Oh, To Devolve!
Here's a simple but sobering thought.
Things--People, society, technology--evolve. They "advance" naturally. Well, for humans they do. One of the laws of thermodynamics is basically the "chaos" theory. That things in a closed system will naturally go from order to disorder.
In animal circles, let's just say wolves, you don't necessarily see things getting more chaotic, but at least they don't tend to get more advanced. Old diseases are adapted to just as new diseases are introduced.
Human society is not a closed system. (I'm just theorizing here.) That's because we know how to build off of our ancestors. Any animal learns from it's own behavior, but except for natural microevolutionary "progress" (survival of the fittest), I don't think one generation knows "more" than the previous one.
Humans do. Because of communication and technology and medicine, we continue to "thrive" after a few millenia, rather than having a population that fluctuates in relationship with other species. (Christians might use a "sinner's in the hands of an angry God" approach. That God could let nature wipe us out at any moment and at any speed.)
That's enough background. So why am I sobered? What if our ancestors saw us now? Would they be envious? What are the other paths human society evolution could have taken? And which is best?
Humans' evolution consisted of periods, and I'm just thinking of these as I go, so this isn't an exhaustive, perfect, or even chronological list:
1a.) Survival at the hands/claws/beaks/etc. of other species
1b.) Survival against plants, bacteria, and disease
2a.) Survival against each other
2b.) Successful conquering or defending (after multiple groups exist in close proximity*)
3.) Continued survival while either advancing or maintaining current technology
*Proximity is relative to transportation technology.
And here's my opinion:
I'd sacrifice technology for simplicity.
I'd sacrifice working in front of a computer for working the land. (not NOW, but back then)
So would it have been possible not to advance technologically? Here's a sample progression. Someone has better land and better food. I gather my friends and beat them away. Some of their group joins mine. We are better protected, better fed, and richer. Any poor guy walking down the street wants some, so he tries to take some. So we have to advance our technology to either protect ourselfs against attack, or kill the attackers. A couple thousand years later, that's all we're basically trying to do. Protect ourselves and make money doing so. Then spend our money on comforts and recreation and necessities.
Let's say we still had our safety and the necessities, but not all the technology. We'd still work hard every day so that we could trade and get the other things that we don't have time to produce. But we wouldn't have to worry about all the things we have to worry about today. Probably mostly because we could learn to get along without having a tv and a trampoline. What if humans had enough self control to understand: If I steal from someone else so I don't have to do the work (or even if I just work harder!), I'll get richer. The unevenness of society and constant competition will mean everyone has to work harder to keep up. And as one person gets richer, another will get poorer. And as that rich person gets 5 times as rich, then 15 people will get poorer and will have to work harder to have a somewhat decent life for the 10% of the time that they're not working or paying bills!
That would never work, but you can see where ideas like Communism might come from. There's always at least one idiot. And once we see that one idiot advancing, the rest of us try to keep up.
So what can we do now? Basically our answer is to try to get rich for maybe 60% of our lives. Then if it doesn't work, we just decide to retire with the best pension plan. I truly abhor nerds like Donald Trump and Bill Gates. They are going to die with billions, and donate it to some school or people going to school to just continue the cycle, because they think we're all wishing we could be rich like them. If they weren't rich, and so many people weren't trying to follow, we wouldn't have to struggle to keep up. What if they gave 3/4 of their money to people with none?
I always say that well off actors and other celebrities shouldn't be praised for giving half of their money away, they should be expected to do that.
Thoughts?
Things--People, society, technology--evolve. They "advance" naturally. Well, for humans they do. One of the laws of thermodynamics is basically the "chaos" theory. That things in a closed system will naturally go from order to disorder.
In animal circles, let's just say wolves, you don't necessarily see things getting more chaotic, but at least they don't tend to get more advanced. Old diseases are adapted to just as new diseases are introduced.
Human society is not a closed system. (I'm just theorizing here.) That's because we know how to build off of our ancestors. Any animal learns from it's own behavior, but except for natural microevolutionary "progress" (survival of the fittest), I don't think one generation knows "more" than the previous one.
Humans do. Because of communication and technology and medicine, we continue to "thrive" after a few millenia, rather than having a population that fluctuates in relationship with other species. (Christians might use a "sinner's in the hands of an angry God" approach. That God could let nature wipe us out at any moment and at any speed.)
That's enough background. So why am I sobered? What if our ancestors saw us now? Would they be envious? What are the other paths human society evolution could have taken? And which is best?
Humans' evolution consisted of periods, and I'm just thinking of these as I go, so this isn't an exhaustive, perfect, or even chronological list:
1a.) Survival at the hands/claws/beaks/etc. of other species
1b.) Survival against plants, bacteria, and disease
2a.) Survival against each other
2b.) Successful conquering or defending (after multiple groups exist in close proximity*)
3.) Continued survival while either advancing or maintaining current technology
*Proximity is relative to transportation technology.
And here's my opinion:
I'd sacrifice technology for simplicity.
I'd sacrifice working in front of a computer for working the land. (not NOW, but back then)
So would it have been possible not to advance technologically? Here's a sample progression. Someone has better land and better food. I gather my friends and beat them away. Some of their group joins mine. We are better protected, better fed, and richer. Any poor guy walking down the street wants some, so he tries to take some. So we have to advance our technology to either protect ourselfs against attack, or kill the attackers. A couple thousand years later, that's all we're basically trying to do. Protect ourselves and make money doing so. Then spend our money on comforts and recreation and necessities.
