Which is related to avoidance of relation, in any full sense. In inter-human relationships you can have control as the main interaction/goal or something more complicated where one does not want to (at the very least simply) control the other person. So it is with relations to non-humans. There is an underlying thanatos-like pattern/urge where control is seen at the highest relation. Once you have this as the highest relation what you relate to cannot be itself in its full range, since it is not free, cannot have the slightest element of mystery about it, nor have its own goals. I do think this is connected to certain epistemologies more than others. Once you see something in terms of causes and effects and think that the only understanding of it is via sussing out and controlling causes and effects - scientific epistemology - then you have a foundation for control based relations. Science IS NOT NEUTRAL. This does not mean it is bad or I want to throw it out. But I think we need to skirt the lie that methodologies and epistemologies are neutral. Once they are ranked as the highest or only one (as a route to knowledge, for example) whatever relations are inherent in the epistemology and attendant methodologies will create relations and ethics.
This is a part of my negative reaction to the whole civilization is female or suits females. Men have had a guiding force in the creation of the epistemologies and methodologies at root in civilization and have a tendency to want linear, controlled relations (interspersed with chaotic catharsisj on their own terms).
I don’t see how that follows, as long as information continues through the masses, then self preservation is only an integer of that. Society is the continuation of information utility and transcends the importance of a given individual. Throughout history we see the pursuits of individuals surpassed by the needs of humanity, and no individual has ever conquered the world ~ even with the most powerful armies of their time [which is still a mass movement] e.g. Genghis Khan.
What happens when powerful leaders die and their self preservation ends? Everything continues! Much as if they didn’t matter ~ because they only matter in the moment, hence only what they represent matters… Humans warm to such individuals because they think the gods are at work, and that a ‘great’ individual somehow makes them better by association. This is why you instead get ‘the forces of history’ and political movements which surpass all individuals who stand in their path.
Some people (here, for example) say that civilization suits women better than men, and, essentially that men thrive in something more primitive and civilization does not suit their needs and desires. I say, BS. I see civilization as organized more by males and to suit the male desires for linear interactions, distanced relations, and control. It’s like for a couple of thousand years women are seen as being like nature, dumb beasts, out of control, ruled by tempestuous emotions, while men are rational, homo sapiens, outside of and better than nature. Now women also bear the burden for being the cause and beneficiaries of civilization, while the men are suffering it. And yet underneath this new attack on women, the same old seeing women as nature, barbaric, irrational forces, still guides the way men interact with women. Damned as if you do and don’t always at the same time.
From within civilization, now, men see themselves successful, like the sheriff in the Walking Dead, living out their passionate manly lives in the wilderness. When in fact most of them would just start setting up civilization again, rebuilding machines like at the end of Vonnegut’s Player Piano, and cannot really deal with non-linear situations, complicated relations, intimacy, conflict that is generating rather than simply destructive and controlling. They still skip step after step to get to violence because they cannot feel their full natures. They still think being partial is natural.
It is controled by males, only by males. The relatively few males of this higher “class” (later becoming an own species?) organize, thus control their lives according to an old patriarchal system.
But note: Not all men but only a few men are meant here. And this few men are enough to control the world. That is the problem we have.
Yes. I am not saying, women good, men bad. I am not saying, even, that linear and control are bad. Things have been out of balance, the lack of balance is the problem. But in the context of civ is female and bad, I am going to then focus on who the prime creators of that imbalance are and stress that they did this from their own desires - which, I think were skewed by a great deal of fear denial. It seemed good to deny fear, so they did. But women are not remotely blameless and some men have struggled against this imballance in all eras and so on. I just find the double blame absurd and it often comes from the same men.
And yes, the elites are where the core imbalance lies.
Destroying our natural environment to the verge of destroying our planetary habitat is indicative of maladaption.
Reproduction is not doing very well as fertility rates are plummeting in nations all across the planet which is indicative of maladaption.
Concerning human societies they’ve never been as socially divided as they are now which is indicative of maladaption.
Psychologically as a species we’re maladapted to this post modern civilization we’ve created. Read Civilization And It’s Discontents by Sigmund Freud for reference on that.
All other animals live in a symbiotic relationship with other species and their environment.
Human civilization has essentially cut itself off and away from this natural symbiosis leaving us to be an anomaly all unto ourselves. With humanity there is no symbiosis with nature or our natural environment any longer.
We have pets and farm animals. I don’t see how that disproves my point that we have simply continued to adapt – but to a world we are changing.
I take your point that we need to get a symbiosis with the world. …an adaptation. But more adaptation being required, to me doesn’t equate with the need to revert to a former state or level of adaptation. Somehow we’d have to unlearn everything too. I also think that there are or will be solutions far less drastic, so why not keep the good shit?
I also can’t imagine how we could get back to nature, when there are 7 billion people on the planet. Not without a shit load of death n stuff.
That doesn’t answer any of the points made, specifically. Said nature has been replaced with something superior, more adaptive. Its kinda still there though, don’t you think?
Back to the premise that we are maladapted, I maintain that rather we are more adapted. We can still make bows and hunt, as well as a ton of other stuff. Oh and btw our ancestors were also shit at looking after their environment, that’s why most small islands have no trees. People would rather cut down the last single remaining tree, that wait for new ones to seed.
Combine the human’s fight against nature (exploitation of nature) with the techno-creditism, and you will get the reasons for the huge chaos in the future, regardless whether the “Olduvai Theory” is false or not.
Man adapted to new tools in increasing numbers, and along with farming you get trade and commerce and the eventual machinations of civilisation. All of which are adaptation to our environment. By ‘kinda still there’ I simply meant that the animal is still there ~ the same essential being as we were only a few thousand years ago. After all, it takes thousands of years for genes to change in all but the more superficial features, and that’s all civilisation has been around for.
That’s a ‘what-if’ scenario and pertains only to failure. I think we will have robotic exoskeletal armour long before that, and then it wont be about strength of the arm ~ of how natural we are. I take your point however, that many humans aren’t adapted to a dog eat dog scenarios, but that’s because they are like postmen or what have you. I expect 90% of people would soon switch into survival mode if required.
Surely with any negative scenario, we will in time either survive or not. If we survive how long would we be using bows and arrows for? Someone would find a lathe or whatever to bore out some guns and ammo. Really to get a catastrophic scenario et al, ‘the event’ would have to kill everyone who can read and all books on chemistry etc. again we would soon end up back where we were before but with fewer numbers [possibly not a bad thing].
if all books on biochemistry etc were destroyed, and everyone who knew stuff were killed yes.
I don’t think we are fighting nature so much as learning it, and mastering it. We will be onto a permanent society [beyond the limitedness of earth’s resources] within a few decades imho.
It depends on if e.g. farming is still possible after a globalistic destruction, thus also the destruction of all soils of our planet. If it is not possible, then you do not get “trade and commerce and the eventual machinations of civilisation”.
No.
Do you also think that e.g. your house will always be the same after any kind of destruction?
Your optimism contradicts many evolutionary and historical facts. Such a chaos we are talking about here does not leave “90% of all people”.
What if bows and arrows are useless, because there are merely very small animals left?
Why should people do this, if it is useless to do it? (See above.)
There are many other reasons too (see above).
I know that you are an optimist, but your optimism contradicts some facts (see above).
I think we should consider both the optimistic (more idealistic) and the pessimistic (more realistic) side of all these scenarios.
That’s again merely your optimistic (idealistic) perspective (see above).
