There is also the conflict bias in history to consider. When we look back, we see the fractures and disruptions in culture far more than we see the billions of people who just got along nicely with mutual cooperation.
These are the true heroes of history.
The villages and towns that found balance, the cities that learnt how to distribute p…
There is also the conflict bias in history to consider. When we look back, we see the fractures and disruptions in culture far more than we see the billions of people who just got along nicely with mutual cooperation.
These are the true heroes of history.
The villages and towns that found balance, the cities that learnt how to distribute power and wealth and continue for centuries. These are lost to history because they were boring to story tellers.
Recently, in the carbon pulse, we have had cheap energy firehosing into our systems, destabilizing, amplifying everything. It does seem that we are a nasty bunch if we look at the last 100 years. It will not always be like this, cheap energy will leave us and we’ll need to rely more on each other again to resolve conflict.
Glenn - which history? This is the thing. We 'know' our history from about 6,000 years ago (a blip of time...), and the 'history' that we know was predominantly written within the last few hundred years. (History is written by the 'victors.')
As a child, I was taught that the native Americans sold Manhattan for wampum because they were so stupid. The natives thought the Europeans were stupid because, from their standpoint, no one 'owns' land. That idea was just considered absurd to the natives in the 1600's.
The European enlightenment and the thinkers of the French Revolution were largely influenced by the North Eastern native Americans tribes (you know, equality, egalitarianism, fraternity) - within our own 'modern' history, other's were living in ways and thinking in ways far more akin to anarchism than to 'capitalism,' feudalism,' etc.
The fractures and disruptions, 'tooth and claw' stories we are told support a narrow world view, and are told by people who benefit from that narrative. As mammals, and most especially as primates, we have succeeded through cooperation rather than through competition. This notion is grounded in science: we are too small and fragile to hunt in anything besides packs; we MUST use tools (and therefore depend upon toolmakers) because we are fangless, clawless, furless apes. We developed language because without the ability to clearly communicate with each other, we'd all starve to death - for an apex predator, we are physically ridiculous individually.
The vast swathe of human history tells a story of communication, trade, migration, community - with which we would never have survived as a species. It is written in our DNA and in the archeological record.
Those who would make us into wolves (again, that story is ridiculous too) who rely on individual prowess, competition, 'survival of the fittest' tell us this story only because THEY are 'wolves' - any native American tribe would have banished (or exorcised) those psychopaths as being ill-suited for living with human beings.
There is also the conflict bias in history to consider. When we look back, we see the fractures and disruptions in culture far more than we see the billions of people who just got along nicely with mutual cooperation.
These are the true heroes of history.
The villages and towns that found balance, the cities that learnt how to distribute power and wealth and continue for centuries. These are lost to history because they were boring to story tellers.
Recently, in the carbon pulse, we have had cheap energy firehosing into our systems, destabilizing, amplifying everything. It does seem that we are a nasty bunch if we look at the last 100 years. It will not always be like this, cheap energy will leave us and we’ll need to rely more on each other again to resolve conflict.
Glenn - which history? This is the thing. We 'know' our history from about 6,000 years ago (a blip of time...), and the 'history' that we know was predominantly written within the last few hundred years. (History is written by the 'victors.')
As a child, I was taught that the native Americans sold Manhattan for wampum because they were so stupid. The natives thought the Europeans were stupid because, from their standpoint, no one 'owns' land. That idea was just considered absurd to the natives in the 1600's.
The European enlightenment and the thinkers of the French Revolution were largely influenced by the North Eastern native Americans tribes (you know, equality, egalitarianism, fraternity) - within our own 'modern' history, other's were living in ways and thinking in ways far more akin to anarchism than to 'capitalism,' feudalism,' etc.
The fractures and disruptions, 'tooth and claw' stories we are told support a narrow world view, and are told by people who benefit from that narrative. As mammals, and most especially as primates, we have succeeded through cooperation rather than through competition. This notion is grounded in science: we are too small and fragile to hunt in anything besides packs; we MUST use tools (and therefore depend upon toolmakers) because we are fangless, clawless, furless apes. We developed language because without the ability to clearly communicate with each other, we'd all starve to death - for an apex predator, we are physically ridiculous individually.
The vast swathe of human history tells a story of communication, trade, migration, community - with which we would never have survived as a species. It is written in our DNA and in the archeological record.
Those who would make us into wolves (again, that story is ridiculous too) who rely on individual prowess, competition, 'survival of the fittest' tell us this story only because THEY are 'wolves' - any native American tribe would have banished (or exorcised) those psychopaths as being ill-suited for living with human beings.