I didn’t think I could hate Facebook and the rich techbros any more than I already do, but holy shit, this book is making want to start learning how to build guillotines.
It also does a great job on showing how power and wealth just make people into sociopathic simulacra of humanity.
Human nature is flexibility and empathy . We can totally change how humans act by having a different system that doesn’t promote sociopathy
Do you believe this can be brought about? If so, how?
yes, with anarchist praxis. I.e. prefiguration through direct action for mutual aid.
Sorry I don’t understand any of what you said. Could you rephrase in simple terms?
This is not a simple concept. Maybe this will help
OK, read that, seems pretty simple to me.
How do you propose preconfiguring in a way that doesn’t promote sociopathy? To quote the page you linked to:
What is the difference in kind between “prefigurative communities” and the general wider society we have now, that means the base desire for social status and greed (“sociopathy”) will not be promoted? How do you propose eliminating the “conflictual internal dynamics” that arise from those desires? The page you linked gives no information about that.
It seems to me that the “conflictual internal dynamics” are simply a reflection of the conflict inherent in all human social groups, at all levels. In other words, that “prefigurative communities” suffer from the same problems as wider society and that there is, in fact, no difference in kind between them. Therefore, “prefigurative communities” will necessarily always fail to change wider society because the flawed, base people comprising those communities are no different from the flawed, base people comprising wider society.
The opposite really, practical cases show that when such groups are created they are unbelievable stable and don’t collapse outside of external pressure (i.e. capitalist reaction to destroy them).
Very simply that there is no “reward” to be had for asocial behavior. When there is no hierarchical power or wealth accumulation to be had, acting in a way that alienates those around you doesn’t provide any benefits.
You seem to have a lot of questions about anarchism. Perhaps you should read an anarchist FAQ which exists is precicely for this purpose? Unfortunately, I cannot keep elaborating deeper and deeper.
This seems odd. If such groups are extant now on planet Earth and have proven to be unbelievably stable then where are the sociopathy-less societies that they have fostered? If there are no sociopathy-less societies, then the idea that prefigurative communities can be effective would appear to be false.
This seems to be key. There will never be an absence of outside pressure which, again, implies that preconfigurative communities cannot be effective.
This is just a regress. How can one create a community without reward for asocial behaviour? In other words, how can one create a human social group without benefits for getting ahead of one’s peers? How can one avoid getting ahead of one’s peers at the skilled endeavour of not getting ahead of one’s peers?
As I understand it, that’s not how human social groups work. We inherently and necessarily create hierarchy. It’s built in. It’s how we’ve evolved. Like chimpansees.
I’ve been (peripherally) involved in organisations that superficially espoused non-hierarchical ideals but in practice had those who drove the group forward and whose opinions were given more weight than others. Unsurprisingly because it’s built in for people to be like this when they’re in a group. There’s even a specialised part of the mind whose sole purpose is to attempt to construct other people’s opinions of us so that we can be better at gaining social standing.
These kinds of behaviours and social structures are instinctive and stem from our evolution. We can’t get rid of them. We can’t create a human society without hierarchy any more than we can create a human society without breathing.
Not really, your comment just piqued my interest. I’m curious if you actually have a practical plan for bringing about such a society or whether it’s just an exercise in “wouldn’t it be nice if…” like Marxism and the Venus Project.
This is the typical argument of “it can’t exist because it doesn’t exist yet”. It’s facetious. By this argument one could argue 500 years ago that liberal democracies are impossible just as well.
There’s no certainty that they would fail by every type of external pressure.
Cool but I don’t think you have any actual honest interest to understand and are just being a debatelord wasting my time, so I’m bowing out now.
That’s just not the case. Humans engage in social contracts because they have a benefit to themselves. If acting selfishly causes more gain than acting socially, people overwhelmingly act selfishly. It’s one of the reasons the original Dark Sector in The Division horrified psychologists.
You’re literally reinforcing what I just said.
I’m curious to read about the psychologists take on Dark Sector, happen to have an article? Apparently I’m bad at searching.
Well, we’re years removed but I’ll try and find it. It might just be easier to research a psychologist’s take on the Dark Zones. I misnamed them.