Let's say we still had our safety and the necessities, but not all the technology. We'd still work hard every day so that we could trade and get the other things that we don't have time to produce. But we wouldn't have to worry about all the things we have to worry about today. Probably mostly because we could learn to get along without having a tv and a trampoline. What if humans had enough self control to understand: If I steal from someone else so I don't have to do the work (or even if I just work harder!), I'll get richer. The unevenness of society and constant competition will mean everyone has to work harder to keep up. And as one person gets richer, another will get poorer. And as that rich person gets 5 times as rich, then 15 people will get poorer and will have to work harder to have a somewhat decent life for the 10% of the time that they're not working or paying bills!
That would never work, but you can see where ideas like Communism might come from. There's always at least one idiot. And once we see that one idiot advancing, the rest of us try to keep up.
So what can we do now? Basically our answer is to try to get rich for maybe 60% of our lives. Then if it doesn't work, we just decide to retire with the best pension plan. I truly abhor nerds like Donald Trump and Bill Gates. They are going to die with billions, and donate it to some school or people going to school to just continue the cycle, because they think we're all wishing we could be rich like them. If they weren't rich, and so many people weren't trying to follow, we wouldn't have to struggle to keep up. What if they gave 3/4 of their money to people with none?
I always say that well off actors and other celebrities shouldn't be praised for giving half of their money away, they should be expected to do that.
Thoughts?
posted by shawn @ 1:49 PM
4 Comments:
At 9:04 AM,
Jason Zito said…
You commie!
Just kidding...I agree with you. I actually can't help but wonder if communism (in the limited form you suggest or in a bigger sense) couldn't be refined to be an effective system. I'm not afraid to think that it could be a great idea once the human race gets over its abuses. Obviously it has failed miserably over and over, but I see a future society where possessions aren't quite so important and we can live in community. Just watch Star Trek. i hope humanity can achieve something like that someday. (a major reason why i still love that show--awesome philosophy in it)
One other thought...you suggested that animals don't seem to develop knowledge. My thought is that perhaps they do, but at a much slower and less noticeable rate. I wonder if this is evidenced in what we call "instincts"...maybe thats just a simple version of knowledge-advancement. Maybe evolution in this simple sense isn't that much different then our own knowledge advancement; ours is just more noticeable. i wonder if there is some other being that has a faster knowledge-development somewhere.
i should give you this great lecture i got from phil a while ago, called "the acceleration of knowledge" by robert anton wilson, a brilliant philosopher. he talks about how knowledge not only grows, it accelerates, and the amount of knowledge that took us thousands of years to gain when we were primitive now takes a fraction of that time. very interesting. i have it on my iPod if you want...
At 6:02 AM,
shawn said…
I think the "acceleration of knowledge" makes sense. I wonder if right now it's still growing though, or if it starts to even out. It's easy for us, since we only know the past and present, to assume, "we've basically done it all. Anything further is just progression or modifications of something we already know about."
I think the "growth" in knowledge is probably mostly due to communication (including record keeping) and population. So let's say population starts at "times 1" (or x1), which would be the population at any certain time. So let's say in the stone ages or whatever, the population was x1. Then parents teach their children what they know, so children have what they started with, plus some. So while the population*knowledge started with 1x1=1, in 5 years, when the population was doubled, and so was the knowledge, you now have 2x2=4. Then knowledge would increase even faster since you have more people who aren't all learning the same things, but sharing them, so next you have a population doubling (from x2 to x4) and knowledge doubling. So now your population*knowledge is 4x4=16. This looks like accelleration since the people say, "We went from x1 knowledge to x4 knowledge in 5 years, and in 5 more years, we went from x4 to x16. We're brilliant!"
So I DON'T agree with that guy! JK. BUT, now that communication is about as widespread as it gets, and advancement in knowledge is difficult since only the smartest of the smart make any headway, we are evening out I would say. Plus, populations are probably growing at slower rates.
At 7:07 AM,
Chris Trumble said…
I'll get further into it late, but I would like to point out that as much as I dislike Microsoft as a corporation, Bill Gates donates more money to charity than almost anyone in the world. I know he should, because he has more than anyone.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3913581.stm
At 9:12 AM,
Jason Zito said…
shawn-
i wonder, though, if communication isnt done developing. why should it stop here? i would imagine that somehow, someday, we could find a way to broadcast thoughts from person to person, increasing efficiency, creating a sort of hive-mind thing. creepy? maybe, or maybe cell phones would seem creepy thousands of years ago.
i dont think there is much that is beyond the reach of human potential. God has allowed a lot of evolutionary ability.
anyway, there was actually an interesting formula, based on the amount of scientific discoveries and stuff like that, where it was found that up until the time of Jesus, there was one unit of knowledge which he calls "one Jesus". (he calls this the Jumping-Jesus Phenomenon). then, in a fraction of the time, there was twice as much, then in less time, there was several times as much, until we were doubling knowledge within a timeframe of a decade or so.
I think it has increased since then too. I have to give it to you; he gives powerful arguments, though he is a little over-optimistic about the future.
Chris-
Bill Gates gives to NPR from his foundation, for one. they always mention him as a supporter.
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