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by kachnuv_ocasek6 hours ago |
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upvoteby WarmWash5 hours ago|
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It's a fundamental attribute of reality. Take it up with mother nature, because power struggles exist everywhere, even in dumb systems with no intelligence. Weak things go away, strong things stay around. Weak things need to become stronger than strong things to displace them.
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upvoteby RGamma2 hours ago|
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There's more than enough energy and resources to go around for humans to peacefully coexist "forever", albeit in lesser numbers than today. The civilization meta game is what ruins it, despite our best attempts to regulate that. And a global self destruct button helps massively... until it does not.
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upvoteby WarmWash1 hours ago|
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Like I replied to the other commenter, it's an unstable equilibrium. Lots of things can stay perfect forever if nothing throws off the delicate balance.

We can focus effort on maintaining this balance...but doing that requires power to be used. And just like that we are back at step one.

We can communally build up trust to such a high level that everyone can act independently to maintain balance, but this naturally creates a situation where the more trust there is, the bigger the payoff for the one who breaks it. Essentially the prisoners dilemma.

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upvoteby igorkraw4 hours ago|
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Not really, kindness also exists. It is the escape hatch from the evolutionary zero sum game and let's you pick a better equilibrium (bargaining vs pure Nash).

We can just not fight. There is enough room and resources,we can get more of them and build more efficient tech, and we are all more alike than different.

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upvoteby WarmWash4 hours ago|
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Kindness is an unstable equilibrium unfortunately. Mother nature is totally uninterested in it. Otherwise we would still all be protolife quasi-cells, because consuming other cells and not sharing resources isn't kind.

Maybe you argue that we are human and intelligent, so we can override this inconvenience with a system of our own design. My response would be "Sure, put your guns down and burn them, I won't stop you."

Again, it's an unstable equilibrium. Power on the other hand is dramatically more stable.

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upvoteby kakacik3 hours ago|
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Thats your take, I tend to not agree. Nature, with all its balance by destruction, has one approach but we humans can and do things differently in some cases, for our greater benefit.

We don't kill weak links in our population just like mother nature intended and keeps doing left and right everywhere all the time, a good chunk of this forum would not pass those harsh and often random tests yet its/ours added value is non-trivial and surpasses any additional effort by society (at least I like to think that).

'Everything good in this world is kindness'. I have yet to meet a person, situation or story where this would not apply.

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upvoteby edgyquant6 hours ago|
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Humans can not “move on” from human nature no matter how much people try to will it
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upvoteby kachnuv_ocasek6 hours ago|
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It's as much "human nature" as being a slave was once the nature of some (chosen) peoples.
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upvoteby victorbjorklund6 hours ago|
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Conflict between humans is much much more nature than slavery was. Just look at animals. Flock animals often have conflicts which others. But none of them have ”slaves” (at least no how humans understand it)
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upvoteby usrnm5 hours ago|
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There is a different between a conflict and a war. Humans are uniquely violent and cruel to each other, there is nothing even close in the animal world
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upvoteby igorkraw4 hours ago|
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You should learn about chimpanzee wars and how dolphins treat tortoises, and about the enslaving ants
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upvoteby pocksuppet5 hours ago|
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Being a slave isn't human nature, but wanting to be a slave owner is. "Human nature" is, more often than not, a shorthand for "the parts of game theory that evolution distilled into humans"
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upvoteby igorkraw4 hours ago|
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In game theory, cooperation is a dominant strategy and evolves consistently. Slave owners and other injustice committing humans often invoke "human nature" out of trying to cope with their knowledge that it is wrong but whatever trauma or other thing makes them do it anyway, to absolve themselves of agency.

(To be clear, not targeting you personally here, but targeting the rhetoric and fallacy)

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upvoteby pocksuppet2 hours ago|
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Cooperation is an unstable strategy. If everyone else is cooperating and not punishing defectors much, defecting is vastly better for you.

If everyone else is defecting and you can cooperate with a few people, that's slightly better for you. Hence we have high-trust and low-trust societies, gatekeeping, etc.

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