alignment between people is natural
Uh, what? People have been killing each other over values misalignments since there have been people. We invented civilization in part to protect our farms and granaries from people who disagreed with us on whose grain was in said granaries.
- dns_snek 7mo agoCritical bit: > i.e. without brain-washing and deliberately working to create out-groups
- JumpCrisscross 7mo agoAnd if my grandmother had wheels she’d be a bicycle. The process of creating an in group naturally creates out groups. The “brainwashing” OP describes is just as natural as social alignment through an innate drive for conformity.
- cwmoore 7mo agoConformity I think follows the innate drive to coerce the nonconformant into compliance
- JumpCrisscross 7mo agoSure. Push and pull. The point is that needs effort to work at larger scales. We don’t “naturally” organize into nations of three hundred million or a billion. To the extent we do, we also “naturally” go to war.
- cwmoore 7mo agoAgain, I think the rewards of controlling others explains both, and not whatever handwavy natural/unnatural attributes might be identified.
- pineaux 7mo agoThere is a pretty interesting study of a large group of chimps. I dont remember where exactly but they have been civil warring the last 15 years or so. Point is, it seems that there is some kind of innate group formation process.
- bluefirebrand 7mo agoWe would never have even reached "farms and granaries" if alignment between people didn't happen pretty naturally
- JumpCrisscross 7mo agoFair enough. We are a social species. But those alignments occur in small groups. You don’t need effort by “corporations and governments” for nations of millions of people to schism. If anything, those large institutions drive broad-based alignment.
- uoaei 7mo agoMethinks you've been sitting in your armchair too long. Broad-based alignment doesn't come from nothing, but it is surprisingly easy to achieve when a population recognizes a shared stake. A synthesis between selfishness and altruism emerges when you consider who you can call a "neighbor".
- JumpCrisscross 7mo ago> it is surprisingly easy to achieve when a population recognizes a shared stake Sure. But it takes work for anything larger than a small, close-knit community. I’m pushing back on the notion that this comes naturally and is a default state. It’s not, at least not relative to people naturally forming in and out groups. The armchair commenters are probably folks who have never organized a group of people before outside a commercial context.
- uoaei 7mo agoYou might be treating "neighbor" too literally. People understand the global nature of the limits on resources and by extension the world economy better every year. The boundary of who shares 'stake' grows likewise.
- JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
- robot-wrangler 7mo agoCouldn't read the next sentence before wading in, huh?
- JumpCrisscross 7mo ago> Couldn't read the next sentence before wading in, huh? Whatever the difference between naturalness and a state of nature, it has nothing to do with education or middle-class existence.