• nifty@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Except the problem is that humans are cognitively advanced than other animals. We should be able to find some way to reason out our differences, otherwise we’re always going to be stuck in a dark cave of our own making. What’s the fucking point of humanity then?

    The problem is that there aren’t effective ways to curtail sociopathic behaviors which come to the surface because of our current economic tool of choice. Tbh, it will not matter what economic tool we use because the greed problem and self-preservation problem will remain. It always does!

    We should be working towards developing safeguards and mechanisms to protect humanitarian ideals, and to curtail sociopathic behaviors. I think a big part of this is that people should elect better leaders. If you’re forced to choose “lesser of two evils”, then there should be a mechanism to organize an effective write-in choice.

    If someone then comes to kill you for making democratic choices, as happens in autocratic regimes, then self-defense is valid and justified.

    • Masterbaexunn@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Ok but the CEOs are the sociopaths right? Because it appears to me that Luigi was applying irl solutions to the trolley problem

    • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
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      1 day ago

      I stopped at “what’s the fucking point of humanity then?”

      … Are you under the impression that there’s a point to living? Some grand plan or purpose that drives people?

      The only reason I’m not in the ground already is because when I thought about it, my death would cause suffering to people I cared about, so I’d rather take on that suffering myself than put it on them. If everyone I cared about died, I’d petition for medical euthanasia, if that was denied, I’d go find the nearest bride and swan dive into pavement.

      The only reason we exist is to have babies so they can exist and have babies. Human life, indeed all life, lives to procreate, and make more of itself. That’s it.

      I’ve always questioned why we’re worthy of survival, but all the species we’ve killed off due to climate change, or hunting them to extinction, or destroying their habitat where they die off because they can’t survive in a different habitat, are not worthy of survival.

      I’m not convinced that humans should continue to perpetuate themselves long term. Bluntly, I can’t point to anything genuinely good that we’ve done for any creature other than ourselves. We address environmental issues sure, but we caused them. The only thing we go out of our way to do, at all, and with significant disagreement and debate, is fix shit we fucked up. That’s it. Everything else has been a selfish pursuit of greed by humans.

      What’s been happening, has not changed my mind on any of this.

      I’m not crazy, and I’m not going to try to exterminate anyone because I don’t think humans should continue to exist. I’m still here to bring as much happiness and joy to the people I care about, and I don’t have the mental capacity to feel anything but contempt for everyone screwing everything up. I can’t spare the effort to hate anyone. It’s exhausting.

      At this point, I just want everyone to leave me alone so I can live my tiny comfortable life with the people I actually care about, grow old and die… Hopefully in that order.

      • nifty@lemmy.world
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        20 hours ago

        Sorry you had to write all that just to get downvoted. But what I meant to convey was that by some cosmic accident a cognitively advanced animal appeared, one that can seek to understand fundamental truths about the universe and its reality.

        I just hold that cosmic accident in high regard, and think we have a duty as stewards of things we can understand using skills, talents and properties innate to us as a species. This is part of the reason that I think every human life wasted and not supported to its full potential is a failure of society.

        • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
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          7 hours ago

          Oh, I agree with much of what you say. I’m just not convinced that we as a society are valuable in any way that justifies our continued propagation.

          Most of what I wrote was to qualify what I’m saying so that it’s understood. I expect downvotes because I’m basically calling humans as a species, not worthy of existing. Some people who are very ego driven proud homo erectus, can definitely take offense to my statements; so down votes are generally expected.

          I suppose that some downvotes would also come from those that believe that humans were created by God, under that pretense, I would be insulting their God by saying we’re not worthy of existing. So yeah.

          Between those two, I’m unmoved by the fact that some decided to down vote.

          • nifty@lemmy.world
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            6 hours ago

            Well ours is the only species which can probe and understand why there is something instead of nothing. There may not be any intrinsic value in anything, but the act of discovery is meaningful.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Oh there’s still plenty of ways short of violence against people to solve this. This guy 100% echo chambered himself into thinking there was no other way. The spectrum does not jump straight to killing people after peaceful protests are ignored.

    • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Sociopathic behaviours are always going to be a huge problem in large societies. They’re not even exclusive to humans anyway. Just look at all the parasites in nature.

      All of our cognitive and social abilities break down when you get into large groups. We’re evolved to be able to work with extended family units where we have a reasonable ability to build personal relationships and trust networks among all of the people we interact with.

      In large societies everyone becomes anonymous and we’re stuck with societal laws and norms which are constantly under attack. Our usual mechanisms for punishing betrayal through reputation damage and ostracism fall apart in an anonymous society. In more recent history we relied on societal institutions (democratic and judicial as well as private societies) and the media (newspapers, magazines, TV news) to cover some of this role but it was imperfect and only applied to the most infamous offenders.

      Now we’ve lost even that limited media function due to the post truth revolution (thanks to the internet) and its acceleration of the breakdown of trust in societal institutions and the decline of the media.

      • nifty@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        All of our cognitive and social abilities break down when you get into large groups. We’re evolved to be able to work with extended family units where we have a reasonable ability to build personal relationships and trust networks among all of the people we interact with.

        Our usual mechanisms for punishing betrayal through reputation damage and ostracism fall apart in an anonymous society. In more recent history we relied on societal institutions (democratic and judicial as well as private societies) and the media (newspapers, magazines, TV news) to cover some of this role but it was imperfect and only applied to the most infamous offenders.

        Cool and agreed, but the original point holds up that greed and self-preservation always ruin things for groups of people trying to do anything together. Everything you mentioned is a symptom of corporate interests subverting democracies. Look, there’s nothing inherently wrong with corporations having an interest in their success, but govts. need to be able to curtail their worst tendencies because it makes sense to prioritize long-term benefits over short-term gains.

        If people really give a fuck about monied interests and their control over democracies, then they should be pushing for higher taxes on the wealthy (like 250K or more per year) like it’s an existential crises. Because it is. Tbf, 250K is pretty normal in a HCOL, so higher taxes should take that into account.

        • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          I view governments with the same suspicion that most people around here view corporations. Look at history. The worst atrocities were committed by highly motivated and ideological governments.

          When it comes down to it, it’s all just different ways of organizing groups of people and they’re all vulnerable to some of the same problems to do with anonymity, accountability (or lack thereof), and control.

      • nifty@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        If we think of intelligence as goal-directed and adaptive behavior, then natural selection will select for competitive traits, and so whatever ended up losing was less intelligent in some sense, even if it’s a single-cell organism.

        • the_fuzz@lemm.ee
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          1 day ago

          Actually, there’s a lot of evidence that points to intelligence being a sexually selected trait rather than naturally selected, so in that sense it may actually negatively correlate with survival. In other words, your big brain is the human equivalent of peacock features; it will get you laid but doesn’t do much good when a tiger comes around.

          Think of it this way: to sit around doing math problems all day, you have to have the basic necessities for survival dealt with, which shows you’re a good mate within the current environment. Which is all well and good until times change, the going gets tough, and you need to kill something to put food on the table.

          • nifty@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            it will get you laid but doesn’t do much good when a tiger comes around.

            This is categorically false, sorry