And what are we pretending to be?

“Humans”.

And what are Humans?

“Not animals, that’s for sure!”

  • spankinspinach@sh.itjust.works
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    5 days ago

    Great explanation - I find it does a phenomenal job of explaining a great deal of human behaviour. Resource hoarding despite enough for all, the will to dominate, visceral hatred of those who believe differently than us (ingroup vs. outgroup theory), and I’m sure there’s more.

    From a psychological viewpoint, it explains a lot of behavior that isn’t necessarily reasonable unless you account for an irrational mind acting on modern problems - things that our minds weren’t designed to handle.

    Edit: clarification

    • Windex007@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      I agree that from a psychological lens there is value. “Why does a person do or think things?” Valuable there. VERY valuable. Greed, fear, when do they become maladaptive? Why does this happen? Is it intrinsic to some individuals or is it just capacity?

      I don’t think it’s very valuable from an ethics/philosophy standpoint. “Is it right to do a thing?”

      I don’t think it’s especially valuable from a sociological perspective either, it needlessly complicates a model. For some population, a variance of greed will exis within it. A variance of fear of outsiders.

      I don’t mean to shit on the idea. Just suggesting where the limits of value may be on the idea.

      • spankinspinach@sh.itjust.works
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        5 days ago

        Haha no worries I think you make absolutely fair points regarding ethics and philosophy - these topics have to stand outside animalistic origins, as evolution only really asks “but will I survive?” Pausing for rational thought about the propriety of a behavior is unlikely to convey animalistic benefit.

        Sociologically (?), on the face of it I think it’s a little harder to extricate animalistic tendencies, as our herd behaviors are intrinsically related to our animalistic/psychological tendency - or maybe better said as they share a reciprocal relationship, feeding back into each other. But that said, I have no knowledge of sociology models so I’ll defer to your assertion.

        Either way, I think we’re barking up the same tree with some variation in the importance of different factors, hey?