From: kcalder@blueyonder.co.uk   
      
   [One last old post.]   
      
   >From: Alienthe (Alienthe@hotmail.com)   
   >Subject: Re: 2003 | stagnation continued   
   >View: Complete Thread (14 articles)   
   >Original Format   
   >Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk   
   >Date: 2003-04-06 14:13:56 PST   
   >Kevin Calder wrote:   
   >> In message    
   >alienthe@hotmail.com writes   
      
   Sorry about the big ol' googly mess.   
      
   I hope i have quoted enough to enable mental reconstruction.   
      
    >>> Capitalism and communism are often described in terms of control >>>   
   of means of production. There is another way of seeing it too: the >>>   
   view on human nature. In communism there was the old "give all you >>>   
   can and take what you need", while capitalism assumes human   
    >>> nature leads to lies, bribery, cheating and more lies unless under   
    >>> control.   
      
    >> I hate the "human nature" argument.   
    >> And, yes,  I'm going to make a post out of this.   
      
    >> It always seems to get wheeled out (I'm not implying that your doing   
    >> the wheeling, btw) in the defence of otherwise indefensible isms   
    >> (sexism, racism, whateverism e.t.c.).   
      
   >Ah yes, I have seen that. However I am not defending the indefensibles   
   >but I had to look closely to make sure what I wrote could not be   
   >construed as such.   
      
   >> Can genetic predisposition, which surely operates on a very low level   
   >> (bio-chemical?), really account for preferences in complex social   
   >> behaviours?  Surely the effects of chemical predisposition (nature)   
      
   >To some extent they do. To take a banal example: if we didn't have   
   >hands we might have had to shake feet...   
      
   >More seriously, there is a number of survival instincts that in the   
   >prehistoric era helped humans to survive, and it is not always clear   
   >that these help us in a world of urban landscapes with people packed   
   >rather close together. I believe fear of the unknown is one such   
   >example.   
      
   My point was more that I believe that nature type predisposition's don't   
   go from being chemical to behavioural without mediation at the   
   learned-cultural level which is what suggests that we ought to be   
   shaking something.   
      
   In terms of the hand shaking example I suppose what I am saying is that   
   we have some kind of crude predisposition toward being social creatures   
   and it is what we learn about the cultural context we exist in that   
   determines *how* we act on this predisposition.   
      
   So, before I get all confused I'll relate this to the original argument:   
      
   Some would argue that selfless communism will always fail because human   
   nature is selfish.  However, because the precise form that behaviour   
   takes is determined by culture (that which we learn) I would argue that   
   this need not be so indefinitely.  I think that humans have learned to   
   be selfish, and aren't necessarily intrinsically so.  I therefore also   
   believe that humans can learn to be more selfless and don't believe that   
   we are innately and forever predisposed toward capitalism.   
      
   >> become behaviour after they have been evaluated in terms of all the   
   >> received cultural junk (nurture) that we collate on, and from our   
   >> environment.  If this weren't the case, and chemical predisposition   
   >> really could dictate predisposition's in behaviour then we wouldn't   
   >be   
   >> able to adapt as fast as we have to changing environments.  Chemical   
      
   >Since definitions vary and variations easily cause confusion I would   
   >first like to state my position clearly:   
      
   >  - nature: what we are born with, not dependent on culture   
      
   Yup.   
      
   >  - culture: what is created by humans and transmitted down the ages   
   >  - art: the creative part of culture, as opposed to blindly following   
   >   prior art.   
      
   So tradition isn't cultural?   
      
   I'd say it was...   
      
   >Obviously the nature/culture border is not sharp; civilisation is   
   >culture but based on the societal nature of humans.   
      
   >Thus I believe behaviour can be nature as well as culture and that   
   >ethical restraints on impulses is culture, as is the introspection   
   >that makes us ponder these things.   
      
   Yep, yep.  With ya.   
      
      
      
   >Nevertheless (and as I proposed in an earlier thread we have)   
   >cultural progress hasn't really brought us that far really,   
      
   Depends on how you measure the imaginary distance I s'pose.   
      
   > and   
   >where it appears to be, even technologically, it is surprisingly   
   >often framed in older mindsets. To sound less pompous, let me   
   >give an example: the Internet has frequently been described as   
   >the "global village",   
      
   So would it be fair to paraphrase what you are saying as being that the   
   ways I which we describe things hasn't come very "far"?  I'd say that   
   regardless of how we describe it the mental mechanics of how I think   
   about the internet are quite different to the way those that I use to   
   think about the village I grew up in.  That said, I'm not sure how I   
   could argue tha the way I think about the internet constitutes a   
   progression from the way I think about the village.   
      
   >> take.  What I mean to say is that I think that 'human nature' as it   
   >> relates to how suited we are to capitalism is probably more to do   
   >with   
   >> culture and received notions than with some inevitable, unchangeable   
   >> conception of 'human nature'.   
      
      
      
   >The unchangable aspect of human nature is puzzling to me.   
      
   Do you think it is unchangeable, or just unchanging?   
      
   > In   
   >spite of people having looked at the nature across various   
   >ethnicities (beware of dubious -isms here) nothing solid has   
   >ever been found, across the world, across the ages. It would   
   >seem human nature is in some form of stasis.   
   >Even more mysterious is the apparent grown in intelligence with   
   >each new generation, the name of which just escapes me, it was   
   >mentioed in this group some time ago. Yet also this effect is   
   >also independent of ethnicity, making this "stasis" self   
   >contradictory. Were there any changes I would expect variations   
   >across the world, instead we see a synchronicity, like a giant   
   >zeitgeist.   
      
   (This sounds to me to be at least a bit like Source's 'suppression of   
   innovation', what do you think?  How do you think 2003 has panned out in   
   terns of stagnation?  The economic analyses offered recently seem to   
   suggest that the first world in for some unpleasant economic upheaval   
   and disruption of infrastructure e.t.c. Do you think this will end the   
   stagnation? [Ed])   
      
   cya,   
   --   
   Kevin Calder   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)