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Workers are enslaved, exploited and under attack
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<blockquote data-quote="bbsam" data-source="post: 573338" data-attributes="member: 22662"><p>I think the more relevant point that I was trying to make is that we are exactly who we want to be. We don't want an "ability/need" formulation. We want competition. As ugly as it may be, we want winners and losers. We like to be superior or at least percieve ourselves to be.</p><p></p><p>It almost seems like you want all of human history to revert back to earliest times. Why? If you grew up in a primitive tribe in the Amazon you would get along with those of your tribe but what of other tribes? If you trace history back through Rome, Egypt, Greece, Sparta, China where do you find a history of societies getting along without oppression, enslavement. and exploitation of poprlations. You call private ownership "relatively recent" but all of these are ancient societies that prided themselves on competition and expansion of empires. These are the great human histories that you seem to poo-poo away in a somewhat vain dismissal of what most historians would call human progress.</p><p></p><p>So although I cannot point to a gene that declares mankind to be selfish and self centered, I believe history bears at least a strong suggestion to that theory. For you to reference prehistoric agrarian cultures seems to me to view only on the evidence that supports your argument. Do we know for instance that ancient tribes didn't do battle on the neanderthal plains? And if we know that for a fact, can we conclusively state that they must have been peaceful and nonterritorial? Or did they simply not come into enough contact with other tribes or clans? Taken as a whole, history supports the idea that man is a violent, possessive, and competitive creature. </p><p></p><p>Bologna? Maybe, but the thousand of years of man oppressing man, empires expanding, retracting, and dying can't be dislodged by a dream (I know "I'm not the only one."). I maintain that we are what we've always been and we like it that way.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="bbsam, post: 573338, member: 22662"] I think the more relevant point that I was trying to make is that we are exactly who we want to be. We don't want an "ability/need" formulation. We want competition. As ugly as it may be, we want winners and losers. We like to be superior or at least percieve ourselves to be. It almost seems like you want all of human history to revert back to earliest times. Why? If you grew up in a primitive tribe in the Amazon you would get along with those of your tribe but what of other tribes? If you trace history back through Rome, Egypt, Greece, Sparta, China where do you find a history of societies getting along without oppression, enslavement. and exploitation of poprlations. You call private ownership "relatively recent" but all of these are ancient societies that prided themselves on competition and expansion of empires. These are the great human histories that you seem to poo-poo away in a somewhat vain dismissal of what most historians would call human progress. So although I cannot point to a gene that declares mankind to be selfish and self centered, I believe history bears at least a strong suggestion to that theory. For you to reference prehistoric agrarian cultures seems to me to view only on the evidence that supports your argument. Do we know for instance that ancient tribes didn't do battle on the neanderthal plains? And if we know that for a fact, can we conclusively state that they must have been peaceful and nonterritorial? Or did they simply not come into enough contact with other tribes or clans? Taken as a whole, history supports the idea that man is a violent, possessive, and competitive creature. Bologna? Maybe, but the thousand of years of man oppressing man, empires expanding, retracting, and dying can't be dislodged by a dream (I know "I'm not the only one."). I maintain that we are what we've always been and we like it that way. [/QUOTE]
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